The Economic Geography Of The Tourist Industry

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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.

Tourism is an astonishingly complex phenomenon that is becoming an ever-greater part of life in today’s global world. This clear and engaging text introduces undergraduate students to this vast and diverse subject through the lens of geography, the only field with the breadth to consider all of the aspects, activities, and perspectives that constitute tourism. Indeed, geography and tourism have always been interconnected, and Velvet Nelson reinforces the relationship between them by using both human and physical geography to interpret all facets of tourism—economic, social, and environmental. She shows how geography provides the tools and concepts to consider both the positive and negative factors that affect tourists and destinations, as well as the effects tourism has on both peoples and places. Her real-world case studies, based both on research and on the experiences of tourists themselves, vividly illustrate key issues. This comprehensive, thematically organized introduction will enhance students’ understanding of geographic concepts and how they can be used as a way of viewing and understanding the world.

Outlining the need for fresh perspectives on change in tourism, this book offers a theoretical overview and empirical examples of the potential synergies of applying evolutionary economic geography (EEG) concepts in tourism research. EEG has proven to be a powerful explanatory paradigm in other sectors and tourism studies has a track record of embracing, adapting, and enhancing frameworks from cognate fields. EEG approaches to tourism studies complement and further develop studies of established themes such as path dependence and the Tourism Area Life Cycle. The individual chapters draw from a broad geographical framework and address distinct conceptual elements of EEG, using a diverse set of tourism case studies from Europe, North America and Australia. Developing the theoretical cohesion of tourism and EEG, this volume also gives non-specialist tourism scholars a window into the possibilities of using these concepts in their own research. Given the timing of this publication, it has great potential value to the wider tourism community in advancing theory and leading to more effective empirical research.

Tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world economy. Increasingly, research on tourism destinations has been at the centre of debates concerning destination competitiveness, governance, policies and destination management and marketing. This book investigates tourist destinations from two different perspectives. First, it approaches destinations using the concept of tourist clusters and investigates their role in competitiveness and firm performances. The second perspective studies the development of models of competitiveness and governance. It also develops an international benchmarking system of 15-EU countries, with an additional focus on Italy, UK and United States. The book will appeal to academics, scholars and practitioners in tourism studies, management, urban and regional studies and economic geography, etc.

Tourism economics is partly based on established principles from the economics discipline, but it also incorporates elements from sociology, psychology, organization theory and ecology. It has over the years turned into an appealing multi-disciplinary oriented approach to the understanding of the impacts of leisure time in a modern society, including cultural heritage, sustainable quality of life, and industrial organization of the hospitality industry. The increasing dynamics in the tourist industry and its worldwide effects will continue to attract the attention of both the research and the policy sector in the years to come. Rather than speculating on non-observed facts, there is a clear need for evidence-based research in order to map out the complex dynamics of the tourist industry. The present volume comprises novel studies – mainly of a quantitative-analytical nature – on the supply, demand and contextual aspects of modern tourism. It contains a sound mix of theory, methodology, policy and case studies on various tourism issues in different parts of the world.​

Tourist visits used to be a less common activity in the past. However, more people than ever now make leisure trips, making this an era of mass tourism. This drastic change in spatial behaviour is not only caused by economic prosperity, but the scale of this phenomenon means that it is able to generate economic growth, making tourism a key factor in regional development policy. One of the main challenges of current regional policy is to market the attractiveness of an area, thereby increasing tourist visits and subsequent revenue. In particular, regions are attempting this through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which offer information on interesting places, and efficient methods for organizing and booking trips. This book examines the interconnections between tourism, ICT and regional development. Bringing together a range of European case studies illustrating various ICT and policy innovations, it not only critiques current activity by regions in terms of tourism development, but also considers how this sector is likely to continue to grow.