The Future Past Of Tourism

This book offers a critical account of the historical evolution of tourism through the identification and discussion of key turning points. Based on these considerations, future turning points are identified and evaluated. The volume provides a continuum between the past and future of tourism. Its central themes are the globalisation of tourism; the development of destinations; the importance of mobility and transport; the development of the modern hotel; the diversification of niche tourism and the conceptualisation of the past and future of tourism using the evolutionary paradigm in future studies. The core findings of the book provide the first perspective on how the history of tourism will shape its future.

Over the last two decades, tourism has become firmly established as a recognized field of study and the focus of extensive academic research. There has been continual expansion in the provision of taught programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, dramatic developments in the tourism literature and a growing community of tourism academics. Despite this explosion in the study of tourism, however, it is still struggling to achieve wider academic legitimacy, it remains to some extent divorced from the industry upon which it is focuses and, even within its academic ranks, there remains uncertainty over its role and future direction. This volume aims to critically explore this paradoxical situation and to consider the future direction of the study of tourism. It charts the development of tourism as an area of study, analyzing approaches taken from an international context; it critiques contemporary epistemologies of tourism framed around the social science vs. management dichotomy and offers alternative approaches to the study of tourism. In doing so, it engages directly with a range of important academic debates: what tourism ‘is’ in an academic context, the purpose of studying tourism and how it should be studied in the future. This important and stimulating volume will have global appeal to higher level students, academics and researchers within tourism and related disciplines.

This book presents a systematic and pattern-based explanation of food tourism, focusing on how and why change could occur and what the implications could be. In the future will food tourism involve food grown in the laboratory or a more authentic experience associated with place and history? The book’s approach to the future has focused on explanation; the contributors look for the causes, trends and theoretical concepts that explain change, thus attempting to justify and explore the future. Scenarios are used to explore alternative futures and the book examines the implications for the future of food tourism and highlights future research avenues. This book is primarily aimed at postgraduate students and researchers in the field of tourism studies.

This book identifies and describes five megatrends that will define the landscape of the Travel, Tourism & Hospitality industry, with a particular focus on the European context. Humans began travelling on the same day that Homo Sapiens first realized he could walk upright. No boundaries, mountains or cliffs have managed to stop or diminish our insatiable desire to find out what lies beyond the visible horizon. Tourism has enjoyed virtually uninterrupted growth for the past several decades, and the sector has now become the third-largest source of export revenue, after chemicals and fuel, and ahead of the automotive and food sectors. And yet, in its current globalised format, it is exposed to sudden shocks that can swiftly shake up the status quo accelerating the deployment of some megatrends here described. We have all witnessed the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating consequences for the industry. While the number of international tourism arrivals to Europe has soared to over 700 million a year, at the same time we are experiencing a period of deep transformation. Bauman couldn’t have been more accurate or insightful when he coined the word ‘liquid’ in this regard. As an exquisite expression of a civilized, rich and discerning first-world society, travel and tourism are now changing shape and meaning, requiring our business models to adapt. What are the megatrends that will dictate the future shape of our industry’s landscape? Who is the new tourist, if there is one, and what is she looking for? Is the new post-technological era transforming the depth and the very essence of travelling? This book offers a number of visionary insights, as well as operational takeaways.