Resilience issues are explored in the context of different forms of tourism in a marine national park in eastern Indonesia. This paper uses an agency-based livelihood resilience framework to examine the social structures, agency, and livelihood capital of the surrounding socio-ecological systems as driven by these operations. The findings suggest that the dominant development discourse in Indonesia and among tourism planners focusing on the growth of ‘high-end’ exclusive forms of tourism has neglected livelihood capital and made communities more vulnerable to ruptures like COVID-19. Emerging from this crisis, this research urges academics, practitioners, and business owners to ‘reimagine’ the potential of tourism to first and foremost empower more resilient socio-ecological systems in the face of an increasingly uncertain future.
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