Tourist–resident interactions in evolutionary games: tourism and sustainability

This chapter builds on the idea that tourism is the encounter of two populations, residents and tourists, internally structured in communities with non-homogeneous interests and needs. It postulates that the tourism development path that a destination undertakes strongly depends on the qualitative nature of the interaction that takes place between these populations. It analyzes the possible outcomes of this interaction within a game theory framework. In particular, it presents a model where three players interact, i.e., tourists, residents involved in tourism activities, and other residents not involved in tourism. Each player is defined according to their environmental preferences and attitudes toward the use of local resources, and is supposed to have two strategies defined as “sustainable” (cooperate) and “unsustainable” (noncooperative). The populations dynamics, and the ensuing development pattern, is modeled using an Evolutionary Game known as the replicator dynamic. The results of the model show the dynamics of the replicator and the Nash equilibria, and from this the main properties of sustainable strategic behavior as a stable solution are deduced.