ABSTRACT
The Bailiwick of Jersey, which as a British Crown Dependency, functions much like a nation, has one inhabited island but extends to several offshore reefs that are on the periphery of its maritime border with France. This archipelagic setting, which has been a ‘playground’ for different types of tourism over many decades, provides an island focus for discussing how resilience underpins the tourism industry in the contemporary era, especially in terms of the culture of this small island setting, its fragile environment, and its relationship with the sea. In terms of Jersey’s tourism resilience in response to a rapid decline in visitors in recent decades, this chapter shows how the tourism industry has responded to changing island economies and visitor preferences by developing new initiatives to help with its own sustainability, which in this chapter is defined as ‘sustainable development’ and ‘island resistance’ as part of a conceptual framework for exploring how Jersey has been re-branding its tourism industry. In this discussion, attention is given to the importance of resilience in the tourism industry in terms of not only how it has changed direction or focus over the decades, but also in connection with the many ways it continues to underpin much island life and government priorities. Following a short outline of Jersey’s changing economies, the main part of the discussion identifies three key themes of local concern that often interconnect with the tourism industry and exhibit resilience at their core in this small island context: cultural tourism, environmental tourism, and sea tourism. This chapter contributes to theoretical and case-study discourse on tourism and resilience by analysing how Jersey has developed in terms of these three themes, and shows how resilience is intertwined in many spheres of island life.
