Alexandra CEHAN, Interdisciplinary Research Institute, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Mihail EVA, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Corneliu IATU, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Alexandru BANICA, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Tourism sector is known as being both highly predisposed to strong immediate negative impacts in cases of crises (Rosselló et al., 2020) and as one of the sectors with the fastest recovery following any such crisis (Hall et al., 2020), a reality that brings into debate more and more the topic of tourism sector’s resilience. While until now the interest has been mainly towards differentiating between the resilient and the non-resilient destinations, little attention has been given to those destinations which are not only resilient, but in fact are even growing in the context of a crisis. Such destinations can be regarded as being antifragile, in accordance with Taleb’s theory on antifragility, which refers to the property of thriving and growing in the contexts of disorder and uncertainty (Taleb, 2012). The purpose of this study is to assess the behaviour of tourist destinations in crisis situations, with particular focus on identifying the antifragile destinations, and it does this with reference to two different important shocks: the 2008 global economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The study attempts at answering the following questions: (1) How do destinations react in front of different types of shocks? (2) What factors help destinations thrive in the context of a crisis? and (3) Are these factors different depending on the type of shock? This analysis is developed for the territorial context of the Romanian destinations, providing a detailed overview for over 900 tourist destinations. The tested factors are related to various characteristics of the destinations, from geographical features (accessibility, type of territory, type and concentration of tourist resources) to hospitality-related features (size of accommodation units, accommodation capacity). The results point out that the factors vary in importance depending on the type of crisis and that the two crises present opportunities of growth for different (types of) destinations.
Mots clés : tourist destinations|resilience|COVID-19 pandemic|Global economic crisis|antifragile destinations
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