Rethinking tourism post-COVID-19: towards a 'more-than-tourism' perspective

Australia’s COVID-19 response has been one of containment and suppression with tightly regulated borders and restrictions on mobility. As an island nation, Australia has considerable advantages in terms of geographic isolation and population density, with quarantining the key strategy for containing the virus coming in from overseas. This has enabled Australia to be relatively virus-free. With such few cases, testing and tracing systems have been able to contain the virus within relatively small geographical locations. In comparison to other parts of the world Australia has been relatively unscathed from the most extreme impacts of COVID-19. In relation to tourism, there have been two major impacts (1) no international tourists in Australia (2) no Australians travelling overseas. While tourism operators that have relied on international tourists have suffered, other tourism operators have thrived due to the domestic-led initiatives for Australians to explore their own backyards. Various initiatives focus on reimaging the visitor economy away from international markets, towards encouraging Australians to spend more money within their own borders. This chapter explores the possibilities with this momentum to rethink tourism and travel more broadly in relation to how we live our everyday lives. We argue that this ‘tourism reset’ allows us to reimagine our being-in-the-world; our lives, habits and routines, for the betterment of social and ecological sustainability, through rethinking leisure time more holistically. Taking a ‘more-than tourism’ perspective we argue that some of the underlying motivations for travel – such as relaxation, joy, wonder and connection can and should be implemented in our everyday lives, and that this is necessary for rethinking our relationships to each other and the natural world for more sustainable and equitable futures.