ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the importance of comprehending the very sensitive nature of tourism demands and flows at a local destination management level. We observe that mass tourism is constructed by acceptance of the economic concepts of consumer demand and the ability of consumers to match optimum cost in the choices they make of tourism activities. At the same time, sustainable and ethical tourism is connected to the values of local environments whilst seeking to provide economic and social advantage for host communities. Our task is understanding the sensitivities of those two contrasting models – mass tourism which may be clearly affected by global problems (migrationary trends, health issues and terrorism) – and sustainable local tourism which is less reliant and less susceptible to global trends and more related to the values and structures of localities. At this moment in time, given our inability to understand the full effect of the COVID-19 virus on tourism, we may only speculate about the potential effects. At the same time, we have to begin to look at the looming effect of other forms of global crisis activity of which the threat of climate change is probably the most obvious.
