Real time response (RTR): Conceptualizing a smart systems approach to destination resilience

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2021.100687Get rights and content

Highlights

  • RTR strengthens a destination's capacity to respond during disaster.

  • Interconnectivity, Interoperability and Intelligence underpin Real Time Response.

  • A destination's capacity to response to crisis is a litmus test of its resilience.

  • Value of real time & smart systems as part of a tourism crisis response mechanism.

  • RTR is a pathfinding conceptual framework contributing to destination resilience.

Abstract

Destination resilience is an emerging area of research, that supports tourism managers and policy makers in the development of more adaptive strategies in the face of vulnerabilities, growing risks and the uncertainty of crises and disasters. Risks at the local, national and international levels are becoming ever more systemic, unpredictable, with high (and rising) costs for recovery. Tourism managers and stakeholders at both the local and national level must be empowered through greater information sharing and responsiveness during the crisis/disaster. The article introduces Real Time Response (RTR) as a smart systems approach to advancing destination resilience offering a conceptual framework that synthesizes knowledge and develops the emerging body of work on Destination Resilience. RTR seeks to demonstrate how a stronger focus on smartness and real time can condense space and time and increase a destination's adaptive response capacity. RTR builds proactive and reactive measures to strengthen response efforts that will ultimately strengthen and mitigate the severity of impacts leading to a faster recovery and development.

Introduction

The tourism industry is familiar with natural and human-induced crisis and disasters and their implications. The need for greater resilience of tourism destinations is widely acknowledged (Amore, Prayag, & Hall, 2018; Filimonau & De Coteau, 2019; Gretzel & Scarpino-Johns, 2018; Hall, Prayag, & Amore, 2018; Schroeder & Pennington-Gray, 2018). The incongruence between high disaster vulnerability, low crisis response and resilience has not only become a source of concern for disaster and emergency management teams (Yang, Su, & Chen, 2017), but for destination managers. It is contingent that systems are framed within a context to withstand disruption while moving seamlessly between various unexpected events (Zolli & Healy, 2012). This concept of seamlessness can also be expanded to destination ecosystems. Resilience acknowledges that disequilibrium can be persistent and disruptive, and this can disrupt the most prepared systems (Manfield & Newey, 2018). Managing dynamic and unexpected events is what resilience is about; change is not an exception but an ever-abiding constant (Vos, Van der Molen, & Mykkänen, 2017). Within the domain of the unexpected sensemaking of an emerging pattern is equally important to the anticipation and planning, the capacity to cope and respond to the unexpected necessitates a different mindset (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015) approach (see Table 1).

Ecosystems are characterized as complex networks due to the interdependency of organizations, industries, stakeholders and resources within a destination (Gretzel, Werthner, Koo, & Lamsfus, 2015). Since 2019, international tourism has been confronted with the challenges of natural hazards on scales not seen previously. These include the forest fires, in Australia, Brazil and the US, prominent seismic events like the New Zealand volcano eruption, Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas as well as the global onset of the unprecedented SARS-Coronavirus 2 (COVID19) pandemic. The individual and combined scale, scope and impact of these disasters, threatens the long-term viability of communities, businesses and ultimately destinations. Scholars have been compelled to further disaster risk reduction (DRR) research, strategies and planning, as well as mitigation and containment measures employable by and applicable to destinations (Paraskevas & Altinay, 2013; Ritchie & Jiang, 2019). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel and tourism has been catastrophic, (Curley, Dichter, Krishnan, Riedel, & Saxon, 2020; UNWTO, 2020). The protracted and multi-wave impact of the virus has also been discernible with varying lengths of outbreak worldwide prompting various degrees of lockdown impacting economic activity (John Hopkins University, 2020). This further accentuated uncertainty for travel and tourism. COVID-19 has reinforced the demands for greater interconnectedness, agility and resilience within the tourism ecosystems when confronted by crises and/or disasters (Kumar, Pollack, Singh, & Wrede Braden, 2020; WTTC, 2020).

Destination management has historically placed emphasis on the management of demand and supply, visitor experience and maintenance of competitive advantage. This has been enhanced through the application of smartness to elements of the industry including value co-creation and smart service experiences (Buhalis & Sinarta, 2019; Gretzel & Scarpino-Johns, 2018; Kabadayi, Ali, Choi, Joosten, & Lu, 2019; Polese, Botti, Grimaldi, Monda, & Vesci, 2018). However, the applicability smartness must demonstrate scalability from the micro-level of enhancing visitor experience, to the macro-level perspective of a destination. Enhancing the visitor experience is inextricably linked to the provision and foresight of safety during times of uncertainty. Previous works have explored DMO's and other organizations as the core of the response mechanism (Scarpino & Gretzel, 2014). However, while there is a role for centrality and individual organizational resilience, greater consideration must be given to an ecosystem response that can be scaled based on the nature of the disaster/crisis. This is especially beneficial for tourism dependent destinations where resources are not equally available to all stakeholders. More than ever, there is a need for tourism managers to understand crisis/disasters and develop strategies to mitigate their impact protecting both the industry and societies, especially those dependent on tourism for growth and survival (Ritchie & Jiang, 2019). RTR focuses on the empowerment and interoperability of all levels within destination to respond and represents a contribution to the development of Destination Resilience and TCDM. It is this strategic ecosystem approach that is required in shaping resilience through systems thinking and enabling smartness to strengthen resilience.

The destination is an ecosystem and its resilience needs to be built on the resilience of all organizations and stakeholders (Amore et al., 2018) and empowering them to be frontline actors. Planned resilience involves the encouragement and comprehensive use of existing, predetermined planning, procedures, systems and capabilities, (Prayag, Spector, Orchiston, & Chowdhury, 2019). It strengthens all the five components of resilience i.e. robustness, resourcefulness and redundancy in response and recovery (WEF, 2013). The scope of this conceptual paper explores the role a destination can play during the response phase as part of the wider goal of destination resilience. It represents a pathfinding attempt to advance the Destination Resilience Agenda, through exploring the concept of Real Time Response (RTR). This concept emerged from the nexus of Organizational Resilience, Smartness and Real Time. The interconnections between these three areas institute unprecedented opportunities for the response capacity of destination ecosystems. The paper highlights the thinking behind the framework and the nuances of this nexus represents part of the intended contribution of this paper, with a focus on smartness and real time. The development of resilience is a destination management function, and the strength of resilience can be used to develop confidence in the destination's ability to safeguard both its residents and visitors. The test of resilience is however, also demonstrated in the capacity of the destination's response to crisis and disaster. For the sake of brevity, this article will highlight therefore those aspects of the framework that have greater emphasis on and resonance for response.

Resilience represents a function of an organization's situation awareness, identification and management of keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity in a complex, dynamic and interconnected environment (McManus, 2008). Walker, Holling, Carpenter, and Kinzig (2004) take the view that resilience is “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks”. This macro-level viewpoint is necessary for the destination ecosystem as it broadens the scale to facilitate synergistic exchanges. Simultaneously, enabling technologies and innovation enhance knowledge and value co-creation (Buhalis et al., 2019; Polese et al., 2018) and strengthens the adaptive capacity required to respond during crisis/disaster.

Technology is not new to the field of Disaster Management or Tourism Crisis Management. Rather the field(s) are littered with references highlighting the importance, key developments and applications as well as future utility of, amongst others, horizontal scanning, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and mapping and Early Warning Systems (EWS) (Paraskevas & Altinay, 2013; Yang et al., 2017). There has also been a greater focus on ‘gamification’ aspects in developing virtual scenarios for training and exercising purposes. In the response area, there have been increased discussion on the potentials for machine learning, enabling technologies and platforms to enhance planning, training and exercising. Additionally, notable advances in communication systems as well as greater propensity for the use of robotics and drones to aid disaster response and responders have been made (Al-Dahasha & Kulatunga, 2018). Technological advances and innovation remain intrinsic to the successful development of resilience in practice. The introduction and interactions between Smartness and Real Time components in destinations are conducive to technological adoption and innovation.

Two core elements are fundamental to Organizational Resilience, planning and adaptive capacity, and these must be embedded in all areas of the ecosystem to bolster the system's resilience (Lee, Vargo, & Seville, 2013). The success of the response to crisis/disaster builds on and is contingent on the strength of the planning/mitigation measures. RTR emerges as an innovative approach to Destination resilience, hinged on a smart, systems approach. This approach is not solely reliant on technology, but the capacity of the tourism destination ecosystem to facilitate real time decision making and action during crisis and disaster. A smart, systems approach is beneficial during crisis/disaster for the management and mitigation of impact within the complex ecosystem of tourism.

Section snippets

Resilience in tourism: context setting

In the tourism domain, concepts of resilience are usually interpreted and associated with the protection and safeguarding of a tourism (eco) system from variables that have been internally or externally induced. Tourism is a system incorporating dynamic (potentially unstable) elements that constantly, and without warning, move from equipoise to chaos (Boavida-Portugal, Ferreira, & Rocha, 2017). Due to its socio-ecological nature, there has been a rising awareness among key researchers that the

Smartness conceptualized

Smartness finds its non-human genesis, in the development of smart cities and that these cities emanate a degree of spatial intelligence and innovation through its dependence on embedded devices, real-time information and sensors (N. Komninos, Pallot, & Schaffers, 2013). The term “Smart” has become synonymous with the introduction of a technological shift founded in the desire to create a more efficient, safe, healthy and convenient environment (Figueiredo, Krishnamurthy, & Schroeder, 2020).

Real time tourism management

The access to real-time information is fundamental to the transformation to smart destinations (Buhalis & Sinarta, 2019) and the development of destination resilience. Real time is defined as “when time and distance vanish, when action and response are simultaneous” (McKenna, 1997, p. 5). It focuses on knowledge enabled business processes where interactions are guided by relentless speed, agility, scalability, technology and analytics resulting in real time responses (Leib, 2014; Malhotra, 2005

Real time response for tourism

Real Time Response (RTR) leverages a smart systems approach, using technology, data, and paradoxical thinking within the context of immediacy, to advance the adaptive response capacity of systems to crisis and disaster. Immediacy connotes real-time which highlights nowness, and the value extracted and analyzed from a data infostructure to support decision making. RTR is positioned as part and an outcome of the Smart Ecosystem allowing all relevant actors to benefit from a diverse yet

Concluding on the benefits of real time response in tourism

The future of tourism is moving faster than the strategic direction of some destinations. Capitalizing on the possibilities and benefits provided by a smart systems approach can create immense value for all stakeholders while undertaking disaster response and thereby facilitating the ultimate goal of enhancing destination resilience in the face crises and disasters. In a constantly changing environment, the implementation of the RTR framework stands to provide benefits not only for the

Competing interest declaration

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Credit author statement

Elecia Bethune Conceptualisation, Writing – original draft, Writing - review &editing, Dimitrios Buhalis, Supervision, Conceptualisation, Validation Lee Miles Supervision, Conceptualisation, Validation, Writing – review &editing,

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