Abstract
The ability of tourism destinations to respond to external and internal shocks is discussed:
Within tourism destinations resilience can take many forms and shapes and continuously moves between stability and flexibility of the system under consideration. Whether and how a system changes due to disruptions depends on its resilience and the associated systemic capacities.
A subdivision of the system "tourism destination" into different subsystems (tourism service providers/decision makers, higher-level economic system, embedding in the socio-cultural system) is necessary to clarify the different levels of responsibility and intervention with regard to developing/strengthening the resilience of the entire construct. Resilience includes proactive and reactive components that are linked to preparing for and dealing with disruption.