The book is a landmark volume which examines perplexing tourism debates such as the relevance of mass tourism, climate change, authenticity, tourism and poverty and slow tourism. Multidisciplinary in content, it covers applied aspects of sociology, anthropology, humanities and biosciences. The book is unique in its presentation and style and will be an essential resource for scholars, academics and practitioners.

New approaches to tourism study demonstrate a notable ‘critical turn’ – a shift in thought that emphasises interpretative and critical modes of tourism inquiry. The chapters in this volume reflect this emerging critical school of tourism studies and represent a coordinated effort of tourism scholars whose work engages innovative research methodologies. Since such work has been dispersed across a variety of tourism-related and other research fields, this book responds to a pressing need to consolidate recent advances in a single text. Adopting a broad definition of ‘criticality’, the contributors seek to find ‘fresh’ ways of theorising tourism by locating the phenomenon in its wider political, economic, cultural and social contexts. The collection addresses the power relations underpinning the production of academic knowledge; presents a range of qualitative data collection methods which confront the field’s dominant (post)positivist approaches; foregrounds the emotional dynamics of research relations and explores the personal, the political and the situated nature of research journeys. The book has been divided into two parts, with the essays in the first part establishing a context-specific framework for engaging philosophical and theoretical debates in contemporary tourism enquiry. The second set of essays then present, discuss and critique specific methodologies, research techniques, methods of interpretation and writing strategies, all of which are in some sense illustrative of ‘critical’ tourism research. Contributors range from postgraduate students to established academics and are drawn from both the geopolitical margins and the ‘powerbases’ of the tourism academy. Their various relationships with the English-speaking academy thus range from relative ‘outsider’ to well-positioned ‘insider’ and as a result, their essays are reflective of a range of locations within the complexly spun web of academic power relations and social divisions.

The first edition of this text provided a geographic perspective on how the production and consumption of tourism are reshaping human and physical environments. This edition builds on this, updating the material to reflect changes that have taken place.

Co-creation is fast becoming a buzz word in tourism. Traditional approaches to value creation in tourism suggest that operators and suppliers produce goods and services which are consumed by tourists. The value produced is usually measured in economic terms. Co-creation challenges these assumptions, arguing that tourism producers and consumers co-create value together and that this value is more diverse than just economic value. Technologies underpinning social media, ratings and review tools and e-commerce are facilitating the creation of diverse values, and have been responsible for driving innovation in, for example, new business models such as the collaborative economy. Social, environmental, emotional, reputational and other kinds of value may also be produced, and a wide range of stakeholders, not just producers or consumers, might also benefit from the value co-creation process. This edited volume seeks to go beyond the dominant business/management/marketing perspectives that focus on the co-creation of market value and innovation, to excavate complex and critical episodes of co-creation in tourism. By engaging authors from both the academy and beyond, it explores the rich historical linage of co-creation and its contemporary practices. The chapters in this book were originally published in Tourism Recreation Research.

In today’s increasingly complex tourism environment, decision-making requires a rounded, well-informed view of the whole. Critical distance should be encouraged, consultation and intellectual rigour should be the norm amongst managers and there needs to be a radical shift in our approach to educating future tourism and hospitality managers and researchers. This second edition intends to move the debate forward by exploring how critical tourism inquiry can make a difference in the world, linking tourism education driven by the values of empowerment, partnership and ethics to policy and practice. This volume is designed to enable its reader to think through vital concepts and theories relating to tourism and hospitality management, stimulate critical thinking and use multidisciplinary perspectives. The book is organized around three key ways of producing social change in and through tourism: critical thinking, critical education and critical action. Part one focuses on the importance of critical thinking in tourism research and deals with two key topics of our academic endeavours (i) tourism epistemology and theoretical and conceptual developments; (ii) research entanglements, knowledge production and reflexivity. Part two considers ‘the university as a site for activism’ by mapping out the moral, academic and practical role of educators in developing ethical and responsible graduates and explores the student experience. The final part attempts to provide new understandings of the ways in which social justice and social transformation can be achieved in and through tourism. This timely and thought provoking book which collectively questions tourism’s current and future role in societal development is essential reading for students, researchers and academics interested in Tourism & Hospitality.

This book provides a comprehensive and readable overview of the critical debates and controversies around tourism in Africa, and the major factors that are affecting tourism development now and in the future. Drawing upon research emerging from collaborations between a growing number of African academics and practitioners based in the continent and in the African diaspora as well as international colleagues, the Handbook offers key critical insights into the issues, challenges and trends that Africa and African tourism is facing. Part I covers continent-wide issues such as climate change, ICT, heritage and development. The remaining parts are organised along geographic lines, with each chapter covering the development of tourism, current trends and discussion of critical issues such as community participation, gender, backpacking, urban tourism, wildlife tourism and conservation. Combining an overview of key theories, concepts, contemporary issues and debates, this book will be a valuable resource for students, academics and practitioners investigating the role of tourism in Africa.

Few industries have expanded faster over the last fifty years than tourism. Tourism has brought employment to millions, frequently in the poor and more remote parts of the world, and given pleasure, variety, rest and recreation to countless numbers of travelers and holiday-makers. It has at the same time destroyed and polluted pristine environments, threatened local cultures, and in doing so, frequently devalued just those characteristics of a place that had made it a desirable tourist objective. The issues that tourism raises are of critical and vital importance throughout the world: this book provides a much-needed geographical perspective upon them. The authors focus on both the production and consumption of tourism, and show that it is this interrelationship which holds the key to understanding the ways in which tourism shapes, and reshapes, human and physical environments. They analyze the key features of the tourism and leisure industries, and place them in the context of changing social, political and economic structures and behavior. The argument is accompanied throughout by illustrative case studies, drawn from a wide range of countries, including both the developed and developing economies.