Revenge and catch-up travel or degrowth? Debating tourism Post COVID-19

The current view of academia on Post-Covid tourism circles predominantly around the degrowth opportunities that arose from the pandemic itself (Crossley, 2020; Everingham & Chassagne, 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2021). Those opportunities are appealing as they also address the last big Pre-Covid topic in tourism sciences: “overtourism.” And yes, in light of the challenges tourism and society face on a global level, having an imperative of degrowth address challenges lying ahead as well. It has already been debated that the advocates of degrowth are not necessarily linked to the business realities of the tourism industry. It also advocates a Post-Covid tourism world that might harm a significant number of economies and societies dependent on tourism income (Butcher, 2021).

One aspect, requiring increased consideration, is the views of tourists. When discussing a tourism ideology of consumerism (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2021), regardless of the perspective, academia is behaving like a judge by evaluating from a bird's eye view and assumed objective point of view. This perspective will come under scrutiny once travelling is again possible for the majority of people in the global source markets. A desirable and especially sustainable tourist behaviour is not to be taken for granted.

Therefore, a closer look at the circumstances has to be taken. During the pandemic, individuals in the countries of the global north were facing a significant period of social distancing. For the wealthier portion of those, the pandemic also meant working remotely, in most cases from home. Social distancing at home may spark the desire of a) meeting people and b) moving around. Combined, both are the basic ingredients for possible “revenge travel”.

This phenomenon, more correctly named “catch-up travel” originates from the boredom and uniformity of activities undertaken during the pandemic. People feel exhausted and tricked by fate which took their opportunities for relaxation, meeting other people and having experiences. As Adelman (2021) put it: forced doing, undoing and not-doing during the pandemic created a higher level of pressure individually and collectively. With the foreseeable removable of restrictions, accompanied with a decrease in perceived tension, a desire to catch up is going to materialize. This desire, along with savings due to remote work, might fuel an unprecedented rebound of leisure travel activities (Gasser, 2021) and support the tourism system (McKercher, 2021).

Considering this, current tourism developments such as preferring domestic vacation or focussing on same-day tourism activities are not necessarily a sign of sustainability-conscious behaviour. They may be just a prelude to a sparkling set of travel activities by going abroad and, yes, also a potential ignorance of sustainability aspects.

If the psychological reasoning of catching up is materializing, this may not just lead to already known mass tourism or over-tourism per se, despite initial indications in domestic tourism (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2021). Those common threads to sustainability can be solved by already known and implemented countermeasures.

More dangerous, catch-up travel activities might lead to a last chance tourism driven by perception, especially by the fear of the next lockdown, pandemic or other reasons that spark a fear of missing out (Hindley & Font, 2018). This perceived last chance of travel increases the pressure on typical last chance tourism destinations as well. In addition, months of social distancing have possibly taken their toll on social behaviour as people had to focus on themselves and their genuine individual interests. What blocks them from putting their own interests first over the interests of other tourists or interests of sustainability? Combined with the fear of missing out, it is hard to convince those tourists to think about preservation even for their potential future travels.

But, it is not all doom and gloom. Realistically, neither the proposed reality of degrowth nor the catch-up reality proposed in this viewpoint will materialize completely. Why do I feel certain about this? The Covid pandemic not only produced savings to be spent on tourism, but also savings that are needed to cope with a Post-Covid world independent of tourism; savings that will be needed to maintain living standards despite a possible inflation (Beretta, 2021), tax increases (KPMG), as well as potential negative individual income prospects by employment status (Adelman, 2021). Both will require a careful expenditure on touristic activities, not in the short term, but in the medium to long term. In addition risk-mitigation becomes more important and possibly expensive (Qiu et al., 2020). Sustainability, at least from an economic perspective, will thus become a decision criterion for tourists and an order to academia and tourism professionals to ensure the social and integrative aspect of tourism is not sacrificed on the altar of quick money.

Declaration of competing interest

I declare not to have any competing interest.

Biography

Ralf Vogler is professor at the department of tourism at Heilbronn University. Currently he is researching on same-day tourism, focusing on social and political aspects of same-day tourism destinations. His research interests also include tourism policy and politics, governance as well as legal aspects of tourism.

Associate editor: Sara Dolnicar