I'd like to adhere to Prof. Smith's perspective and be inclined in favor of the former option expressed in the title. But unfortunately I'm for the later one.
Perhaps because we live and work in different realities, what the post-pandemic is signalling to me is "critical pessimism". As long as the dominant tourism governance approach is based on a sort of promiscuity between polititians and business people, the growth machine will go on unstoppebly with undesirable effects and acute lack of balance in tourism development projects/models. As long as the so-called public-private partnerships neglect and put aside other stakeholders, particularly local communities, which usually are totally ignored, I'll be unable to adhere to that "progressive optimism".
I'm not sure about what we have been able to learn as a result of the pandemic, which seems to have been forgotten too quickly.
This is my summary of a more complex reflection, of course.
I'd like to adhere to Prof. Smith's perspective and be inclined in favor of the former option expressed in the title. But unfortunately I'm for the later one.
Perhaps because we live and work in different realities, what the post-pandemic is signalling to me is "critical pessimism". As long as the dominant tourism governance approach is based on a sort of promiscuity between polititians and business people, the growth machine will go on unstoppebly with undesirable effects and acute lack of balance in tourism development projects/models. As long as the so-called public-private partnerships neglect and put aside other stakeholders, particularly local communities, which usually are totally ignored, I'll be unable to adhere to that "progressive optimism".
I'm not sure about what we have been able to learn as a result of the pandemic, which seems to have been forgotten too quickly.
This is my summary of a more complex reflection, of course.