Political Economy Of Tourism

Political economy, in its various guises and transfigurations, is a research philosophy that presents both social commentary and theoretical progress and is concerned with a number of different topics: politics, regulation and governance, production systems, social relations, inequality and development amongst many others. As a critical theory, political economy seeks to provide an understanding of societies – and of the structures and social relations that form them – in order to evoke social change toward more equitable conditions. Despite the early influence of critical development studies and political economy on tourism research, political economy has received relatively little attention in tourism research. Political Economy and Tourism the first volume to bring together different theoretical perspectives and discourse in political economy related to tourism. Written by leading scholars, the text is organised into three sequential Parts, linked by the principle that ‘the political’ and ‘the economic’ are intimately connected. Part one presents different approaches to political economy, including Marxist political economy, regulation, comparative political economy, commodity chain research and alternative political economies; Part two links key themes of political economy, such as class, gender, labour, development and consumption, to tourism; and Part three examines the political economy at various geographical scales and focuses on the outcomes and processes of the political act of planning and managing tourism production. This engaging volume provides insights and alternative critical perspectives on political economy theory to expand discussions of tourism development and policy in the future. Political Economy and Tourism is a valuable text for students, researchers and academics interested in Tourism and related disciplines.

Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoliberalisation are relatively under-explored. This book provides a wide-ranging inquiry into the particular manifestations of different variants of neoliberalism, highlighting its uneven geographical development and the changing dynamics of neoliberal policies in order to explain and evaluate the effects of neoliberal processes on tourism. Covering a variety of different aspects of neoliberalism and tourism, the chapters investigate how different types of tourism are used as part of more general neoliberalisation agendas, how neoliberalism differs according to the geographic context, the importance of discourse in shaping neoliberal practices and the different approaches of putting the neoliberal ideology into practice. Aiming to initiate debates about the connections between neoliberalism and tourism and advance further research avenues, this book makes a timely contribution which discusses the relationships between markets, nation-states and societies from a social science perspective. Neoliberalism is considered as a political-economic ideology, as variants of the global neoliberal project, as discourse and practices through which neoliberalism is enacted.

The book draws on the views of leading thinkers in Tourism and considers a broad range of issues from multidisciplinary perspectives facing Tourism industry for the first time in one volume: dwindling energy, new technology, security (like war and terrorism), political economy, sustainability, and human resources. By critically reviewing these social and economic challenges in a global scale, the book helps to create a comprehensive view of future tourism in the unfolding and challenging society of the third millennium.

This book employs an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral lens to explore the collaborative dynamics that are currently disrupting, re-creating and transforming the production and consumption of tourism. House swapping, ridesharing, voluntourism, couchsurfing, dinner hosting, social enterprise and similar phenomena are among these collective innovations in tourism that are shaking the very bedrock of an industrial system that has been traditionally sustained along commercial value chains. To date there has been very little investigation of these trends, which have been inspired by, amongst other things, de-industrialization processes and post-capitalist forms of production and consumption, postmaterialism, the rise of the third sector and collaborative governance. Addressing that gap, this book explores the character, depth and breadth of these disruptions, the creative opportunities for tourism that are emerging from them, and how governments are responding to these new challenges. In doing so, the book provides both theoretical and practical insights into the future of tourism in a world that is, paradoxically, becoming both increasingly collaborative and individualized.

This book investigates and considers the urgent political, social, and economic challenges that confront society and tourism. It attempts to look at what is threatening society, and makes suggestions on what the impact will be and how tourism will be changed to integrate with the new socio-economics of a newly emerging society with its novel peculiar challenges and opportunities in a post-energy era. The book draws on the views of leading thinkers in tourism and considers a broad range of issues from multidisciplinary perspectives facing the tourism industry for the first time in one volume: dwindling energy, new technology, security (like war and terrorism), political economy, sustainability, and human resources. By critically reviewing these social and economic challenges in a global scale, the book helps to create a comprehensive view of future tourism in the unfolding and challenging society of the third millennium. This innovative and significant volume will be valuable reading for all current and future tourism professionals.