Mobility Justice and the Return of Tourism after the Pandemic

The collapse of travel demand due to the coronavirus pandemic-related closure of borders has severely disrupted tourism around the world at a time of already existing concerns over climate change, over-tourism, pollution, and the general sustainability of existing modes of tourism. In these circumstances, this article addresses how we might begin to imagine tourism’s ethical futures. This is a compelling moment to find new approaches to reduce the over-dependence on tourism, to mitigate the heavy carbon-footprint of tourism, as well as to repair the harmful effects of “over tourism”. Yet the viral mobilities of Covid-19 have also unleashed a vast intensification of existing uneven relations of (im)mobilities. This article argues that sustainable tourism must be integrally linked to projects of mobility justice that help support the rebuilding of resilient regional ecologies and regenerative economies rather than extractive economies and predatory tourism.