The outbreak of COVID-19 has negatively impacted the event industry, while offering it opportunities to reinvent itself. Reviewing some of Getz (2012) futurist thoughts, is part of this reinvention process. This study concludes that: (a) Future Proposition 2 is accurate (b) Future Propositions 1 and 7 need precisions, and as a result has been reformulated as follow: New Future Proposition 1: Planned, live events, both personal and societal in scale and meaning, will always be a prominent feature of civilization, in all societies and cultures. However, in time of pandemics or other crisis, live events might be perturbed, before a staggered return to normal under certain conditions, and strict controls. New Future Proposition 7: As travel and tourism collapse, possibly because of the cascading effects of global warming, another energy crisis, war terrorism or global pandemics, events will also collapse temporarily, but will remain important globally because they meet fundamental human needs. On top of Getz (2012) future thoughts, this study suggests additional Future Propositions.

Though a lot of studies have analysed the impact of the pandemic on the tourism industry and several suggestions have been made to revive the sector, tourism education is largely overlooked. Tourism and cognate courses offered by higher educational institutions are essentially a part of the tourism system. This study aims to emphasize the perspective of tourism educators with respect to upcoming challenges in the tourism discipline and ways to reinvent and reboot the tourism education in the post-COVID-19 phase. The study adopted a qualitative approach and a total of 22 responses were interpreted. A thematic analysis using the Nvivo 12 plus software was done. Even though there was variability in the respondents’ background, a significant emphasis on curriculum design, industry collaboration, and excellence in research was mutually suggested by the educators. The study suggests that ambidextrous management in tourism education be adopted in post-COVID-19 phase. In other words, educators must become adept at the delivery of courses in a variety of modalities that would enable them to cope with the short and medium-term impacts of teaching in a COVID-19 (incremental innovation), while providing by anticipation of future demands (from industry and students), cutting edge curriculum (radical innovation).

This current issue in the Caribbean raises the topic of destination management and more particularly the importance of considering natural phenomenon when planning and developing a tourism product. The impacts of Irma on some Caribbean islands such as Saint-Barthelemy, Saint-Martin, Barbuda and Anguilla show that hurricanes are major risks for the tourism industry of the islands. This risk could be said to be absolute in the Caribbean but the negative impacts can be mitigated by appropriate strategies. To some extent, natural disasters provide tabularaza that give destinations opportunities to reinvent themselves sustainability.

Children are important stakeholders of the tourism and leisure industry because, similarly to their parents, they are consumers and active decision-makers. As children are important for the tourism and leisure industry, the way their needs of having fun are met, through play and children activities, becomes paramount. Using a multi-case and content analysis research approach, this paper examines the current practices used by resort mini clubs in terms of products and services offered to children and analyses the dimensions of fun used in creating a competitive advantage for mini-clubs and resorts. Drawing on ambidextrous approaches to management, this paper proposes a new dimension of fun, that of “advertainment fun play”, which builds on the dimension widely used in the examined resort mini-clubs, namely “edutainment fun play”. The study suggests that when managed in an ambidextrous way, the dimensions of play have the potential to create competitive advantage and can have impacts at both macro and micro levels.

Children empowerment should be a core component of any responsible tourism initiatives and their involvement and support is required to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on a theory adaptation research approach, this study proposes a framework for children's empowerment for responsible and sustainable tourism, inside and outside of the family context. The study sought to answer two key questions: Why children should be engaged in responsible tourism? How should children be engaged in responsible tourism? In addressing these key questions, the study developed a Future Responsible Tourist Capital Development (FRTCD) framework that advises on a prospective process of developing and nurturing children to have the essential skills, education and experience required for the responsible and sustainable development of the tourism industry. The findings of this study propose a new perspective on children empowerment inside and outside of the family context, and highlight the significance of children as sustainability thinkers, actioners, and transformers. Overall, the study contributes to the growing research on empowerment in sustainability discourse in general and children's empowerment in particular.

Post-conflict destinations can struggle to attract visitors because of their negative image. Research addressing this remains limited. The same can be said about the education of tourists. This research paper contributes to the literature in both areas as it examines the proposition that the education of tourists at a pre-visit stage using online, game-based material could be effective in challenging the negative perception of these destinations. From a destination management point of view, this paper offers an alternative to existing promotional material as there is little evidence at the moment that existing strategies are effective. From a conceptual point of view, this paper contributes to the very limited academic research in Gamification by adding the fact that Gamification can be a very efficient tryvertising tool if using subtle and implicit marketing elements.