Tourism Resilience in the Face of Crises: The Adaptive Capacity of Travel Demand

ABSTRACT Crises have the potential to significantly disrupt travel and tourism. However, tourism has shown a remarkable ability to recover, highlighting its resilience and adaptive capacity. Tourism resilience refers to the way tourism systems successfully absorb a crisis, using their adaptive capacity to reorganize and bounce forward. This study examines the resilience of the tourism demand system, focusing on how travelers adapt their plans in response to crises. Using a case study of travel during a crisis, the research employs social media sentiment analysis to understand outbound travel dynamics and their level of adaptability. The study identifies three key themes concerning the adaptive capacity of travel demand: new considerations in destination selection, increased emphasis on flexibility and cancelation policies, and changes in travelers' motivations. These findings shed light on the adaptive capacity of tourism demand, contributing to the emerging literature on tourism resilience and the dynamic nature of travel demand.