tourism, global crises and justice: tourism transition to a more just and sustainable future

This book gathers theoretical and empirical studies exploring the link between global crises, sustainable tourism and the justice challenges being faced by vulnerable groups, individuals, and society.

While any crisis may exacerbate existing inequalities, the crises of the 21st century are compounding and complicating the ways the impacts unfold and engulf individuals, communities and indeed, the global community. Recent crises revealed how dependent our economies and societies are on the tourism and hospitality industries. While studies of crises in tourism have proliferated, with concerns for risk management, recovery and resilience, COVID-19 has exposed the need to think more profoundly on this topic. In such circumstances, therefore, tourism actors must respond to the sustainability and justice challenges resulting from current and future crises by rethinking, redefining and reorienting tourism. The chapters in this edited volume present a discussion of pertinent themes that consider just transformations, issues of climate justice, diverse worldviews and knowledges, possibilities for solidarity through tourism, and concerns with power and decolonisation.

This book will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers, and academic of tourism, development studies and sustainability, as well as professionals in the field of tourism management. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Raymond Rastegar is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel management, Griffith University. He holds a PhD in Tourism Management and his scholarly interest and expertise lie in the fields of justice, sustainability transitions and environmental conservation. His research delivered new insights into the tourism phenomenon to advocate a more just and sustainable tourism future for humans and nonhumans.

Freya Higgins-Desbiolles is Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Business Unit, University of South Australia, Adjunct Associate Professor with the Department of Recreation and Leisure, University of Waterloo, Canada and Visiting Professor with the Centre for Research and Innovation in Tourism, Taylor’s University of Malaysia. Her work focuses on social justice, human rights and sustainability issues in tourism.

Lisa Ruhanen is Professor and the Deputy Head of School at University of Queensland Business School. She has been involved in almost 30 academic and consultancy research projects in Australia and overseas. Her research areas include sustainable tourism destination policy and planning, climate change and Indigenous tourism.