From linear to circular: How to build resilience in small island tourism destinations

The clue is in its name. Travel & tour­is­m’s fatal flaw is its total reli­ance on free­dom of move­ment. Lock­downs and bor­der clos­ures in response to COVID-19 have blind­sided tour­ism-depend­ent eco­nom­ies and dev­ast­ated live­li­hoods. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant Angelo Sciacca argues that now is a good time for the stake­hold­ers of small island des­tin­a­tions to build resi­li­ence via the prin­ciples and prac­tices of the cir­cu­lar economy.

The effects of tour­ism are felt most acutely in small island des­tin­a­tions. It is no sur­prise then that these ter­rit­or­ies have suffered the most from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, includ­ing the loss of many livelihoods. 

In this art­icle I will argue that by adopt­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic prin­ciples and prac­tices the tour­ism sec­tor can con­trib­ute to the resi­li­ence of small island des­tin­a­tions. I will delin­eate a recov­ery path that emphas­ises not only low-car­bon green growth but also social growth where com­munit­ies can build their own capa­city to deal with future challenges.

Re-imagining tourism: From linear to circular tourism

The tour­ism sec­tor is largely rooted in a tra­di­tion­al lin­ear eco­nom­ic mod­el in which resources are taken, used, and dis­posed of. These lin­ear prac­tices have their own neg­at­ive social and envir­on­ment­al effects — their “eco­nom­ic extern­al­it­ies” — and they jeop­ard­ise the tour­ism sec­tor’s abil­ity to gen­er­ate sus­tained long-term bene­fits to des­tin­a­tions and all who call them home. 

The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy, how­ever, looks bey­ond the cur­rent take-make-waste eco­nom­ic mod­el, redefines growth, and focuses on pos­it­ive soci­ety-wide impacts. Simply put, the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy entails the decoup­ling of eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies from the con­sump­tion of finite resources. It also seeks to erad­ic­ate waste by keep­ing products and mater­i­als in use for as long as pos­sible. This makes a com­munity more resi­li­ent as it is less reli­ant on new inputs. A com­munity becomes more self-sufficient.

How can a circular economy build resilience in small island destinations?

Based on the need to build resi­li­ence into small island des­tin­a­tions after COVID-19 and bey­ond, here I sum­mar­ise six ways a cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy would achieve that:

1. Host community resilience through enhanced communication, networking, and collaboration

The sys­tem­ic nature of a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy requires a des­tin­a­tion’s col­lect­ive effort to man­age all its resources with the goal of max­im­ising their value without ever dis­card­ing them. For example, a tour­ism oper­at­or seek­ing to max­im­ise the value of its food by-products may need to work with a third party to re-pro­cess or com­post them. To find a solu­tion is a whole-of-des­tin­a­tion effort that may involve indus­tries out­side of tour­ism. The same logic applies when seek­ing how to repair, re-man­u­fac­ture, reuse, etc.

The cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy would, there­fore, stim­u­late bet­ter com­mu­nic­a­tion, net­work­ing, and col­lab­or­a­tion, and res­ult in a bet­ter-con­nec­ted and more cohes­ive island com­munity. Con­nec­tion and cohe­sion are key indic­at­ors of a host com­munity’s resi­li­ence and can have pos­it­ive effects dur­ing crises. 

2. Host community resilience through local supply chains

A cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy will inev­it­ably stim­u­late loc­al sup­pli­ers to the tour­ism sec­tor to replace sup­pli­ers from fur­ther afield. Short­er sup­ply chains will not only allow for bet­ter eco­nom­ic link­ages and eco­nom­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion at the loc­al level but will also boost host com­munity resi­li­ence by decreas­ing its reli­ance on glob­al sup­ply chains. This is par­tic­u­larly import­ant for remote island des­tin­a­tions, where extern­al events can dra­mat­ic­ally dis­rupt imports. 

3. Host community resilience through green investments and green finance

Recov­ery efforts are often char­ac­ter­ised by new invest­ments, changes in reg­u­lat­ory frame­works, and incent­ives aimed at help­ing an industry. A recov­ery pro­cess in a cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy would point invest­ment and fin­an­cial mech­an­isms towards the latest low-GHG (green­house gas) solu­tions and the smartest tech­no­lo­gies to help a small island des­tin­a­tion bet­ter man­age crit­ic­al resources. In turn, the host com­munity will inev­it­ably become more self-suf­fi­cient and resilient. 

4. Host community resilience through digitalisation

Under a cir­cu­lar tour­ism scen­ario, green fin­ance would sup­port the deploy­ment of digit­al tech­no­lo­gies that con­nect stake­hold­ers, pro­mote trans­par­ency, and enable new cir­cu­lar busi­ness mod­els. Digit­al tech­no­lo­gies can pave the way for innov­at­ive adapt­a­tion meas­ures, sup­port decision-mak­ing, and identi­fy new busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies dur­ing crises.

5. Host community resilience through decentralisation and self-determination

Because cir­cu­lar prac­tices depend upon the effi­cient man­age­ment of mater­i­al flows, decision-mak­ing should be as fast and fric­tion­less as pos­sible. A cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy could be char­ac­ter­ised as decent­ral­ised activ­it­ies driv­ing grass­roots ini­ti­at­ives i.e. loc­al com­munit­ies identi­fy oppor­tun­it­ies and then man­age them through decision-mak­ing that is shared with­in a net­work rather than entrus­ted to a cent­ral author­ity. Per­haps digit­ally-enabled, decent­ral­ised mech­an­isms accel­er­ate decision-mak­ing and con­trib­ute to resi­li­ence by act­ively enga­ging all rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers in the host community. 

6. Host community resilience through economic diversification and jobs

The decent­ral­isa­tion required of a suc­cess­ful cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy will be the main driver of eco­nom­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion much needed in small island des­tin­a­tions that are cur­rently over-reli­ant on tour­ism. The trans­ition will require new skills. While adapt­ing their busi­ness mod­els, tour­ism busi­nesses will need to acquire, upgrade, or hire skills such as crit­ic­al think­ing, prob­lem-solv­ing, risk assess­ment, and so on. These new or improved skills will con­trib­ute to resi­li­ence by provid­ing host com­munit­ies with the abil­ity to be more pro­act­ive and prag­mat­ic dur­ing crises. 

In this art­icle I have shared some of the key ways by which a cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy would improve com­munity resi­li­ence in small island des­tin­a­tions. It is import­ant to note that this is far from exhaustive. 

Tour­ism frame­works and recov­ery strategies in the future should recog­nise the import­ance of max­im­ising the value of resources, includ­ing the untapped value of those that have tra­di­tion­ally been dis­carded as waste, and espe­cially in small island des­tin­a­tions where the tour­ism sec­tor plays such an enorm­ous socio-eco­nom­ic role. 

Such a cir­cu­lar approach implies a rad­ic­al trans­form­a­tion, yet it need not be. It simply allows prob­lem-solv­ing ini­ti­at­ives and innov­at­ive pro­jects to emerge from loc­al com­munit­ies where there are loc­al prob­lems to be solved, loc­al ambi­tions to be met, and loc­al know­ledge to be tapped. (Inter­est­ingly, new com­munity-derived ini­ti­at­ives and pro­jects are often rooted in tra­di­tion­al know­ledge, skills, and prac­tices, which lend them an increas­ingly valu­able authenticity.) 

In the mean­time, plan­ners should identi­fy oppor­tun­it­ies, risks, and chal­lenges for island ter­rit­or­ies and tail­or recov­ery strategies for them that provide a real­ist­ic and man­age­able stim­u­lus for green and cir­cu­lar growth.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Raro­tonga, Cook Islands. Pic­ture: Dav­id Kirk­land. Cir­cu­lar arrows (added to image by “GT”): Gor­don John­son (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

Angelo Sciacca is a PhD can­did­ate at Edin­burgh Napi­er Uni­ver­sity con­duct­ing his doc­tor­al research in the Orkney Islands, Scot­land. His work focuses on “the bar­ri­ers and ena­blers to a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy faced by tour­ism busi­nesses” and is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in how small island des­tin­a­tions’ “ter­rit­ori­al fea­tures may influ­ence a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy trans­ition”. Angelo is also a sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant “work­ing at the cross­road of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, tour­ism and com­munity devel­op­ment”. Since 2017, he has reg­u­larly col­lab­or­ated with NGOs work­ing in Myanmar.