ABSTRACT
Retailing is an important component of the resort attraction mix and the economic stability of resorts. However, the experience of tourists and residents is also impacted by the quality of a resort’s natural and built environments. As Timothy (2005, p. 115) observes, “managing places, venues, shoppers, employees, and destination community members” is challenging, and maintaining the appropriate balance among these components is key to the long-term resilience of a resort. The concept of resilience can be a useful approach for understanding retail systems as change is an inherent condition of the retail system (Dolega & Celinska-Janowicz, 2015), and a resilience approach provides a method for identifying weaknesses and strengths in the system. Understanding the resilience of a retail system facilitates the design of successful policy and planning interventions (Cachinho, 2014; Singleton, Dolega, Riddlesden, & Longley, 2016; Wrigley & Dolega, 2011). Although there are increasing numbers of resilience studies focused on retail systems, several gaps remain in understanding the dynamics of system components (Dolega & Celinska-Janowicz, 2015), especially in resort settings.
