Tourism Destinations as Complex Adaptive Systems: Explaining Destination Resilience through a System Theoretical Lens

Tourism destinations have increasingly been conceptualised as complex adaptive systems (CAS) ​(Baggio, 2008, 2026; Baggio et al., 2010; Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004)​. Adopting this system-oriented perspective has proven valuable for understanding governance dynamics and system-wide change in tourism. In parallel, resilience has gained substantial attention in tourism research, particularly in response to global crises such as climate change and pandemics ​(Hu & Xu, 2022; Wang et al., 2022)​. However, despite the growing use of system-theoretical approaches, resilience has not yet been fully examined through a comprehensive systems-analytical lens ​(Farsari, 2023; Hartman, 2021)​. Existing studies tend to apply system-related concepts selectively – focusing, for example, on governance structures, networks, adaptive capacity, or feedback mechanisms – or they analyse isolated actors, indicators, or crisis responses ​(Amore et al., 2018; Basurto-Cedeño & Pennington-Gray, 2018; Hartman, 2016, 2023)​. As a result, research lacks an integrated, systems-theoretical explanation of destination resilience as a dynamic and evolving process.
This paper takes a system-analytical perspective in reviewing extant literature to (1) identify actors within destinations as CAS which affect destination resilience; (2) identify indicators attributed to destination resilience; (3) map out interactions and feedback mechanisms between actors in the destination. The authors identified 65 relevant articles, which they integrate into a conceptual framework that interprets destination resilience as a dynamic process shaped by system interactions over time, rather than as a predefined set of capacities or linear cause-effect mechanisms. Preliminary results suggest that destination resilience is commonly understood as emergent from interactions among multiple actor groups such as public authorities, destination management organisations, tourism businesses, and local communities whose roles are shaped by governance arrangements and institutional contexts ​(e.g. Eksell & Mãnsson, 2024; Farsari, 2023)​. By linking systems theory with destination-level resilience research, this study contributes to bridging the gap between an integrative conceptual understanding of resilience in tourism destinations, and operational approaches to resilience under conditions of ongoing uncertainty. Avenues for future research include the use of systems-oriented approaches to explore cross-scale interactions and governance dynamics relevant to destination resilience.