Comeback tourism: a critical research approach

This chapter explores pandemic recovery practices in tourism. The chapter takes Denmark as an example of a country that is making claims around sustainable tourism and it explores how recovery and comeback strategies are framed by key actors in and around tourism businesses. It is based on an analysis of grey literature, including sector newsletters and newspaper articles, to help understand competing readings of the societal challenges around tourism comeback. It is suggested that a practice-based approach to tourism and tourists’ behaviours is helpful for understanding how tourism develops. This leads to three learning points: 1) comeback tourism does not clearly entail sustainable tourism practices since the skills, understandings and materials are not in place; 2) it largely focuses tourism at the destination rather than on travelling between destinations; and 3) there is a lack of understanding of the impact of sustainable tourism practice bundles on sustainability transformations.