(Re)Thinking Sustainability Through a Hybridity Perspective: The Host and Guest Debate

Tourism, despite being one of the world's largest industries, is often overlooked in management research, which risks downplaying its significant environmental and social impacts. Traditionally seen as a force for good, contributing to economic growth and cultural exchange, recent years have highlighted tourism's negative social impacts, including protests against overtourism. This symposium addresses the complex management challenges of tourism, emphasizing the transition from maximizing economic value to creating social value for both residents and tourists. The symposium features four presentations, each leveraging different theoretical and empirical perspectives: Tourist-Resident Relationships: This presentation examines discriminatory behavior of residents against tourists, exploring how tourists rationalize these experiences using social identity and system justification theories. It identifies factors that help tourists reconcile harmful interactions without damaging their overall travel experience, providing insights for destination management. Resident Perspectives: Focusing on residents, this presentation uses Allport's contact theory to address frictions and conflicts arising from tourist-resident interactions. It highlights systemic issues like overcrowding and resource shortages, urging policymakers and managers to address deeper structural problems for more socially sustainable destinations. Tourism Enterprises: This presentation explores how tourism enterprises can mitigate adverse effects through innovative practices that create socio-cultural and ecological value. Using the "CopenPay" initiative in Copenhagen as a case study, it demonstrates how tourism managers can foster social value and build resilient communities through a focus on regenerative tourism experiences. Systemic Perspective on Sustainability: Employing Bhabha’s hybridity theory, this presentation challenges Western-centric frameworks of sustainability. It advocates for "epistemic humility" and inclusive spaces where diverse worldviews can coexist, promoting more equitable and context-sensitive sustainability practices between tourists and residents among others. Together, these presentations provide a comprehensive examination of the social and epistemic dimensions of tourist-resident frictions and sustainability at destinations, highlighting the interplay between individual behaviors, systemic issues, and epistemological frameworks, and paving the way for managerial action. Key themes relevant to SIM include stakeholder behavior within tourism ecosystems, the management of social sustainability, and the ethics and governance of tourism-related actors.