Tourism visitation and local extinction crises

Abstract

Local extinction refers to a regional crisis driven by significant population decline, often characterized by aging demographics, extremely low birth rates, and migration to urban centers. Although prior research has examined these challenges, it has primarily focused on demographic indicators such as age and fertility to diagnose the crisis, frequently assuming that tourism is uniformly effective across all regions at the national level. However, this assumption is logically inconsistent, as the effects of tourism are spatially heterogeneous and locally varying non-resident populations (e.g., visitors) have not been adequately considered. This study introduces a geospatial tourism–local extinction model to explore how tourism-induced de facto populations—individuals who temporarily visit or stay in a region for tourism or recreation—can spatially mitigate local extinction risks in vulnerable areas. The findings identify key types of tourism visitation (e.g., domestic, international, and potential visitation) that contribute to reducing extinction risk, with variations depending on regional context. These insights deepen our understanding of tourism’s uneven impacts under local extinction conditions and offer a basis for developing more targeted and regionally adaptive tourism-based mitigation strategies.