Challenges in Tourism Research

Edited by Tej Vir Singh

Publication date:

04 August 2015

Publisher

Channel View Publications

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781845415334

In this volume leading experts from different disciplines and diverse geographic regions discuss fundamental, often controversial topics in the field of tourism studies. The book attempts to understand, identify and analyse some of the perennial problems and challenges encountered by tourism researchers. The debates include topics such as the concept of the ‘tourist’, the long-term sustainability of tourism development, the growth of volunteer tourism and the vulnerability of tourism. Bringing together the collective wisdom of 37 renowned tourism scholars in a unique format, this is an important text for undergraduate and postgraduate students, tourism researchers and industry professionals.

Erik Cohen: Foreword

Tej Vir Singh: Preface

Tej Vir Singh: Introduction

1. I am a Traveller, You are a Visitor, They are Tourists; ‘But who are Post-tourists’?

1.1 Scott McCabe: Are We all Post-tourists now? Tourist Categories, Identity and Postmodernity

1.2 David Dunn: Those People were a Kind of Solution: Post-Tourists and Grand Narratives

1.3 Natan Uriely: Exploring the Post-Tourist: Guidelines for Future Research

2. Is Tourist a Secular Pilgrim or a Hedonist in Search of Pleasure?

2.1 Dan Knox and Kevin Hannam: The Secular Pilgrim: Are We Flogging a Dead Metaphor?

2.2 Peter Jan Margry: Whisky and Pilgrimage: Clearing Up Commonalities

2.3 Noel B. Salazar: To Be or Not to Be a Tourist: The Role of Concept-Metaphors in Tourism Studies

3. Do Tourists Travel for the Discovery of ‘Self’ or to Search for the ‘Other’?

3.1 Gianna Moscardo: A Journey in Search of Self and the ‘Other’?

3.2 Graham Dann: The Quest for the Self or the ‘Other’ as Motivation for Travel: Simple Choice or Spoiled for Choice?

3.3 Bob McKercher: Tourism: The Quest for the Selfish

4. Is Volunteerism a New Avatar of Travelism?

4.1 Stephen Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small: Volunteer Tourism: Return of the Traveller

4.2 Kevin Lyons: Reciprocity in Volunteer Tourism and Travelism

4.3 Daniel Guttentag: Volunteer Tourism: Insights from the Past, Concerns about the Present and Questions for the Future

4.4 Alexandra Coghlan: Volunteer Tourism: A New Narrative between Hosts and Guests

5. Tourism’s Invulnerability: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

5.1 Julio Aramberri: Is Tourism Vulnerable?

5.2 Richard Sharpley: Tourism and Vulnerability: A Case of Pessimism?

5.3 Carson L. Jenkins: Is Tourism Vulnerable? An Ambiguous Question

6. Vanishing Peripheries: Does Tourism Consume Places?

6.1 C. M. Hall: Elaborating Core–Periphery Relations in Tourism

6.2 David Harrison: Vanishing Peripheries and Shifting Centres: Structural Certainties or Negotiated Ambiguities?

6.3 David Weaver: Moving in from the Margins: Experiential Consumption and the Pleasure Core

6.4 Geoffrey Wall: Tourism in Peripheries

7. Tourism is More Sinned Against than Sinning

7.1 Richard Sharpley: In Defence of Tourism

7.2 Noel Scott: Original Sin: A Lack of (Tourism) Knowledge

7.3 Jim Macbeth: Tourism: The Good, the Bad and the Sinner?

7.4 Peter Smith: In Defence of Tourism: A Re-assessment

8. Is Concept of Sustainability Utopian? Ideally Perfect but Hard to Practice

8.1 Stephen McCool: Sustainable Tourism: Guiding Fiction, Social Trap or Path to Resilience?

8.2 Richard Butler: Sustainable Tourism – The Undefinable and Unachievable Pursued by the Unrealistic?

8.3 Ralf Buckley: Tourism and the Sustainability of Human Societies

8.4 David Weaver: Whither Sustainable Tourism? But First, a Good Hard Look in the Mirror

8.5 Brian Wheeller: Sustainable Tourism: Milestone or Millstone?

9. What is Wrong with the Concept of Carrying Capacity?

9.1 Ralf Buckley: Tourism Capacity Concepts

9.2 Sagar Singh: A Twist in the Tale of Carrying Capacity: Towards a Formula for Sustainable Tourism?

9.3 Gene Brothers: Tragedy of the Tourism Commons: A Need for Carrying Capacities

9.4 Simon McArthur: Why Carrying Capacity Should be a Last Resort?

10. Knowledge Management in Tourism: Are the Stakeholders Research-Averse?

10.1 Chris Cooper: Transferring Tourism Knowledge – A Challenge for Tourism Educators and Researchers

10.2 Lisa Ruhanen: Transferring Tourism Knowledge: Research on Climate Change and Sustainability

10.3 Noel Scott: A Market Approach to Tourism Knowledge

11. Tourism for Whom? – The Unmet Challenge

11.1 Richard Butler: What has Tourism Ever Done for Us?

11.2 C. M. Hall: What has Tourism Ever Done for Us? Depends Where You’re Looking from and Who’s Looking

11.3 Geoffrey Wall: Tourism has Done a Lot for Us, for Both Good and Ill

11.4 John Swarbrooke: Are we going to Use Tourism or to be Used by Tourism?

Index

This book grabs your attention by probing into several of tourism's most intriguing and lively debates. It brings together contributions by leading tourism researchers about several of the subject's more important tensions, dilemmas, ambiguities and disputed relationships. It succeeds in encouraging readers to think more deeply and in more nuanced ways about tourism.