Managing Tourism – A Missing Element?

Abstract

The paper argues that despite the widespread use of the term management in the context of tourism destinations, there is little actual management of tourism or tourists in most destinations. The paper uses the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model (Butler 1980) as a lens through which to view some current issues and problems facing tourism destinations. It explores some of the basic elements of the TALC model including carrying capacity and triggers or forces bringing about change in destinations and argues that the reluctance of many stakeholders to adopt sustainable principles is reflected in current problems such as overtourism. Recognition of the often ignored political element in the sustainable triumvirate of economic, environmental and social components is important because without political support for appropriate initiatives has meant that efforts to move towards more sustainable destinations have often proved fruitless. The paper concludes that despite calls for new ways of defining success for tourism destinations and for drastically changing the nature and scale of tourism in the post-pandemic future, it is likely that tourism will resume, at least for the short to medium term, in a form very similar to what existed before the advent of COVID 19.