Fast Recovery, Fragile Resilience? Tourism Governance Dilemmas in Portugal: Comparing Lisbon, the Algarve, and Alentejo

Summary This teaching case examines why post-pandemic tourism recovery should not automatically be equated with destination resilience. Focusing on Portugal during the 2019–2024 recovery period, with the policy dilemma framed around 2025, the case compares three contrasting destination types: Lisbon as an urban destination, the Algarve as a mature coastal tourism region, and Alentejo as a rural low-density region. The case is based on a comparative documentary analysis of secondary tourism data, policy documents, evidence related to Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), OECD reports, and academic literature on tourism resilience, innovation, overtourism, and sustainable destination governance. Its purpose is to explore how tourism pressure, recovery performance, innovation projects, and policy responses shape different resilience pathways across destination types. The case shows that strong economic recovery can coexist with persistent structural vulnerability, especially when destinations remain exposed to spatial concentration, housing pressure, seasonal dependence, or high tourism intensity. It also shows that lower-pressure destinations may have resilience potential, but only if supported by infrastructure, governance capacity, visibility, and community-oriented innovation. The main implication is that tourism authorities should move beyond a single recovery-oriented strategy and consider typology-sensitive resilience approaches that align innovation tools with the specific pressures and capacities of urban, coastal, and rural destinations. Information © The Authors 2026