ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concept of the adaptive capacity cycle to understanding tourism development as it pertains to tourism resilience with a focus on disturbance and disaster scenarios. Tourism is a multifaceted adaptive system with non-linear dynamics, which can cause unpredictable complex and changing outcomes. Holling's adaptive cycle demonstrates how complex systems of ongoing transition work and this can be useful for understanding the tourism development process and planning for sustainability. The adaptive cycle shows how "sudden surprises", such as those impacting tourism destinations, may affect resilience and/or vulnerability. The case of gorilla tourism in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda, illustrates the various phases of the adaptive capacity cycle. The case of gorilla-viewing tourism in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is used to illustrate application of the adaptive capacity cycle and to explore the extent to which Holling's integrative theories of change may have practical utility. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is located in southwestern Uganda in East Africa.
