Controversies In Tourism

Tourism impacts on locations in many ways - socially, environmentally, culturally, and economically. This book examines some well established controversies in tourism and some newly emerging controversial aspects associated with tourism as an activity and a business. Controversies involving clashes between visitors and host communities, the rights and wrongs of eco-tourism, the impacts of mega-events, the legitimacy of dark tourism, and the costs and benefits of medical and wildlife tourism are assessed. This book is an interesting and thought provoking work ideal for tourism students, researchers and academics.

The multiplicity of tourism encounters provide some of the best available occasions to observe the social world and its making(s). Focusing on ontological politics of tourism development, this book examines how different versions of tourism are enacted, how encounters between different versions of tourism orderings may result in controversies, but also on how these enactments and encounters are entangled in multiple ways to broader areas of development, conservation, policy and destination management. Throughout the book, encounters and controversies are investigated from a poststructuralist and relational approach as complex and emerging, seeing the roles and characteristics of related actors as co-constituted. Inspired by post-actor-network theory and related research, the studies include the social as well as the material, but also multiplicity and ontological politics when examining controversial matters or events.

At a time when COVID-19 is transforming the tourism industry, this book presents a collection of some of the many contemporary contradictions and inconsistencies apparent in tourism contexts and tourism studies. Increasingly, tourism is regarded as an agent of social and cultural change, in ways which inevitably throw up new and inescapable paradoxes. The chapters draw attention to paradoxes (such as Anglo-Western-centrism/Non-Western imperatives, continued colonisation/decolonisation, political apparatus/people’s empowerment, global standards/local dynamics) and their prominence in the tourism field as well as in other disciplines. The volume offers a reconsideration of what may be needed, conceptually and methodologically, in order to equip researchers and practitioners in tourism and related social science fields to better interpret and manage the future of tourism.

Focusing on ontological politics of tourism development, this book examines how different versions of tourism are enacted, how encounters between different versions of tourism orderings may result in controversies, but also on how these enactments and encounters are entangled in multiple ways to broader areas of development, conservation, policy and destination management. Inspired by post-actor-network theory and related research, the studies include the social as well as the material, but also multiplicity and ontological politics when examining controversial matters or events.

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.

This handbook explores and critically evaluates the debates and controversies inherent to tourism's relationship with nature, especially pertinent at a time of major re-evaluation of our relationship with the environment as a consequence of the environmental problems we now face.

This significant and timely book critically discusses the effects of emerging trends and shifting dynamics on the tourism and hospitality industry at local, regional, national, and international levels in a holistic manner. This book offers a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach and examines emerging topics such as technology and disruptive economies as well as the Covid-19 pandemic that are likely to change the future of the industry, either positively or negatively. The book thus advances the knowledge surrounding emergent controversies pertaining to tourism and hospitality including the growth of alternative business models (e.g., sharing economy business models), travel in light of climate change, and human resource ethics given the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), data, and algorithms. Offering a platform for the critical discussion of pertinent transformations and, as such, providing theoretical and practical insights, this book will be of great value to destination planners, policymakers, industry practitioners, educators, and upper-level students of tourism and hospitality.