Strategic Adaptation and Resilience of Tourism Destinations

Amid escalating global turbulence, tourism destinations confront acute vulnerabilities to economic, environmental, and social shocks. This chapter examines strategic adaptation as a pivotal mechanism for resilience, drawing on the Greek tourism sector as an illustrative case of entrepreneurial recovery in a Mediterranean hotspot. Integrating strategic management and resilience theory, this work proposes a multidimensional framework that fuses sustainability (carrying capacity), attractiveness (overnight stays), and business completeness (occupancy rates) to evaluate adaptive performance. The results underscore resilience as a dynamic, entrepreneurial process fueled by learning, innovation, and networked collaboration. By reconceptualizing destination competitiveness via adaptive capacity, this work advances theoretical dialogues on resilience while equipping destination management organizations, policymakers, and entrepreneurs with pragmatic strategies for regenerative recovery and enduring viability in hyper-connected global markets.