ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has heightened understanding of human fragility and how human planning and actions may be changed in such a short space of time to be unable to react coherently. Where the economy appeared to dominate and systems were able to manipulate terabytes of data, we have been shocked by a great tsunami caused by a simple virus. Nonetheless, tourism continues to benefit due the connectivity of data-enabled social networks – allowing “mobility” between the physical and virtual worlds. To a greater or lesser extent this global problem, that frightens and forces us to take refuge in our homes, is creating a rethink of the operation of tourism in general and its relationship with the world in particular.
In this chapter we argue that locality has become more important given the pandemic as well as a shift in ecological discourse from sustainability to resilience. The need for resilience in a locality places emphasis on the capacity and quality of local planning/governance since the focus is the functioning of urban systems, both soft and hard. This however presents a political conundrum for the locality – planning for resilience requires a longer time-frame than the short-termism of the local political cycle.
