The COVID-19 pandemic has halted mobility globally on an unprecedented scale, causing the neoliberal market mechanisms of global tourism to be severely disrupted. In turn, this situation is leading to the decline of certain mainstream business formats and, simultaneously, the emergence of others. Based on a review of recent crisis recovery processes, the tourism sector is likely to rebound from this sudden market shock, primarily because of various forms of government interventions. Nevertheless, although policymakers seek to strengthen the resilience of post-pandemic tourism, their subsidies and other initiatives serve to maintain a fundamentally flawed market logic. The crisis has, therefore, brought us to a fork in the road – giving us the perfect opportunity to select a new direction and move forward by adopting a more sustainable path. Specifically, COVID-19 offers public, private, and academic actors a unique opportunity to design and consolidate the transition towards a greener and more balanced tourism. Tourism scholars, for example, can take a leading role in this by redesigning their curriculum to prepare future industry leaders for a more responsible travel and tourism experience.

The Airbnb phenomenon as part of the broader growth of the so-called collaborative economy has grabbed the attention of a growing number of tourism researchers. Among the topics explored have been investigations as to the spatial tendencies of Airbnb in cities and discussions concerning its effects, inter alia, on gentrification, over-touristification and eventual resident displacement. Recognizing that the majority of extant studies have been conducted either in major cities, which in their own right attract large numbers of visitors or in tourism-intensive smaller communities we chose to investigate what Airbnb growth means for a mid-sized city with a highly diversified economy, which is not yet over-touristified. Our focus was on the Dutch city of Utrecht. Through a geospatial and statistical analysis of AirDNA data, we explored the growth of Airbnbs in the city overall, focusing specifically on the phenomenon's effects on the Lombok neighbourhood, a nascent ‘neo-bohemia’ neighbouring the city-centre tourist bubble. Our analysis reveals that although Airbnb activity in this neighbourhood is relatively recent there are signs suggesting that further touristification of parts of Lombok has ignited increased Airbnb activity. Moreover, there is a distance decay of Airbnb activity as one moves away from the city centre and from established tourism services including restaurants. These findings suggest that in an emerging neo-bohemian space such as Lombok, Airbnb takes on a role as instigator of urban tourism bubble expansion. The study ends with a call for further investigations to better understand the implications expanded Airbnb activity has, among others, on social justice within cities. For example, future investigations could examine the manner in which Airbnbs influence the everyday life of the residents of urban spaces and investigate the conflicts that might arise in Airbnb ghettoes between visitors and locals.

Geographers have increasingly criticized the absence of theoretical rigour characterizing ­studies of the tourism production system. Tourism entrepreneurship is one related research area that has not received the level of attention it deserves. Additionally, the role that innovation plays in small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) has not been examined in depth. This paper focuses on a study of entrepreneurial activity among SMTEs in a peripheral region, namely the Danish island of Bornholm. The study is based on thirty in-depth, non-random, structured interviews with owners of tourism-related enterprises. An examination of the key characteristics of these SMTEs provides evidence that most can be described as ‘gap-fillers’, companies operated by so-called ‘constrained’ or ‘non-entrepreneurs’, which do not display evidence of having adopted significant product or process innovations. Among the key ­barriers to innovation identified are the extreme seasonality plaguing the island’s tourist industry and, related to this, the uncompetitive nature of the existing tourist industry.

We propose entrepreneurial bricolage as a framework that enables the description, explanation and exploration of the modus operandi of tourism micro-firms. Particularly, the notion of spatial bricolage constitutes fertile ground for further research and theoretical advances of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship. The potential for rural tourism development is conditioned by entrepreneurs’ capability to utilise local physical and non-material resources sustainably. Thus, knowledge about the resourcing behaviour of micro-firms is paramount to understanding their role in promoting sustainable tourism. This study explores how rural micro-firms interact with their spatial environment to design tourism value propositions. Our analysis is based on interviews with eighteen owners-managers of tourism micro-firms in rural Sweden. We portray spatial bricolage as a resourcing behaviour that builds on the re-interpretation of existing resources, the unique features of the destination and community involvement. The findings suggest that resource transfer facilitates sustainable development since it enables long-term planning and validates the entrepreneurs’ operation. Moreover, their small-scale enables rural tourism firms to utilise local resources in non-exploitative ways that minimise disturbance for other stakeholders.