An Asia-Pacific Core - Periphery Futures Paradox: Divergent Worker and Tourist Mobilities

Abstract

Envisaging the future of tourism anywhere is difficult but is amplified when making predictions for the dynamic and rapidly changing Asia-Pacific region. The purpose of this conceptual article is to problematize a 2030 Asia-Pacific tourism future by modeling one polarized and probable scenario, theoretically framed within the mobilities paradigm and the core-periphery model. This scenario proposes that planning for the development of Asia-Pacific tourism will be heavily influenced by a growing tourist trend for experiences in the "pleasure periphery" while the contemporary pattern of increasing urbanization will continue to mobilize the required workforce toward the core. This scenario models divergent tourist and worker mobilities between the core and periphery. By focusing a scenario on this increasingly important discrepancy between labor supply and tourism demand, we can identify the challenges for those areas representative of this divergence that tourism development and destination stakeholders must plan for before 2030.