Touristification, retail diversity, and destination resilience: Evidence from Hong Kong

Touristification is an emerging concept that is used to understand how various stakeholders interfere with a neighbourhood and transform it through tourist activities. This study is an initial attempt to theorise touristification as an ecological process and to understand how an influx of tourists intensifies competition for resources and jeopardises the diversity of retail ecosystems. In a study set in Hong Kong using neighbourhood clustering to endogenise the demarcation of retail habitats, the result shows that the diversity of high-street retailers is lower in concentrated tourist clusters. This study opens up a new research agenda on touristification and suggests that there should be further studies of the effects of tourism on gentrifying retail neighbourhoods.