Tourism Geographies Podcast

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2594716AbstractThe niche field of critical surf studies examines localism as a ubiquitous phenomenon wherein experiences of place and belonging are negotiated through surfers’ differentiated positioning relative to surfing’s cultural imaginaries and geographical territories, or ‘surfscapes’. Beyond conventional explorations of localism as a response to common pool resource dilemmas provoked by overcrowding of wave resources, critical perspectives account for power dynamics related to race, class, and gender in contested surfing space produced through Global North/South relationships within the colonial-patriarchal foundations of global surf tourism. This body of critical surf tourism literature acknowledges diverse localisms as enacting entitlement and/or resistance in occupied surfscapes built on historical legacies of structural violence and settler colonialism. Engaging with novel frameworks of communal governmentality, commoning and translocalism in Global South surf tourism communities, critical surf tourism scholarship suggests that certain localisms represent subversive modes of commons governance and/or emancipatory politics in occupied surfscapes. The state-of-the-art narrative review of critical surf studies concepts offered here centers localism in surf tourism contexts as a lens for recognizing critical surf tourism studies as its own nascent subfield of inquiry in sport tourism geographies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2582648AbstractMass-tourism destinations are under criticism for intensifying climate risk, biodiversity loss, and social inequities, yet practical alternatives remain scarce. Hawai’i typifies this problem: since the 1970s, the archipelago has relied on a high-volume model that drew 10.4 million visitors in 2019 and continues to generate more than one-fifth of the state’s GDP, while concurrently eroding beaches, exhausting freshwater supplies, and commodifying Native Hawaiian culture. Recognizing these pressures, Hawai’i adopted regenerative tourism as a strategic objective in 2019 to pursue net-positive outcomes, including ecological restoration, cultural revival, and community wealth. However, the application and feasibility of regenerative tourism in mature, mass-market settings remain unclear. To address this gap, this research is a qualitative case study of the Waikīkī beachfront hotel corridor. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2023 with hotel sector stakeholders, state planners, not-for-profit leaders, cultural practitioners, and consultants. Interviews were analyzed with reflexive thematic coding and interpreted through an adapted regenerative tourism analytical framework. Findings reveal uneven but significant movement toward regenerative approaches. Public-sector actors and Kānaka Maoli practitioners articulate multi-capital definitions of wealth and pilot participatory supply-driven innovations. Conversely, for-profit operators retain a demand-driven approach, rebranding experiential add-ons as ‘regenerative’ while maintaining extractive infrastructures. The study thus demonstrates both the promise and the limits of implementing regenerative principles in high-volume contexts, recommending Indigenous co-governance and transdisciplinary learning loops to move beyond branding. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2578620AbstractOkinawa prefecture is an archipelago in southwestern Japan. This article examines the urban musical soundscape of Kokusai Street in Naha City, Okinawa’s capital, where tourism, identity and sonic performance intersect to create a dynamic acoustic space of local cultural representation. Drawing on the fields of sound studies, tourism, cultural geography, and ethnomusicology, this article investigates acoustic design through three representative musical sound worlds within Kokusai Street’s sonic touristic milieu. The first explores sound in motion, examining how the city’s various monorail’s chimes serve as auditory markers of Okinawa’s identity; the second considers the mediated and performed sounds of the commercial streetscape, where traditional music, contemporary consumer culture and urban sound converge for tourism consumption; and the third focuses on the vibrant live house entertainment scene, where performances of traditional and neo-traditional Okinawan music engage audiences in an interactive sonic experience that firmly positions Okinawa within the touristic gaze. The article highlights how this particular micro sound world in Okinawa’s urban soundscape functions as a performative space that constructs and communicates local musical identity within the broader framework of island tourism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2582669AbstractIn tourism literature and practice, pro-growth tourism management discourses argue that tourism growth can decouple from its negative impacts through improved management, whereas heterodox approaches reject tourism’s growth ethic and argue decoupling is infeasible and unlikely. Heterodox tourism scholarship increasingly seeks to imagine what a ‘beyond growth’ transition may entail, through concepts such as regenerative tourism, degrowth, and buen vivir. Among the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites and most iconic Biosphere Reserves, the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador present a critical case study, having experienced a 260% increase in tourism arrivals over the past two decades while attempting to enact a heterodox transition. The purpose of this paper is to examine how diverse stakeholders in these islands construct and contest discourses of tourism growth, with implications for transitions towards ‘post-growth’ or heterodox tourism paradigms. Building upon decades of combined research in Galápagos among our author team, this paper draws most specifically on data gathered from a three-day participatory workshop in August 2023 involving sixty key Galápagos tourism stakeholders. Findings identified two primary discourse coalitions—those critiquing and those defending land-based tourism growth—and compares how pro-growth and heterodox management discourses manifest among them. Findings reveal that although these coalitions adopt different discursive strategies where growth is most contentious, there is shared consensus around strategies for managing growth that align with heterodox paradigms. A key contribution of this paper is to highlight how managing tourism growth in Biosphere Reserves—of increasing concern as overtourism challenges proliferate globally—cannot rely solely on technical interventions. Our findings show how divergent discourse coalitions construct prosperity in competing ways, revealing why inclusive engagement with plural values, contested meanings, and local power dynamics is indispensable for navigating overtourism challenges in fragile island settings. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2325932AbstractThe tourist area life cycle has been in existence for over four decades since its publication in The Canadian Geographer and was described as ‘one of the most cited and contentious areas of tourism knowledge….(and) has gone on to become one of the best known theories of destination growth and change within the field of tourism studies’ It was noted as one ‘Of the most influential conceptual models for explaining tourist, development’. The model was developed primarily from the Product Life Cycle model used in business and management studies and modified to explain the process of development and change that took place in tourist destinations throughout the world. The model has received considerable attention over its life span, but has often been cited from second hand sources or misquoted on many occasions. Its appearance in a non-tourist journal has resulted in it often not appearing in various early literature surveys based on tourism-focused sources and for its first decade access to the original article was limited and difficult, as demonstrated by many requests to the author for copies of the article. Electronic access to journals and libraries have resolved this problem, but its considerable visibility (in excess of 56,000 reads on Research Gate) and use (close to 5000 citations) means that it has possibly entered the realm of tourism myths and become part of accepted dogma in the field of tourism development. This could present problems to those challenging the original concept and introducing alternative or contradictory ideas and propositions, and it is perhaps, appropriate to briefly review the history of the concept. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2462777AbstractThe polar areas have long endured as an exotic playground for adventure in the wilderness. Tourism figures have remained low and hence the regions hold a marginal position in the global tourism system. Today, climate change and its significant impact on ecosystems and communities in high latitudes as well as geopolitical change drive attention to the polar regions. Increasing tourist numbers manifest this. While early travel records and diaries are an integral part of the history of exploration, academic research into tourism cannot be found to any greater degree prior to the 1980s This review highlights major traits in polar tourism research to date and identifies potential avenues for future research within the field. It shows that polar tourism research is a well-established orientation for tourism research today. However, great variations are in place, and far-fetched generalizations about the two polar regions are growing increasingly problematic. In this context, geographical perspectives should be utilized in order to understand polar tourism and its repercussions in a wider context of development, on different geographical scales, and even beyond the polar regions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2598624AbstractPortugal has become one of the most popular countries for digital nomadism in Europe, with Lisbon being a top-rated destination. The global digital nomad hotspots are usually more affordable destinations in which people can live better with their salaries, escaping the high cost of living in Western countries. As such, digital nomads, similar to other types of lifestyle movers, engage in geoarbitrage – the utilization of opportunities for affordable costs of living in foreigner destinations. In Portugal, governmental policies have been developing favorable conditions for these types of travelers. The launch of the digital nomad visa to attract an even greater number of digital nomads supports the growth of this social phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to examine the ways Portuguese government policies are driven by the logic of geoarbitrage, targeting affluent visitors or migrants. Despite the growing relevance of these developments, a comprehensive understanding of how geoarbitrage is constructed and practiced through public policies remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by exploring the interrelationship between digital nomad visas and geoarbitrage practiced at an institutional level by the Portuguese government. The focus is on the recent Digital Nomad Visa (D8) as well as other residence permits such as the D7 visa previously used by digital nomads. The study shows a pathway of digital nomadism in Portugal from 2007 to the present that has been shaped by strategic policy development of the national government and targeted initiatives like the Digital Nomad Village in Madeira. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates the ways the Portuguese government enacted a geoarbitrage strategy envisioning a logic of immigration of wealthy and highly skilled digital nomads. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2580393AbstractThis paper combines Schumpeter’s creative destruction concept with Harvey’s urban capital circulation theory to investigate the influence of political-economic structures and crisis settings on the development cycles of urban tourism destinations. Using Beirut, Lebanon as a case study, the analysis shows how Beirut’s post-civil war trajectory triggered waves of creative destruction, driven by real estate, tourism, and creative industries, that unfolded in sub-waves across Beirut’s neighbourhoods, reshaping the urban tourism landscape. The relocation of tourism hubs acted as spatial fixes fuelled by cycles of post-crisis capital influx and by tensions between creativity and destruction by overaccumulation. Despite variations in the sources and motivations behind capital injections, their impact on the urban destination’s social and spatial fabric collectively led to creative destruction. The analysis reveals the path-dependent and temporally sensitive nature of urban tourism development patterns, which in the case of Beirut was structurally entangled with broader capital dynamics. Tourism plays a dual role as both a mechanism for advancing capital interests and a source of disruption within capitalist urban transformation processes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2584356AbstractThis study focuses on Las Vegas’ Historic Westside and analyzes how prolonged historical geographies of segregation shaped the area’s tourism present and future. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, railway and highway development adjacent to this neighborhood led to redlining and discriminatory practices. While the area experienced a cultural and economic revival in the mid-twentieth century—with Jackson Street being nicknamed ‘The Black Strip’—it later faced decline and exclusion from the city’s tourism economy due to systemic racism. While research has explored revitalization processes in Black communities, few works have specifically examined their role as destinations. We conducted a qualitative study among Westside residents, small business owners, politicians, and activists to uncover tourism placemaking processes. Moreover, we analyzed archival material, such as newspaper articles, oral histories, and public documents from the City of Las Vegas. While community members expressed their desire to share their rich Civil Rights history and cultural heritage with tourists, they acknowledged the area’s socioeconomic challenges as an obstacle. On the one hand, territorial stigmatization causes tourists to be discouraged from visiting the area due to incorrect perceptions about crime and violence. On the other hand, revitalization strategies that could improve the area’s reputation and attract more visitors might result in harmful forms of gentrification and enhance undesirable kinds of ‘poverty tourism.’ One of this work’s main contributions is the analysis of the relationship between a difficult past and a tourism-oriented future, heard in the voices of those who are often ignored but directly affected by planning strategies and policies. Our findings aim to encourage both academics and professionals working with communities that experience spatial racism to undertake a historical geography approach rooted in decolonial and Critical Race Theory. In line with recent research on Black travel and regenerative tourism, this study advocates for a shift in power dynamics that focuses on inclusion, co-governance, and participatory practices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2594713AbstractTourism geographers have long addressed the spatiality of injustice, taking concern with the struggles over access to resources and capital that shape inequities in tourism-dominant landscapes. And yet, the substance of justice, that is, what we really mean by ‘justice’ is rarely discussed, with tourism geographers possessing a hesitancy to engage in the constitution of justice, preferring practice-informed ‘bottom up’ identifications. This article argues that there is a requirement to openly discuss the substance of justice, to consider the specificities of claims in relation to one another, avoid extreme relativism whereby all claims to justice are equally valid without grounds for critique, and steer clear of any reductions in its political and analytical utility. To facilitate consideration of a distinctly spatial reading of justice for tourism geographers, we propose a framework to consider injustice as governance-informed situated, patterned and collective in ways that inhibit self-development and self-determination. We end with an articulation of three ways through which the proposed framing brings benefits to tourism geographers: (1) Proposes a distinctly spatial reading of justice, (2) Articulates what might constitute injustice, beyond the universalism/pluriversality binary, (3) Facilitates consideration of the forms of justice worthy of attention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2593978AbstractDominant narratives in tourism shape perceptions of place, often marginalising certain localities, people, and perspectives. This study examines digital counter-narrative place-making in rural communities and the equalising possibilities it can provide. We combine Doreen Massey’s relational theory of place with Hanna Meretoja’s dialogical narrative theory, following a dialogical narrative approach. Empirically, the study draws on a digital place-making project conducted in Ardgour, Scotland, and the Upper Kemijoki river area, Lapland. Utilising audio tours co-created with the local communities, we explore how the local narratives challenge and reframe prevailing tourist representations and culturally dominant narratives, fostering recognition of different perspectives, extending both residents’ and visitors’ sense of the possible, and enhancing equality and justice in tourism. Although community-created audio tours do not have the reach of dominant narratives and have other limitations in their equalising possibilities, they can establish deeper connections to place. Our relational theorisation of counter-narrative place-making contributes to theory in both tourism geography and the wider field of human geography, and our method of analysis can give new analytical ideas to both. A further contribution is our focus on the counter-narratives of rural communities, which has been lacking in previous tourism studies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2604082AbstractWhat if the future of sustainable tourism lies not in transactions, but in the ancient wisdom of reciprocity and relational ethics? This conceptual paper applies Jaakkola’s theory adaptation approach by revising tourism concepts through the lens of Indigenous worldviews and anthropological Mauss’s (1925) theory of Gift and Counter-Gift. Rather than proposing a new theory, the paper reframes existing ideas to highlight relational ethics over transactional logics. By doing so, the article explores how tourism can benefit from understanding the deep social bonds created through reciprocity and contributes to developing the concept of regenerative tourism, while echoing ongoing Indigenous research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2593982AbstractThis collection advances geographic approaches to accessible tourism through six contributions that collectively double the published resources on this topic within Tourism Geographies. Accessible tourism enables people with access requirements to participate in tourism with independence, equity, and dignity. Despite the growth of accessible tourism research, geographic, spatial, and/or mobilities approaches have been conspicuously absent. Thus, the contributions of this collection include new toolkits to support more inclusive and co-designed accessible tourism (Dickson et al., Citation2024; Lu et al., Citation2025; Wan et al., Citation2024) and greater conceptual depth related to embodied tourism (im)mobilities (Chan et al., Citation2025; Cockburn-Wootten et al., Citation2025; Farkic et al., Citation2025). Progressing towards accessible tourism’s aim of seamless and equitable tourism experiences, geographic perspectives will have an important role to play in addressing the crucial research gaps that remain: destination-scale analyses, whole-of-journey approaches, and inclusive stakeholder-led methodologies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2575314AbstractThis study examines how the designation of Batur as Indonesia’s first UNESCO Global Geopark in 2012 has reshaped volcanic landscapes, socio-economic structures, and cultural life in Bali. Drawing on the framework of Landscape Political Geology, it traces how geological forces, spiritual cosmologies, and global heritage regimes converge to transform both land and livelihoods. Using a mixed-methods approach—combining qualitative interviews, secondary statistical data, and documentary analysis—the study reveals how the geopark has generated new opportunities—particularly in tourism and service employment—while simultaneously marginalizing small-scale farmers and miners, restricting ritual access to land, and intensifying governance tensions between state authorities, external investors, and village communities. These processes have reconfigured Batur’s material and symbolic landscapes, shifting its status from a sacred mountain–lake complex to a commodified tourism asset, yet one that remains deeply embedded in local cosmologies. The study contributes to debates on the politics of nature and tourism geographies by showing how geoparks operate as contested arenas where geology, power, and culture are continuously renegotiated. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2562976AbstractThe Australian settler government has repeatedly promised Indigenous peoples (Anangu) of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park that they will benefit from settler government’s use of their lands as a significant tourism destination, yet the Anangu community of Uluru remains one of the poorest communities in Australia. This article utilises historical analysis and qualitative interviews with Anangu, Parks staff, and tourism staff to chart key dynamics in the relationship between the tourism industry and Anangu over 39 years of Joint Management in the Park. We show how the prioritisation of settler logics of tourism and work over Anangu benefit is not just an arbitrary cultural decision meted out in day-to-day interpersonal relations but is built into the geographies and temporalities of work in the Park. Highlighting how Anangu benefit is deferred through settler logics of work draws attention to the possibility for alternatives that are founded on Indigenous lifeworlds. This article’s analytic focus on quotidian, relational dynamics in intercultural contexts brings insights from Indigenous and settler colonial studies into tourism research and demonstrates a new way of identifying opportunities for transformation in Indigenous tourism industries in settler colonies. From a practical perspective, these insights underscore the importance of developing shared understandings of what meaningful and good “work” is in intercultural industries and highlights possible interventions into entrenched dynamics between Indigenous and settler peoples in these contexts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2533471AbstractThis study investigates the regenerative potential of community-based ecotourism (CBET) through the lens of culinary value chains and experiential perspectives, analyzing their role in promoting cultural preservation, environmental stewardship, and local economic resilience. Employing Critical Place Inquiry (CPI) and ethnographic research methods, including participatory video, photography, walks, and mental mapping, the research examines the integration of Indigenous knowledge and place-based culinary traditions in fostering sustainable tourism models within Trà Vinh province, Vietnam. Findings reveal that culinary practices are deeply embedded within broader ecological, cultural, and social landscapes, functioning as socio-ecological systems that bolster local agency, facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer, and promote environmental protection. The research identifies four key place-based resources—culinary diversity & cultural identity, gastronomic harmony & social cohesion, environmental conservation & sustainability, and cultural exchange & intercultural understanding—critical for understanding the significance of place in CBET. Case studies exemplify how community-led culinary initiatives, rooted in Indigenous knowledge, strengthen agricultural traditions, foster biodiversity, and enhance community resilience. The study demonstrates that incorporating participatory methods enhances the comprehension of place-based tourism practices, positioning culinary value chains as essential mechanisms for preserving cultural traditions and ecological well-being. It offers novel insights into the transformative capacity of localized, community-based ecotourism, highlighting the crucial role of Indigenous viewpoints in tourism planning and advocating for holistic, inclusive, and sustainable culinary tourism strategies that lead to net-positive socio-environmental outcomes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2417853AbstractThis review tracks the genealogy of the term militourism and its development and use since the early 1990s primarily through the scholarship of Teresia Teaiwa. It begins with a discussion of the concept’s emergence, with particular attention to the Pacific region, and examines other sites where the term has shed light on tourism and militarism’s collusions. In addition, the review considers scholarship that works with and through the term militourism, but which do not necessarily engage with its specific analytic. The review also examines the centrality of race, indigeneity, and gender in militourism’s analytical scope, and notes how its origins in the militarized Pacific necessarily tether the term to land and decolonial struggles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2495192AbstractThe global rise of heritage tourism has intensified struggles over the ownership, meaning, and spatial governance of religious sites, yet the contested interplay of ideology, power, and sacred space remains understudied. This article addresses this gap through a longitudinal analysis of China’s Famen Temple, where two decades of state‑led tourism development have reconfigured sacred space through historical reinterpretations, institutional transformations, and spatial negotiations. Drawing on critical heritage studies and qualitative fieldwork, the study reveals how official discourses strategically reframe religious pasts to align with contemporary economic and ideological agendas, manifesting in spatial restructuring, ritual commodification, and redistributed power among stakeholders. Heritage tourism here emerges as a contested process: state and commercial actors leverage tourism for territorial control and economic growth, while monks and local communities navigate, resist, and adapt to these changes. The tensions between economic imperatives, religious traditions, and authoritarian governance illustrate that sacred sites are neither passively secularised nor sacralised but continually redefined through socio‑spatial contestation. By framing religious heritage as arenas of political negotiation, this study advances critical debates on tourism’s role in spatialising state power, arguing that such transformations reflect broader global struggles over cultural legitimacy, authority, and the right to define “heritage” itself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2502507AbstractThis paper utilises bibliometric data on peer-reviewed publications to examine the characteristics and dominant narratives in overtourism research to date. Departing from earlier state-of-the-art reviews, it introduces a spatial perspective with a distinct focus on spatial processes and geographical scales. The analysis identifies six overarching themes in the literature, which predominantly centre on metropolitan contexts and are characterised by a normative critique of tourism. While the literature often identifies the causes of overtourism at either the global or local scale, proposed solutions tend to emphasise local-level responses, particularly through planning and destination management. The paper makes two key contributions: first, it highlights the need to broaden overtourism research beyond its current urban and metropolitan focus to encompass a wider range of geographical contexts; second, it emphasises the significance of engaging with geographies of scale to address overtourism not merely as a local planning challenge, but as a structural and systemic issue demanding multi-scalar interventions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2404643 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2515098AbstractTourism is vital in ensuring thriving communities in peripheral areas of the Arctic. However, many Arctic destinations have seen a dramatic increase in visitors, raising concerns about their ability to withstand tourism pressures. Simultaneously, socioecological systems in the region are undergoing rapid transformations with significant implications for future development. This study, based on qualitative research conducted from 2020 to 2024, explores how tourism actors at Arctic destinations navigate these changes and engage with various scales of tourism governance. Our findings highlight divergent approaches to governance: Svalbard’s top-down regime focuses on strict environmental preservation but faces resistance from local tourism actors, while Greenland is prioritizing tourism as a development strategy, aiming to balance national goals with local community needs. Despite differing views on regulation, tourism actors in both destinations seek greater involvement in tourism decision-making. We argue that employing place-based, collaborative, and adaptive governance approaches is essential to address common challenges such as sustainability, climate change, and (over)tourism in Arctic regions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2516098AbstractIndividual preferences are known to be influenced by people’s lived experience at home and on holidays, however, the factors contributing to higher or lower resource demands by hotel guests are not well understood. We advance a practice-based ‘Resource Cultures’ framework and examine the daily energy and water consumption rates of hotel guests from geographically diverse climates vacationing at a ecolodge in tropical North Queensland, Australia. Specifically, guests’ (n = 395) ‘home’ climate zone and continental origin, as a proxy for cultural background, are examined as potential drivers of resource consumption. The results show that climatic origin is a stronger determinant of resource use than cultural origin. Guests originating from tropical and arid climate zones used significantly more water and energy than those from warm temperate zones. Electricity consumption was highest among guests from humid tropical and subtropical climate zones, whilst those from arid climate zones used the most water. The findings provide empirical evidence of the influence of origin-related drivers of resource consumption patterns with tangible implications for accommodation providers. Considering guests’ climatic and cultural origins in targeted pro-environmental communication will enhance the effectiveness of operators’ sustainability programs. Furthermore, these factors should be considered when benchmarking resource use among comparable hotels. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2519331AbstractProjects are a standard strategy for rural tourism development. This study builds on the premise that sustainable rural tourism is conditioned by the involvement of key stakeholders and entrepreneurs’ ability to creatively and responsibly utilise local resources for tourism purposes. Accordingly, this research explores the project format as a framework for facilitating engagement and entrepreneurship. The empirical context is Visit Village, a collaborative tourism initiative in rural Sweden. This qualitative case study has followed the Visit Village project closely for nearly three years. Data was collected from observations, reviewing documents, in-depth interviews, and informal conversations. The analysis focused on the actors involved in the project, their respective roles, and the interactions between them. This study applies the Civic Wealth Creation (CWC) theoretical framework for stakeholder engagement. The framework directs the analysis to the meso level of the entrepreneurial ecosystems, where interactions generate value and promote positive social impact. The findings indicate that projects can be a fruitful setting for entrepreneurship by providing access to resources, knowledge, and support and forming communities and creative spaces; concurrently, the findings corroborate the difficulty of involving key stakeholders. The intricacy seems to lie in the incompatibility of the project format and the modus operandi of small-scale entrepreneurs and the local community. The analysis suggests generating a sense of progression, kinship, and ownership to adjust the project to the stakeholders’ logic of action. Owner-managers of local tourism businesses emerge as natural CWC promoters, and the study recommends entrusting embedded and entrepreneurial individuals with formal responsibilities in tourism projects. The analysis also underlines the need for project leaders to redefine their roles throughout the process. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2504039AbstractAirbnb research has focused primarily on a small number of Western countries. This study examines Airbnb and its hosts in a destination in the Global South—Bocas del Toro, Panama. Through an exploration of the nexus between Airbnb hosting and lifestyle migration, the study introduces the phenomenon of ‘Airbnburbs’—new geographical spaces shaped by external property investment, situated outside major population or touristic centres, and characterized by a plethora of short-term rentals. The research entailed a descriptive case study with two parts. The first part involved analysing the growth and current footprint of Airbnb in Bocas del Toro. Next, interviews with twenty local Airbnb hosts were conducted to investigate their motivations, experiences, and perceived impacts. The findings show that Airbnb has expanded quickly throughout Bocas del Toro, particularly in areas beyond traditional tourist centres. Interviews found that younger hosts were motivated to use Airbnb primarily to minimize work hours and facilitate their desired lifestyles. Hosts also tended to concentrate in ‘Airbnburbs’, often developed by converting forested land into foreign-owned enclaves. Such neighbourhoods were largely controlled by lifestyle migrant entrepreneurs to suit their lifestyle and income demands, while generally failing to create income-generating opportunities for locals. This research suggests ways these spaces might become more inclusive and proposes new areas for future research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2495175AbstractCultural memory, which shapes a collective understanding of historical experiences and influences identity, is crucial in the Indigenous context but has been understudied in tourism. This study examines the role of the Guthi system, a cultural space of Indigenous Newars from Khokana, Nepal, in the construction and sustenance of cultural memory across time and location. Employing a multi-phased qualitative approach, the study reveals how the Guthi system, rooted in the Indigenous Newars’ relational ontologies, integrates spiritual, cultural, and societal elements into a living archive of traditions and practices. The findings elucidate the processes of enacting and sharing cultural memory, demonstrating its impact on collective sensemaking within Indigenous tourism contexts. Moreover, the study identifies key factors influencing this process, including adaptive preferences, path dependence, and Indigenous values, which shape community engagement with tourism opportunities. This novel contribution to Indigenous tourism research illuminates the intricate relationship between cultural memory, collective sensemaking, and the translation of Indigenous knowledge and practices into tourism initiatives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2525815AbstractThe commercial spaceflight industry is progressing rapidly. Yet, there is a lack of research theorising what the spatio-temporal contours of sustainability look like if the biosphere, along with its finite resources and limited ability to sustain continued population growth, constitutes a boundary that can be readily transcended. Informed by the concept of sustainable trajectory, this paper presents a conceptual model that extends the traditional spatial (e.g. national, global) and temporal (e.g. near future, intergenerational) scales that sustainability discourses in geography are typically predicated upon. We conducted a critical narrative literature review to analyse the implications of space tourism in the context of sustainable trajectory. Our analysis highlights deep tensions between the perspectives of sustainability typically promulgated in academic spheres and the path dependencies currently being formed by private spaceflight companies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2506523?src=AbstractThe ‘working holiday’ model of youth mobility has evolved alongside backpacking in recent decades. Increasingly, backpackers on working holidays are seen as a potential labour source in many nations, due to the flexible and highly mobile capacity which suits much agricultural work. We discuss the evolution of Australia’s Working Holiday Maker visa program, which highlights the tensions between tourism, labour, and migration. The term ‘backpacker’ is widely used in Australia interchangeably with the ‘Working Holiday Maker’ visa, identifying both a tourist subculture and what has become an essential migrant worker cohort in horticulture and a staple part of rural tourism and economies. But their presence, and the agricultural industry’s dependence on them, manifests what we identify as a ‘tourism-migration nexus’, that is, where labour chains, tourist flows, and the complexities of bilateral government agreements influence the migration trajectories of these working visitors. We draw on scholarship across backpacking, tourism and migration, in dialogue with recent policy and government inquiries, in order to trace the evolution and changes in the Australian Working Holiday Maker visa and the implications that this has on tourist mobilities as well as longer-term migration journeys. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2516837AbstractThis paper examines the political geography of land use management in developed western economies. It explains why tourism stakeholders continue to struggle to gain legitimacy in many protected area management decisions. The reason is that the politics of public land management, in general, and protected area management, in particular, are highly polarised between well-established stakeholder coalitions that try to influence government policy, but espouse contrasting strong or weak sustainability ideologies. Tourism is a disruptive force that sits awkwardly in this dyad, neither fully belonging to nor alienated from either camp. The net result is that tourism interests are often viewed with suspicion, for while they may share much in common with other stakeholder groups, its unique needs also pose a threat to traditional, long standing inter-organisational coalitions that dominate the politics of public land management. The issue is complicated further by the diverse nature of what ‘tourism’ entails, for the range of commercial activities varies from operators with a strong ecologically based focus, through to higher impact horse and vehicular access tourism and high impact roofed accommodation, resort development and consumptive forms of tourism. As such, tourism stakeholders struggle to gain trust from other stakeholder groups in the political arena. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AbstractSince the launch of Tourism Geographies in 1999, annual international tourist arrivals have surged from 664 million to 1.4 billion, with greater numbers of domestic tourists traversing within borders. Transportation improvements have made travel more efficient, affordable, and accessible, while the digital revolution has introduced social media, the sharing economy, GPS technology, and artificial intelligence to travelers. This forward-thinking collection offers the latest research in tourism geographies, drawing from a collective body of work developed over the last quarter century. During this period, the subfield has evolved from a convergence of geography and tourism studies into a critically engaged, multidisciplinary branch of the social sciences. With roots in social and cultural geography and cultural studies, tourism geographers offer a critical approach to tourism studies, which foregrounds the role of place, space, people, and the environment. This collection illustrates how contemporary tourism geographies scholarship has built on this critical foundation to transcend the disciplinary walls of geography. Tourism geographies has long existed on the verge of disciplinary borders, accounting for the broad range of scholars and scholarship from social science disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, history, environmental studies, and planning, among others. This collection provides essential frameworks for foundational and emerging themes in tourism geographies, deepening understandings of tourism discourse and practice and setting the stage for the subfield’s next act. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2493776?src=exp-laAbstractThis study explores how local communities in Fiji perceive the portrayal of their home in films. Yet little is known how local communities collectively construct and interpret the cinematic representations of their homeland. This is important given the need for local community support for tourism. Through in-depth interviews with 22 Fijian residents, and drawing on social representation theory, the study reveals that locals use anchoring to interpret film depictions through their existing cultural values and experiences. While residents take pride in scenic locations featured in films, they also express disappointment, confusion, and concern over the lack of cultural authenticity and the perpetuation of stereotypes. These social representations shape how locals engage with film-induced tourism and influence their relationships with visiting film-induced tourists. The findings highlight the importance of cultural sensitivity and collaboration with local experts in film production to ensure an accurate and respectful portrayal that aligns with the host community’s collective identity and shared understanding of their land and way of life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2502997AbstractThis paper explores the intersection of dark tourism and spectral geographies, offering a critical examination of how spaces of death, disaster, trauma, and painful memories are shaped by hauntings and spectral presence. Drawing on hauntology and the work of Derrida, as well as on work in spectral geographies, it proposes spectrality not as a metaphor to analyse places connected with literal ghosts and supernatural presence, but as an analytical framework that reconfigures our understanding of temporality, spatiality, and presence within dark tourism sites. This article, as introduction to a collection of works on the nexus between dark tourism and spectral geographies, argues that spectrality offers a qualitative and transformative rethinking of dark tourism, revealing how disruptions in linear understandings of absence and presence, and past-present-future temporalities can produce sites that are emotionally and politically charged, and ethically complex. The collection interrogates how ghostly traces—whether of colonialism, disaster, or ecological loss—complicate linear historical narratives. It positions spectrality as a transformative and generative lens through which to engage with dark tourism’s critical potential in negotiating memory, justice, and intergenerational trauma. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2495179AbstractMacau is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) located in the south of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Settled by the Portuguese it was the last European colony in Asia. Over the centuries as a maritime city Macau saw its fortunes coming as trade boomed in the 16–17th centuries; however, with the establishment of Hong Kong as a port city the importance of Macau decreased. The authorities resorted to gaming and tourism as key sources of tax revenues eventually in 2000s becoming ‘Las Vegas’ of Asia. As the pandemic hit China and the rest of the world, Macau was isolated, gaming revenues declined temporarily and the Macau authorities decided to diversify its offer of tourist attractions. Although Macau has already been recognised as a UNESCO heritage site with a well-preserved historic core since 2005, two new attractions were developed to help reposition Macau as a city with a rich cultural history. The two new sites that opened in 2023 were the long abandoned Iec Long firecracker factory (益隆炮竹厂) in Taipa and dilapidated Lai Chi Vun shipyards in Coloane. Iec Long firecracker factory is unique, as it blends an interface with nature (green space dominated by the century old trees), a public space and interpretative displays of how the industrial activities were performed. In this paper we use mixed methods approach to provide a ‘thick description’ of Iec Long firecracker factory as an interplay of affective and material elements. Drawing on the existing literature we further advance how assemblage thinking can contribute to analysis of industrial heritage sites as tourist attractions. Additionally, drawing on the first-hand empirical data and the context of ongoing urban revitalization in Macau we scrutinise heritage-tourism dichotomy and demonstrate how we can better understand the meanings of heritage co-created from below. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2462222AbstractOver the past twenty-five years, conceptualisations regarding where, when and how tourists travel have undergone profound changes. For many years, surveys, maps relying on tourists’ recall, and physical surveillance were the only means through which the mobility of tourists could be tracked. The internet, cellular phone networks and satellite-based technology has facilitated new methods to collect data, including Bluetooth tracking, Wi-Fi tracking, mobile phone data, social media and GPS location-based data. It has also facilitated new forms of data, including big data, real-time data collection and continuous tracking data. Moreover, it has enabled new forms of data analysis including automation, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics. As a result of these innovations, researchers have extended theoretical knowledge within tourism geographies, particularly in relation to tourists’ spatiotemporal activity including visitation patterns, activity within specific locations, dispersal patterns and the impact of mobility upon emotions. This paper reviews the history of tourist tracking over the last 25 years, along with conceptual findings that have emerged from innovations in technology. It argues that there have been four stages of tourist tracking, namely: the pre-technology era, the tourist tracking 1.0 era characterised by the emergence of Global Positioning Systems technology, the tourist tracking 2.0 era whereby mobile phone, internet, and location-based technologies were developed, and the recent 3.0 era that is characterised by artificial intelligence, physiological sensors, mobile eye tracking and real time tracking. The paper concludes by highlighting future research needs, including predictive analysis, ethical considerations and use of tracking technology to encourage activity change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2412550AbstractDigital volunteer tourism (DVT) has emerged as a viable alternative to positively impact destinations when travel is impossible during times of crisis. This leaves volunteers, the ‘agents’ in volunteer projects and development work, who might often identify with a destination or specific cause, without a tangible link to the locality. Raising the important question of what role being physically connected to the locality plays in voluntourism; this study focuses on volunteers’ perception of their own impact in an out-of-reach destination. Through online fieldwork during an eight-week internship with a volunteer organisation in Fiji, this paper offers first insights into the phenomenon of digital voluntourism by discussing the role that a link to the destination and a sense of place play in still feeling to be making a difference. Furthermore, this debate reveals whether and how DVT intends to stimulate a sense of belonging of those volunteers to foster their sense of responsibility, while juxtaposing these digital programmes to in-situ voluntourism. This paper, therefore, constitutes one of the first contributions conceptualising the geography of digital voluntourism, arguing that while DVT has its merits in contributing to the sustainable development agenda, the physical distance and isolation from the place where this impact should be felt compromise their feelings of achievement and understanding of the locality even more than in usual voluntourism projects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AbstractHow effective are podcasts in disseminating academic research and engaging audiences beyond traditional scholarly channels? This study investigates the Tourism Geographies Podcast to assess its value as a research communication tool. The objectives were to explore how podcast participation shaped academics’ approaches to dissemination, the visibility and feedback they received, and the comparative benefits of podcasting over conventional outputs. Data were collected from 29 podcast guests across three seasons through written, audio, and interview responses (29.9% response rate). Thematic analysis revealed three main outcomes: the need for simplification and clarity, greater awareness of diverse audiences, and enhanced reflexivity about the broader relevance of research. While large-scale professional impacts were limited, participants reported increased visibility, recognition, and confidence in public engagement. Podcasts were consistently valued as accessible, conversational, and democratic. These findings suggest that podcasting fosters knowledge translation and offers a participatory, socially responsive complement to traditional dissemination. This algins closely with and contributes to the emerging field of Digital Humanities and Social Science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, the Tourism Geographies Podcast editors reflect on the first three seasons, highlighting what they enjoyed most about the producing the podcasts. Further, the editors reflect on different trends in tourism geographies scholarship. Thanks for listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2462777AbstractThe polar areas have long endured as an exotic playground for adventure in the wilderness. Tourism figures have remained low and hence the regions hold a marginal position in the global tourism system. Today, climate change and its significant impact on ecosystems and communities in high latitudes as well as geopolitical change drive attention to the polar regions. Increasing tourist numbers manifest this. While early travel records and diaries are an integral part of the history of exploration, academic research into tourism cannot be found to any greater degree prior to the 1980s This review highlights major traits in polar tourism research to date and identifies potential avenues for future research within the field. It shows that polar tourism research is a well-established orientation for tourism research today. However, great variations are in place, and far-fetched generalizations about the two polar regions are growing increasingly problematic. In this context, geographical perspectives should be utilized in order to understand polar tourism and its repercussions in a wider context of development, on different geographical scales, and even beyond the polar regions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2381071AbstractThe pandemic has drawn attention to the unsustainable nature of tourism, intensifying social and economic inequalities and heightening issues of urban vulnerability. As destinations reimagine their future, a holistic approach that addresses social and ecological perspectives through collaboration, stewardship and environmental ethics is required. Regenerative tourism enables destination communities to develop new ways of thinking and build the capability and capacity to work towards embedding tourism practices and ecological processes that advocate human and non-human health and wellbeing. As the tourist-historic city of York, United Kingdom emerged from the pandemic, practice-led regenerative development was evident in the city’s framework for post-Covid recovery and renewal. Semi-structured interviews with leading stakeholders identified how communities can build sustainable city ecologies through living systems thinking, evidenced through collaborative models of engagement. In York, the pandemic catalysed community stewardship and a re-orientation towards a more inclusive tourism environment. This research demonstrates how regenerative practice principles manifest in the interconnections and the networks that support the distinctive qualities and needs of York’s local communities. The study also contributes to understanding how regenerative tourism approaches support cultural revival, as evident in York. Such approaches to tourism management in historic cities highlights the transformative potential of practice-led regenerative development as a tool for addressing tourism development concerns in urban spaces. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2017.1385094ABSTRACTTo assess tourist motivations at the battlefield site on Kinmen Island of Taiwan, an empirical investigation was conducted. From a convenience sample, we collected 437 effective responses of respondents including domestic and international tourists with different cultural background in Kinmen. The structure of motivation was first examined via factor analysis. Then ANOVA analysis was applied to address the influence from demographic aspects such as gender, age, and nationality. Our results show that personal, spiritual, experience, physical, and emotional perspectives are five major sources of motivations. More importantly, age and nationality are confirmed to be two major dimensions to segment tourists in the context of battlefield tourism. Tourists with older age have higher motivations toward the battlefield site in comparison with young tourists. In addition, tourists with different cultural background based on different nationalities are significantly motivated by various motivational factors. The example of Kinmen contributes theoretically to a better understanding of the motivational attributes in a battlefield site, and how they represent a basis for increasing tourist perceptions. The motivational mechanisms and factors explored in this case can be incorporated into marketing strategies. Additionally, our results also provide a viable basis for the tourism authorities concerned to reevaluate the essence of its tourism industry in the context of battlefield resources and attractions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2464101AbstractThis study analyzed tourism history, management, and impacts in the city of Asheville in Western North Carolina, a prime tourism location for over a century. First marketed for its healthful mountain air in the mid-1800s, its proximity to the famed Blue Ridge Mountains remains one of the city’s major attractions. Over the years, Asheville expanded its tourism opportunities and now sits atop dozens of ‘Top 10’ lists. With over 10 million annual visitors, residents have expressed concerns about the repercussions of tourism, including increased cost of living, decreased quality of life, impaired access to natural and cultural sites, and degraded ecosystems. This research explored tourism management and its impacts in Asheville and on residents through an extensive literature review and interviews. Using a regenerative tourism lens, this study developed recommendations for Asheville’s tourism management. To address the growing overtourism repercussions, it is recommended that Asheville take steps toward more sustainable and regenerative tourism management and development. Proposed solutions are presented, including implementing a sustainability pledge, creating a destination stewardship management body, engaging the community, redistributing occupancy tax revenue, and educating visitors. These proposed solutions may apply not only to the situation in Asheville, North Carolina, but also in similarly sized tourism destinations globally that are striving for resilient, regenerative tourism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2330574AbstractThis review summarizes some key moments in the development of ethics in tourism research and practice where three main areas of concern are identified: socio-economic inequalities, cultural discriminations, and more-than-human speciesism. Following a brief historical review, the paper delves into some current trends and ethical concerns in tourism geographies, which trace back to the utilitarian ethics within which contemporary tourism emerged, after which, and with the growing concerns about tourism’s negative impacts, normative and moral approaches to ethics held sway. Then the paper addresses a critical gap in tourism ethics’ research and practice. With few exceptions, tourism environments are seen as something apart, things to be managed, developed or even protected, where the focus is instrumental on how these environments can be maintained or manipulated for human benefit. This modernization paradigm and its promise of progress through growth, together with a tourism industry that (re)produces colonial structures through neocolonial practices reinforced by neoliberal globalization has contributed to a host of present-day challenges and injustices. We argue that to address the injustices above and current existential crises like climate change, and other threats to socio-ecological well-being, a paradigm shift in tourism thinking is needed. Specifically, we propose embracing posthumanist ethics as a novel, experimental (as against normative or moral), situated (as against universal), and affirmative (as against oppositional) critique of structural injustices and structural power; epistemological pluralism (as against essentialism), acknowledging the relationality proper of indigenous cosmologies and other traditional knowledges (where more involvement from the Global South is needed); and a new materialist ontology that overcomes human exceptionalism and abandons oppositional binary thinking. In other words, what is needed, is an affirmative posthumanist ethics for tourism that is relational, plural and differential. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2446354AbstractThe ‘turn to the sea’ through yachting tourism recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic prompts the relocation of the sea, including its nature and culture, back at the centre of processes of change in selected coastal resorts. The recent revamp of regenerative thinking in tourism offers a theoretical and practical ground on which to consider the development potential of yachting tourism as agent of societal change and coastal resort evolution. Using the Northern Adriatic Sea as a geographical point of reference, and Rimini as an exemplary model of second-generation coastal resort, we used a constructivist variant of grounded theory. Findings show that in the Northern Adriatic Sea area some favourable conditions do exist for the YT sector to contribute to reconnecting humans with the nature and culture of the sea confirming its regenerative tourism potential. Nevertheless, formal efforts to support the needed for a cultural shift, from international agencies to local administration, are undermined by a culture of the sea that is fragmented by the disjointed agendas of distinct sea communitas. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2423155AbstractThis commentary reviews the state of island tourism literature with specific reference to publications in the journal Tourism Geographies. Despite over 44 years of literature about island tourism, the field remains underdeveloped, with several under-researched critical areas, including adaptation, investment, proximity, and small islands. The Western Hemisphere, except the Caribbean, is the most under-researched area for island tourism. Some important island tourism topics include community, culture, disaster, governance, and tour operators. A focused compendium about island tourism is needed to support the sustainability and resilience of these vulnerable and fragile landscapes that are perhaps the most constrained in terms of economic opportunities for viability. A recommendation has been made for the furtherance of island tourism as a separate field within the tourism academy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2446355AbstractToday’s multiple crises call for alternative approaches to tourism and nature contemplation. Neoliberal conservation proposes the commodification of nature as a solution to these crises, for instance, through tourism development in private protected areas (PPA). PPAs combine privatisation with the commodification of nature for tourism, illustrating neoliberal conservation. Critics of neoliberal conservation question these practices, claiming that they foster inequality, enclosure, and people’s alienation from nature, leading to displacement. Alternatively, post-capitalist convivial conservation strives to overcome the human-nature dichotomy entrenched in market-based instruments of mainstream conservation. This study analyses tourism management in PPAs in the Serra the Tramuntana, a protected mountain range in the tourist hotspot Mallorca (Spain). The objective is to clarify whether PPAs can align with convivial conservation by supporting decommodification and commons management. A qualitative method based on interviews and participant observation is used to conceptualise decommodification based on the commons. The results demonstrate that PPAs can contribute to the decommodification of nature contemplation and tourism when responsibility and decision-making are shared through commoning. This paper argues for rethinking tourism through a convivial conservation lens, offering a post-capitalist alternative to mainstream conservation and tourism practices by emphasising commoning as a pathway to decommodify nature. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2381061AbstractThis state-of-the art review provides an overview of feminist analyses of tourism that have been published in Tourism Geographies since 1999. The review first introduces feminisms as political projects, forms of activism, diverse theories, and as ways of knowing that have critically informed tourism knowledge production. It then offers reflections on the development of feminist tourism geographies over the past two to three decades, before outlining several trends that have more recently contributed to feminist understandings of tourism spaces and places. Our review then identifies avenues for future research and for cross-fertilisation between tourism geographies scholarship and scholarship relating to indigenous and decolonial feminisms, feminist political ecologies, and feminist economic geographies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2446356AbstractTourism development can significantly affect the environment and communities in popular travel destinations, often overpowering Indigenous peoples by the sheer dominance of this economic sector. However, the local population can regain control over tourism development in a destination. This paper addresses the research question of how Indigenous peoples can protect themselves as well as their land from the pressures of mass tourism. More specifically, it analyzes the example of the Kanak from the Isle of Pines in New Caledonia, who play a key role in the island’s tourism development, ensuring it aligns with their cultural values and norms. For example, no hotel can be built on the Isle of Pines without the consent of the customary authorities and the Indigenous community. This presents challenges to external investors like Club Méditerranée, the pioneer of the all-inclusive resort model, an innovative approach in hospitality. This paper explores the Kanak community’s resistance to Club Med’s resort establishment in the 1970s, despite pressures from foreign investors and the local government. To answer our research question, we used ethnographic research methods and archival data analysis. Our findings reveal that customary land tenure allows Indigenous communities to maintain ownership of their land while preserving autonomy and control over resources and decision-making processes. The Kanak opposition to Club Med was successful due to three empowerment factors: the broader recognition and adherence to customary law, the emergence of the Kanak independence movement and land restitution claims, and the active involvement of Indigenous peoples in the implementation of tourism projects. This ‘NOvative’ approach – marked by the opposition towards Club Med – allowed the Kanak community to maintain control over tourism development. By adapting it to suit their insular pace and scale, they have demonstrated how Indigenous peoples can shape tourism in ways that respect their customs and lifestyles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2395469AbstractAdvancement of Indigenous rights through tourism requires practitioners and researchers to think carefully about the roles and responsibilities of Indigenous methodologies and decolonising work. In adopting a stance of refusing colonisation, reflections on tebrakunna country are aimed at introducing ways for Indigenous scholars to accommodate both cultural protocol and western scholarship requirements without compromise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2412551AbstractThemed spaces and theme parks constitute of significant human-based desires and linguistic discourses that stabilises/destabilises their social identities and materialities. This paper draws on a relational materialist perspective to examine Singapore’s longstanding themed space, Haw Par Villa, to offer insights into its social and material stability and instabilities. Relational materialism facilitates observations and analysis of interactions of humans and their material worlds on the same ontological plane where human’s agencies are de-centred. Social and material objects are seen to operate in mutually constitutive fashions. The development of a site/theme park and its larger country context are conceptualised here as ‘assemblages’ using DeLanda’s brand of assemblage theory to reveal the operations of human-based ‘desires’ alongside material agencies. Specifically, the desires of the founder and the key discourses related to the founder’s name helped constitute and stabilise the social identity and materiality of the Haw Par Villa through its eventful history of physical destruction, reconstruction, rebranding and reimagining. Despite his eventual non-involvement with Haw Par Villa’s management due to his passing, the founder’s desires and discourses linger on in various forms, resulting in subsequent attempts to rework the identity and materiality of this themed space failing if the attempts are not congruent on some level with the founder’s desires and discourses. This resulted in the failure of first, the state and, subsequently, private endeavours in re-constituting the themed space. In doing so, this paper contributes to a socio-material understanding of the resilience and sustainability of themed spaces. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2381062AbstractDisasters, resulting from natural hazards, have a profound impact on communities and places, revealing vulnerabilities while shaping unique identities. Regenerative tourism offers promise in aiding recovery and revitalization, supporting local economies, and fostering a transition to alternative development approaches. Drawing on emerging conceptual frameworks in regenerative tourism, this paper proposes their application in post-disaster contexts. It explores walking itineraries as potential regenerative practices, embodying spiritual and political acts of re-signifying place. Using the Cammino nelle Terre Mutate case study, which traverses rural villages in central Italy struck by violent earthquakes in 2009 and 2016–2017, the study examines the application of regenerative thinking in post-disaster tourism practices. It illustrates how walking itineraries, when guided by regenerative principles, can facilitate the coexistence of humans and the environment, which includes natural hazards as intrinsic components of a dynamic living system. This study highlights the role of communities in enhancing system capacity, revealing the inherent potential of affected areas beyond recovery, and paving the way for tourism as part of a regenerative process. However, tourism’s effectiveness depends on nurturing a regenerative mindset and harnessing transformative capacities to stimulate local economies and imaginaries, prompting a re-evaluation of tourism’s role in local development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2372114AbstractJustice is integral in transformative tourism approaches that call for a complete restructuring of the travel and tourism sector worldwide. While justice through alternative tourism models promotes responsible, sustainable transitions in the tourism sector, these models are frequently informed by a perceived binary between the social and the environmental and long-held patterns of West-centric thought and West versus ‘the rest’ power dynamics, found both in tourism theory and practice and within justice frameworks. In this article, we explore the potential of the regenerative development paradigm to bridge these divides and adopt a pluriversal lens to devise a more just practice of tourism. The holistic, transformative tenets and pluralistic perspective of regenerative development and tourism are used to build a novel framework for justice. The framework’s capacity to analyse, unlock and catalyse place regeneration in different knowledge systems and restore just relationships has been leveraged in two rural areas in Colombia and Ecuador. Collecting data through mixed qualitative methods that combine reflexive ethnography with in situ and online interviews, we identified actions taken to address local inequalities and challenges while fostering pathways to the systemic transformation of residents’ livelihoods. These place-specific actions inspired by ancestral traditions have revitalised the areas’ ecosystems, including local human communities and the latter’s tourism activities. The discussion of results examines the potential of pluriversal regenerative development and tourism principles grounded in diverse knowledge and ethics frames to guide actions for systemic social and environmental justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.