Guest Editors

Joseph M. Cheer, Wakayama University - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Dominic Lapointe, Université du Québec à Montréal - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mary Mostafanezhad, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tazim Jamal, Texas A&M University – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Preamble

 The COVID-19 pandemic has engulfed the globe and has already had an enormous impact on life as we once knew it. With airplanes grounded, millions of people in quarantine and hundreds of travel bans in place, COVID-19 has brought the global tourism industry to a grinding halt (Jamal & Budke, 2020). As tourism focused scholars, the pandemic has revealed how little we really know about how to deal with such extraordinary crises or its aftershocks. Anthropologists and geographers have shown how crisis produces meaning and initiates critique of a given condition (Masco, 2017; Mbembe & Roitman, 1995; Roitman, 2013). The judgment of crisis can also frame problems as “error” or “malfunction” and divert attention to the crisis itself rather than its structural roots. In this way, crisis can enable the concealment of deteriorating conditions of production and its corollary social structures by stabilizing the conditions through which it is produced (Barrios, 2017: 151; Solway, 1994). Marshal Sahlins (1972), for instance, refers to disasters as “revelatory crises” through which the structural contradictions of the mode of production are revealed by interruptions to socio-economic life that can no longer be ignored. COVID-19 is an unprecedented crisis that has the potential to unravel all we once knew about, among others, social inequality, environmental sustainability and host-guest encounters. Indeed, it has shocked the very core of global tourism.

This special issue builds on these insights to ask, where does tourism we go from here? It is, very simply, a timely call to action - action in research as well as praxis (critical change). It aims to advance the knowledge base regarding the crises and threats that are shaping the 21st century landscape of travel from the local to the global. While COVID-19 presently looms large on the global stage, the future will undoubtedly bring with it more crises and shocks, many of them unparalleled in terms of their nature, scope and reach (Norum, Mostafanezhad & Azcárate, 2020). These crises, as Naomi Klein as recently pointed out (2020), also have the potential to reveal the internal contradictions of capital accumulation. And, as states prepare for the economic fall out, we may also witness how crisis can be used as a political tool to stabilize existing structures and diminish the possibility of collective mobilization (Masco, 2017).

Tourism in Crisis: Global Threats to Sustainable Tourism Futures raises timely issues for tourism futures in terms of how destinations and communities might address ongoing crises as well as how they may engage in future-proofing. As Alan Lew recently put, “We need to take this opportunity to listen and learn what our larger planet-self is trying to tell us. Until we do that, we are likely to just experience disaster and crisis after disaster and crisis well into the future” (2020). In this vein, papers in this issue may also consider how planners might think anew about how to facilitate more sustainable human and non-human tourism assemblages. Additionally, how might we prepare for and respond to crises in ways that unfold into new relations of production that adhere to an enhanced sense of care for the planet and its inhabitants. Finally, we seek papers that consider what lessons can be learned from past and present crises and how may these be integrated into tourism policy, planning and practice.

Special Issue Aims

This special issue of the Journal of Tourism Futures appeals for a timely and pressing call for action in research and practice. It invites researchers and scholars working on diverse topics to engage actively with the global threats that are likely to affect travel and tourism in the 21st century, and offer directions that facilitate resilience, sustainability and proactive action. Many of these “crises” are ongoing and changing rapidly as new and often unprecedented events arise (consider the bushfires in Australia that ushered in 2020). Situations like COVID19 are also unfolding rapidly and often ahead of institutional and governmental responses, necessitating rapid response and timely sharing of research and recommendations. Action research on the ground is needed to document the myriad circumstances and changes occurring, identify responsible actions (and/or lack thereof) by various tourism related stakeholders, while also including the responsibility of visitors and residents of tourism destinations.

Our aim is to facilitate timely, swift and globally accessible research and informed perspectives on critical global issues. The Journal of Tourism Futures (JTF) is open access and free of article publishing fees. Written in an accessible manner, contributions to this special issue will strive to be of interest to the tourism industry, public health industry and policy makers, amongst a bevy of others. Research papers, research notes, theoretical treatise and industry viewpoints are invited that focus on key themes below (although not exclusively):

  • Crises planning, management and policy development in tourism
  • Tourism future-proofing and/or scenario planning
  • Climate change mitigation and tourism planning
  • Resilience building in tourism communities and destinations
  • Tourism and pandemics
  • Tourism and public health intersections
  • Tourism and natural disasters
  • Disaster recovery in tourism
  • Geopolitical crises and tourism
  • Tourism and conflict
  • Tourism and technology disruption
  • Tourism and new and emerging dystopias
  • Economic crises and tourism
  • Tourism and industrial accidents
  • Tourism and social-ecological system collapse
  • Tourism, protests and social movement actions
  • Policy failure in tourism
  • Food security and bio-regionalism
  • Tourism and mass displacement
  • Humanitarian disasters and tourism
  • Tourism and disaster capitalism

The special issue will comprise of an editorial, followed by up to 15 articles covering full papers, research notes and industry oriented “Viewpoints” on diverse topics leveraging varied geographical contexts and addressing a wide spectrum of crisis situations including environmental, political, economic and social crises, among others. Published articles will go on Early Cite where it will be freely available worldwide.

Further information on JTF can be found on: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/services/publishing/jtf/index.htm

Works Cited

Barrios, R. E. (2017). What Does Catastrophe Reveal for Whom? The Anthropology of Crises and Disasters in a'Post-Truth'World. Annual Review of Anthropology, 46(1).

Lew, Alan. 2020. How to Create a Better Post-COVID-19 World. March 15, 2020. Medium. https://medium.com/@alanalew/creating-a-better-post-covid-19-world36b2b3e8a7ae.

Jamal, T. and Budke, C. (2020): Tourism in a world with pandemics. Journal of Tourism Futures. Online: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JTF-02- 2020-0014/full/html

Klein, Naomi. 2020. Coronavirus Capitalism—How to Beat it. March 16, 2020. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/.

Masco, J. (2017). The crisis in crisis. Current Anthropology, 58(S15), S65-S76.

Norum, Roger, Mostafanezhad, Mary & Córdoba, Matilde Azcárate. 2020. COVID-19 and the Geopolitical End of Tourism. In Tourism Geopolitics. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Roitman, J. (2013). Anti-crisis. Durham NC: Duke University Press.

Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago & New York: Aldin Atherton.

Solway, J. S. (1994). Drought as a revelatory crisis: an exploration of shifting entitlements and hierarchies in the Kalahari, Botswana. Development and Change, 25(3), 471

Abstract Requirements

Key abstract requirements include:

 Authors must supply a structured abstract in their submission (maximum 400 words including keywords), set out under 4-7 sub-headings:

  • o Purpose (mandatory)
  • o Design/methodology/approach (mandatory)
  • o Findings (mandatory)
  • o Research limitations/implications (if applicable)
  • o Practical implications (if applicable) o Social implications (if applicable)
  • o Originality/value (mandatory)

 Abstracts should be provided in Microsoft Word (12, Times New Roman, single spaced)

 Please comply with author guidelines – see below: (https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/services/publishing/jtf/authors.htm)

Abstracts should be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with “Abstract – Special issue in Journal of Tourism Futures” in the subject line.

Abstracts will be selected for the limited number of spots in the special issue based on: (i) Ensuring wide diversity of global threats addressed, (ii) Contribution to knowledge base benchmarks to guide future research and practice, (iii) Inclusive of diverse methodologies and research paradigms, (iv) Relevance to planetary and societal sustainability, (v) Futureoriented as per JTF’s guidelines.

Special Issue Timelines

2020

March 31: Special Issue proposal submitted to JTF

April 6: CFP released

April 30: 400-word abstract due

May 15: Review of abstracts completed/Authors contacted

October 31: Manuscripts due

Nov.-Dec.14: Review Round 1; referee reports forwarded to authors

2021

March 1: Revised articles due; review Round 2; forward referee reports

May 30: All remaining articles due

September 1: Special Issue published (note: all accepted articles go on Early Cite first)

Guest Editor Bios

Joseph M. Cheer is a professor in sustainable tourism at the Center for Tourism Research, Wakayama University, Japan and adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University, Australia He is co-editor of Overtourism: Excesses, Discontents and Measures in Travel and Tourism (2019, CABI), Modern Day Slavery & Orphanage Tourism (2019, CABI), Tourism Resilience & Sustainability: Adapting to social, political and economic change (2017, Routledge) and Tourism Resilience and Environmental Change: Definitions and Frameworks (2017, Routledge). Joseph is board member International Geographical Union (IGU), Commission on Tourism and Leisure and Global Change, Vice-Chair AAG, Recreation, Tourism and Sport Specialty Group (2020-2023) and steering committee member Critical Tourism Studies AsiaPacific.

Dominic Lapointe is a professor in the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at Université du Québec à Montréal. He holds the Chaire de recherche sur les dynamiques touristiques et les relations socioterritoriales and leaders of the Groupe de recherche et d’intervention tourisme territoire et société (GRITTS) at UQAM. Dominic is chairing of the Critical Tourism Studies North America conference in 2020 and will be editor in chief of the journal Téoros – Revue de recherche en tourisme. His work explores the production of tourism space and its role in the capitalist system expansion and its biopolitical dimensions. Its latest research look at climate change, social innovations, indigeneity and critical perspective in tourism studies.

Mary Mostafanezhad is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Mary is an editor of the Critical Green Engagements Series, University of Arizona Press. She is also the author of Volunteer Tourism: Popular Humanitarianism in Neoliberal Times (2014) and co-editor of, among other books, Tourism Geopolitics (2020) and Anthropocene Ecologies: Entanglements of Tourism Nature and Imagination (2019). Mary is the Chair of the AAG, Recreation, Tourism and Sport Specialty Group (2020-2023), a co-founder of the AAA Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group as well as CTS Asia-Pacific and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (2020).

Tazim Jamal is a professor in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, Texas A&M University and a Fellow of International Academy for the Study of Tourism. Her research interests lie in “sustainable” tourism development, collaborative tourism planning, climate change, and ethical issues in travel and tourism. Tazim is the author of Justice and Ethics in Tourism (2019, Routledge), She is also co-editor of The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Studies (2009), and Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Tourism, 2nd ed. (2016).