Tourism Studies And The Social Sciences

Tourism Studies and the Social Sciences aims to provide students with a wider understanding of and grounding in the theories of the social sciences that tourism studies have been built upon.

Based upon a social science approach to understanding the significance of tourism in contemporary society, Andrew Holden’s fascinating book highlights tourism as a multidisciplinary area of study with rich and varied theoretical underpinnings. Here, Holden introduces social science disciplines and applies relevant theories to the understanding of tourism. He investigates how the economic and political structures of society influence the manifestation of tourism at a global level, and subsequently considers a variety of topical issues including citizenship and social exclusion, tourism as a form of trade, consumerism, the consequences of tourism, and feminism and ethics. Each chapter includes: a brief introductory summary of the discipline a critique of its main theories and concepts which have relevance to tourism a discussion of how the theories and concepts have been applied to tourism using cases and examples international case studies and examples. Punctuated with study and teaching aids, chapter summaries and ‘think points’ to encourage reflection, this excellent, broad-ranging textbook provides a wider understanding of tourism’s role in society.

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.

'Tourism' helps provide an understanding of the contemporary forces shaping tourism in a manner that connects the field to broader policy and scientific debate that is approachable by students of tourism at all levels. Issues are examined in terms of key concepts of contemporary social and environmental studies.

This collection of key articles from the most influential journals and books in the field examines what social scientists mean by the term tourism, and what it means to be a tourist. Carefully selected and introduced by the editor, this material charts the sociological changes that have occurred in tourism, and the change from the upper-class grand tours of the late nineteenth-century to the mass tourism of the present day. The collection also assesses the economic impacts of tourism on local economies, environmental considerations, and whether the growth of tourism is sustainable in a post-September 11th world. "Tourism: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences" is an accessible and comprehensive resource designed for academics and scholars researching in tourism, globalization, and human geography.

"The strongest overview I have encountered of the scope and the current state of research across all the fields involved in advancing our understanding of tourism. For its range of topics, depth of analyses, and distinction of its contributors, nothing is comparable." - Professor Dean MacCannell, University of California, Davis "The breadth of vision and sweep of accounts is remarkable, and range of topics laudable... a rare combination of the authoritative, the challenging and stimulating." - Professor Mike Crang, Durham University Tourism studies developed as a sub-branch of older disciplines in the social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology and economics, and newer applied fields of study in hospitality management, civil rights and transport studies. This Handbook is a sign of the maturity of the field. It provides an essential resource for teachers and students to determine the roots, key issues and agenda of tourism studies, exploring: The evolution and position of tourism studies The relationship of tourism to culture The ecology and economics of tourism Special events and destination management Methodologies of study Tourism and transport Tourism and heritage Tourism and postcolonialism Global tourist business operations Ranging from local to global issues, and from questions of management to the ethical dilemmas of tourism, this is a comprehensive, critically informed, constructively organized overview of the field. It draws together an inter-disciplinary group of contributors who are among the most celebrated names in the field and will be quickly recognized as a landmark in the new and expanding field of tourism studies.

The recent surfacing of actor-network theory (ANT) in tourism studies correlates to a rising interest in understanding tourism as emergent thorough relational practice connecting cultures, natures and technologies in multifarious ways. Despite the widespread application of ANT across the social sciences, no book has dealt with the practical and theoretical implications of using ANT in Tourism research. This is the first book to critically engage with the use of ANT in tourism studies. By doing so, it challenges approaches that have dominated the literature for the last twenty years and casts new light on issues of materiality, ordering and networks in tourism. The book describes the approach, its possibilities and limitations as an ontology and research methodology, and advances its use and research in the field of tourism. The first three chapters of the book introduce ANT and its key conceptual premises, the book itself and the relation between ANT and tourism studies. Using illustrative cases and examples, the subsequent chapters deal with specific subject areas like materiality, risk, mobilities and ordering and show how ANT contributes to tourism studies. This part presents examples and cases which illustrate the use of the approach in a critical way. Inherently, the study of tourism is a multi-disciplinary field of research and that is reflected in the diverse academic backgrounds of the contributing authors to provide a broad post-disciplinary context of ANT in tourism studies. This unique book, focusing on emerging approaches in tourism research, will be of value to students, researchers and academics in tourism as well as the wider Social Sciences.

This thought-provoking Handbook considers the impact and challenges that social tourism has on people’s lives, integrating case studies from around the world. Showcasing the latest research on the topic and its role in tackling the challenges of tourism development, chapters explore the opportunities presented by social tourism and illustrate the social imperative of tourism as a force for good.