EFTI Student and Faculty develop rural community’s resilience post-hurricane through home sharing   

Although some communities are just now having to deal and learn from a crisis, this time caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing the importance of resilience for a crisis is not a new concept for some communities. Yu-Hua “Melody” Xu is a PhD candidate whose research focuses on destination resilience, community development, and sharing economy. For the past few months, Melody has been working with Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray, director of the Tourism Crisis Management Initiative, and collaborating with the researchers Zi-Ming Li and Anne Ray from the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the College of Design, Construction and Planning (DCP). Their project is titled Planning for Resilient Community: Rural Tourism and Home Sharing in Port St. Joe, and has been funded by the Florida Resilient Cities Program, the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund and the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute. 

Port St. Joe is one of the rural communities affected by Hurricane Michael, which hit the Florida Panhandle in October of 2018. Almost two years later, there is still a large quantity of residents living in precarious conditions such as trailers and improvised houses while waiting for insurance assistance. “Port St. Joe is a place with housing issues. The community’s income is below the average in Florida, while the housing prices is above the U.S. and Florida average” affirms Melody. The group proposed that, since many of the houses that are still beautifully standing in the city are vacation or rental houses for tourism, which has lowered to 20% of due to Hurricane Michael, policies could be put in place to incentivize house owners to register their properties to serve as disaster relief tool for locals who were displaced. 

The group conducted interviews with locals who were living under hardship conditions, local government, real estate brokers, and home owners, and found out that a large number of home owners would be willing to participate in the disaster relief program if there were appropriate policies and incentives. They also conducted survey among local homeowners to assess the influencing factors on the possibility of implementing such practice.

Melody is interested in the importance and impact of sharing economy, specially lodging, on rural communities. This project in Port St. Joe was a preliminary study of her dissertation to conclude her doctoral program.Some highlights were compiled as a white paper which will be made available to EFTI Tourism Partners. Additionally, the results of the project are expected to be published as journal articles and book chapters in the field by the beginning of next year. If you want to learn more, contact EFTI at EFTI@hhp.ufl.edu or Melody Xu at yuhua.xu@ufl.edu.