Resilience indicators for touristic destinations: empirical evidence for coastal regions in Mexico

In response to increasing shocks, including uncontrolled tourism growth, this paper proposes a set of indicators to assess resilience in three tourism destinations. The capital asset framework is employed because it corresponds to the capacities that a destination might possess to resist stressors and be resilient. The objective of the research is to identify capital indicators through a participatory method in three coastal destinations in Mexico: Sisal, Alacranes Reef and Copalita-Huatulco. A series of workshops were conducted to identify the main problems related to increasing tourism, the indicators of capital assets related to these problems, and actions that can be implemented. The results indicate that the capital asset indicators that enhance the capacities to address these problems show commonalities among the sites. This research is a first step in considering different tourism destinations and contexts to identify common problems, actions and capacities to improve tourism resilience.