Mobilities, community well-being and sustainable tourism

Tourism researchers are beginning to explore the implications of the New Mobilities Paradigm for improving our understanding of several aspects of tourism. This paper employs a study conducted at the intersection of this new mobilities paradigm, a consideration of destination community well-being, and the analysis of tourism sustainability through an examination of its positive and negative impacts on destinations. It describes a qualitative investigation of tourism impacts on community well-being in three Australian destinations that revealed six distinct types of tourists each characterised by different patterns of mobility. Types included Archetypal Tourists, Grey Nomads, Green Nomads, Backpackers, Temporary Workers and Amenity Migrants. The study found that patterns of impacts could be connected to these distinct types of tourists. Four key themes were identified and described - the consistent linkages between mobility variables and tourism impacts, the perceptions of tourists and tourism as providing resources for destination communities, the modification of impacts as a result of the physical, social and economic characteristics of destination communities and the emergence of conflicts and collisions between different types of tourists and residents in shared spaces. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for sustainable tourism planners and researchers, and especially for resident perceptions research.