Beyond Survival: A Longitudinal Study of Organisational Resilience in an Urban Destination

Abstract

This paper presents a longitudinal, multi-scalar analysis of organisational resilience in urban tourism. Drawing on organisational ecology perspectives, it explores how political-ecological undercurrents and power asymmetries shape the adaptive trajectories of upscale hotels in the post-crisis business environment of Dhaka, a Global South megacity. A longitudinal qualitative study embedded temporal layering, iterative engagement, and evolving context as core components of its methodological architecture and followed 15 upscale hotels, four trade bodies and two government agencies across five phases (2020–2025). Document analysis and a hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis of forty-three interviews with senior executives, informed by organisational ecology and crisis governance, traced niche disruption, reconstruction and capability reconfiguration. An empirically grounded, temporally sensitive analysis reveals that urban upscale hotels diverged into distinct trajectories and emerged as both organisational survivors and infrastructural anchors of destination resilience, actively stabilising and reconfiguring tourism flows, markets, and urban space. However, fragmented governance and contested policy priorities produced uneven adaptive capacity, reinforcing market and spatial inequalities in recovery. The study advances an ecological-political account of resilience in urban tourism by demonstrating, longitudinally, how niche reconstruction unfolds under uneven governance conditions. It extends urban tourism resilience debates beyond cross-sectional ‘bounce-back’ narratives towards a temporally grounded understanding of how urban tourism systems are reconstituted through organisational adaptation and governance negotiation. Findings offer actionable insights for practitioners and policymakers in tourism cities, emphasising the need to reframe resilience as a strategic orientation, anchored in adaptive routines, diversified market portfolios, strategic risk management, and forward-looking governance.