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This paper aims to provide an interpretative synthesis and critical reflection on the concept of “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity” (VUCA) and its implementation in tourism and hospitality marketing activities and explain why it is useful and necessary.

This paper is based on a critical reflection research methodology which allows for a synthesis of data from the traditional narrative review and on the authors’ experiences and observations.

The volatile environments in which entities from the tourism and hospitality industry (T&HI) operate necessitate a redefinition of the rules for designing marketing activities. The VUCA concept may serve as the basis for these changes. Its implementation requires specific managerial skills enabling T&HI entities to use an agile marketing strategy. The latter should be based on a flexible and customer-centric approach.

This paper provides a VUCA framework for adapting marketing mix instruments to the rapidly changing hospitality and tourism industry. This paper also offers several useful guides for practitioners on different aspects of VUCA within the industry.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempts to reflect critically on the possibilities of using the VUCA concept in marketing by the T&HI and contributes to the discussion about the conditions for its implementation. This paper offers suggestions about the dynamic competencies of tourism and hospitality managers (enterprise and leader oriented), which are essential when designing marketing mix instruments in line with the VUCA concept, and indicates directions for future research.

Exposure to a public health threat of significant proportions made current models inadequate to explain the failure phenomenon in small businesses. Hence, the need to reimagine the phenomenon. Borrowing from the principles of biology, this study extended theoretical and empirical perspectives on the failure phenomenon by unpacking its constituent elements and the measurement metrics using the regeneration lens.

Based on a cohort tracked over time, the study estimated the survival probabilities of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) with and without regeneration using the Kaplan–Meier method. The study investigated the factors that predict enterprise regenerative capacity using the multivariate Cox proportional hazard ratios.

Rates of interruption in business activity, by month, ranged between 0% and 18% during the follow-up period. True mortality rates hovered between 0% and 4% over the same period. Over three in five SMEs that experienced interruption in business activity without ceasing operations regenerated at some point in time during the follow-up period. The survival probabilities beyond the follow-up period were 0.85 and 0.44 with and without regeneration effects, respectively. Fresh capital injection (+), the introduction of new/improved processes or products/services (+), perceived business outlook (+) and the presence of debt (−) influenced the capacity to regenerate.

The cohort was followed for only six months. There is a need to continue interrogating the failure phenomenon in other contexts over longer periods using the regeneration lens. Bringing on board academia, financial institutions and other SME-related ecosystem players will be strategic.

The approach provides a more nuanced understanding of the life and well-being of enterprises under conditions of disruption. Improving the precision and validity of failure-related statistics enhances their utility in policy and remediation-related discussions.

The results did not show significant differences in SME mortality rates between male and female-owned enterprises. The results provide further evidence that the failure phenomenon is ungendered. As such, financial institutions and the SME ecosystem at large must eliminate perceptual gender biases in the financing and other support to SMEs.

The study used the principles of biology to reimagine the failure phenomenon in small businesses. The approach breathes life into entrepreneurship research and policy.