IInvestigation of the ability of socioecological resilience analysis to assess the sustainability of coastal tourism destinations in New Zealand

Abstract

This research investigates the ability to use resilience theory to assess the sustainability of coastal tourism destinations. This doctoral research undertakes a resilience assessment using three case studies in the New Zealand context and uses them to test the proposed mechanism for assessing coastal tourism destinations. The case studies were selected based on the following factors: a) representativeness of different coastal management schemes, b) the importance to the New Zealand economy, c) the development pressure on coastal areas generating environmental issues. In addition to, d) evidence of efforts to restore ecological values, e) reflect the diversity of coastal tourism development types and coastal management approaches. A preliminary resilience assessment was used to investigate the case studies through site visits, informal interviews, and document analysis. Due to the multidisciplinary character of tourism activity and its complexity of coastal areas, mixed research methods were used to perform a preliminary resilience assessment about the status of socio-ecological resilience in the selected case studies. A proposed assessment mechanism was created comprising resilience theory using Holling’s adaptive cycle, a panarchy model, and a tourism model using Butler tourism life cycle. Based on this investigation, and using existing indicators assessment as a tool integrated with document analysis. The case studies were placed on different stages in these models, explaining systems status, exploring its future scenarios and identifying its potential thresholds. This combined assessment mechanism highlighted the gaps in the current assessment methods and the need to create new set of indicators to assess the complexity of socio-ecological systems in coastal tourism destinations The findings included the formulation of sets of indicators combining modified and new indicators, which used the different capacities of socio-ecological resilience as a guide. The study results showed that using resilience theory to assess the sustainability of coastal tourism destinations faces many challenges. These include the ambiguity in defining resilience in complex systems, the misuse of resilience theory as a unifying assessment method beyond its potential, the complexity, and the multidimensional nature of tourism activity. There is also the lack of appropriate definition of benchmarks, bottom lines, and locally developed indicators to assess these destinations in NZ.