ABSTRACT

The tourism and resources sectors are major forces of structural change that can dramatically impact regions, communities, and the environment. Resilience has been extensively applied as a change management approach within regional communities offering a more comprehensive lens with which to view and plan for change. However, resilience applications, and ultimately strategies, specifically for managing long-term structural change are often limited. Drawing from case studies of two regional areas experiencing structural change, this chapter explores strategies to build resilience to long-term structural change driven by the tourism and resources sector. By examining the Mackay and Whitsunday regions in Queensland, Australia, strategies were proposed focusing on improving economic diversification, stakeholder cooperation, and communication and planning, as well as building social capacity.