Symptoms of complexity in a tourism system

By Rodolfo Baggio. 2007

391 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Tourism destinations behave as dynamic evolving complex systems, encompassing numerous factors and activities that are interdependent and whose relationships might be highly nonlinear. Traditional research in this field has looked after a linear approach: variables and relationships are monitored in order to forecast future outcomes with simplified models and to derive implications for management organizations. The limitations of this approach have become apparent in many cases, and several authors claim for a new and different attitude. While complex systems ideas are among the most promising interdisciplinary research themes emerged in the last few decades, very little has been done so far in the field of tourism. This article presents a brief overview of the complexity framework as a means to understand structures, characteristics, and relationships, and explores the implications and contributions of the complexity literature on tourism systems. The objective is to allow the reader to gain a deeper appreciation of this point of view.

Subfields: Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science, Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/60a1ba527ece27e0afbd1eb14e11e7585f9fc535

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Citations in the corpus

Configurational Models to Predict Residents’ Support for Tourism Development (2017, background): “As Baggio (2008) stated, complexity theory can describe/ model the conditions that linear models are unable to simply and adequately explain, because of a large and complex interaction of involved indicators.”
Tackling the Complexity of the Pro-environmental Behavior Intentions of Visitors to Turtle Sites (2019, background): “…processes of phenomena (e.g., PEBs) given that simple linear equilibrium cannot adequately enlighten “the black-box” of indictors’ associations complicated by the complex interactions of a large number of components (Antimova et al. 2012, 10; Baggio 2008; Hsiao et al. 2015; Olya and Al-ansi 2018).”
Community resilience to long-term tourism decline and rejuvenation: a literature review and conceptual model (2016, background): “The complexity of the tourism system can inhibit the effectiveness of strategies for addressing and managing such change (Baggio, 2008).”
Analyzing and modeling real-world phenomena with complex networks: a survey of applications (2007, background): “The sector is so strongly characterized by intense linkages through which informational exchanges occur, that it seems natural to apply network theoretical methods to its study [143, 144].”
TOURISM EVOLUTION: ON THE SYNERGIES OF TOURISM STUDIES AND EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY (2013, background): “Elsewhere, tourism scholars have roundly dismissed simplistic modelling of the tourism economy and have instead embraced the complexity of tourism development (Baggio, 2008; Milne & Ateljevic, 2001).”
Exploring halal-friendly destination attributes in South Korea: Perceptions and behaviors of Muslim travelers toward a non-Muslim destination (2019, background): “According to Baggio (2008), complex theory is an advanced process that assists to clarify the interactions among many concepts and variables.”
Knowledge transfer in a tourism destination: the effects of a network structure (2009, methodology): “The view of destinations as networks, and more generally as complex dynamic systems (Baggio, 2008), is amenable to analysis using techniques such as social network analysis.”
Improving tourism destination governance: a complexity science approach (2010, background): “Most recently, some authors have begun to apply quantitative methods to assess the characteristics of a destination (Baggio, 2008).”
Psychological resilience, organizational resilience and life satisfaction in tourism firms: insights from the Canterbury earthquakes (2020, background): “Tourism is a complex system (Butler, 2017; Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2005; Hall & Lew, 2009) given that its parts interact in a non-linear manner, and small changes can have large effects or none at all (Baggio, 2008).”