Challenges in Tourism Research

This book grabs your attention by probing into several of tourism's most intriguing and lively debates. It brings together contributions by leading tourism researchers about several of the subject's more important tensions, dilemmas, ambiguities and disputed relationships. It succeeds in encouraging readers to think more deeply and in more nuanced ways about tourism. -- Bill Bramwell, Emeritus Professor, Sheffield Hallam University, UK In this stimulating volume, 37 leading scholars explore 11 carefully identified conceptual and definitional paradoxes of tourism. The juxtaposition of propositions with counter-arguments provides the reader with different perspectives and with highly focused insights into the knottiest of tourism problems. The search by the editor, Professor TV Singh, for scholarly convergence is challenging, worthwhile and rewarding. -- Brian King, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong The first strength is the focus of the volume. It is not ''everything tourism" and that is arguably a good thing. The coverage of topics is oriented towards tourist experience, tourism development, and planning issues with a solid substrate about sustainability (...) A second strength of the work lies in its educational value. The topics covered could serve a tourism development and planning course very well. Initial context statements, concluding remarks, and discussion questions reinforce the value of the work for students. -- Philip L. Pearce, James Cook University, Australia * Annals of Tourism Research 61 (2016) 268-278 * The book serves as a highly welcome collection of texts that help us to understand these well-selected research challenges and related nuances. We look forward to the next 'fruits'. -- Jarkko Saarinen, University of Oulu, Finland * Annals of Leisure Research, 2016 * This book will provide the reader with an interesting insight into various tourism challenges. These are united under the umbrella of 11 theme-based chapters, which are discussed and debated across a total of 40 papers. The titles of the themes very well reflect some of the key issues of the multidisciplinary nature of tourism research. Although the editor is right in acknowledging that the first chapters are more appropriate for those at the beginning of their tourism careers (being either academic- or business-oriented), I would like to add that these are a must-read also for established researchers and practitioners, since here and then we all need to be reminded of the origin of the concepts we usually take for granted. -- Tina Segota, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia * e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol.12, No. 5/6 2015 * The book is an accessible, well-organised, informative, and sets itself apart from other tourism issue volumes because of its unique methodology. There is critical insight here, and it is reassuring that many of the authors not only call for change, but attempt to point us in the direction for change. -- David A. Fennell, Brock University, Canada * Tourism Recreation Research, 2016 *

Tej Vir Singh is Director and Professor at the Centre for Tourism and Development, Lucknow, India. His main research interests are impact studies, tourism geography, education and mountain tourism. He is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Tourism Recreation Research and has worked in the field for over 40 years. He was the winner of the 2013 UNWTO Ulysses Prize.

Erik Cohen: Foreword Tej Vir Singh: Preface Tej Vir Singh: Introduction 1. I am a Traveller, You are a Visitor, They are Tourists; 'But who are Post-tourists'? 1.1 Scott McCabe: Are We all Post-tourists now? Tourist Categories, Identity and Postmodernity 1.2 David Dunn: Those People were a Kind of Solution: Post-Tourists and Grand Narratives 1.3 Natan Uriely: Exploring the Post-Tourist: Guidelines for Future Research 2. Is Tourist a Secular Pilgrim or a Hedonist in Search of Pleasure? 2.1 Dan Knox and Kevin Hannam: The Secular Pilgrim: Are We Flogging a Dead Metaphor? 2.2 Peter Jan Margry: Whisky and Pilgrimage: Clearing Up Commonalities 2.3 Noel B. Salazar: To Be or Not to Be a Tourist: The Role of Concept-Metaphors in Tourism Studies 3. Do Tourists Travel for the Discovery of 'Self' or to Search for the 'Other'? 3.1 Gianna Moscardo: A Journey in Search of Self and the 'Other'? 3.2 Graham Dann: The Quest for the Self or the 'Other' as Motivation for Travel: Simple Choice or Spoiled for Choice? 3.3 Bob McKercher: Tourism: The Quest for the Selfish 4. Is Volunteerism a New Avatar of Travelism? 4.1 Stephen Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small: Volunteer Tourism: Return of the Traveller 4.2 Kevin Lyons: Reciprocity in Volunteer Tourism and Travelism 4.3 Daniel Guttentag: Volunteer Tourism: Insights from the Past, Concerns about the Present and Questions for the Future 4.4 Alexandra Coghlan: Volunteer Tourism: A New Narrative between Hosts and Guests 5. Tourism's Invulnerability: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics 5.1 Julio Aramberri: Is Tourism Vulnerable? 5.2 Richard Sharpley: Tourism and Vulnerability: A Case of Pessimism? 5.3 Carson L. Jenkins: Is Tourism Vulnerable? An Ambiguous Question 6. Vanishing Peripheries: Does Tourism Consume Places? 6.1 C. M. Hall: Elaborating Core-Periphery Relations in Tourism 6.2 David Harrison: Vanishing Peripheries and Shifting Centres: Structural Certainties or Negotiated Ambiguities? 6.3 David Weaver: Moving in from the Margins: Experiential Consumption and the Pleasure Core 6.4 Geoffrey Wall: Tourism in Peripheries 7. Tourism is More Sinned Against than Sinning 7.1 Richard Sharpley: In Defence of Tourism 7.2 Noel Scott: Original Sin: A Lack of (Tourism) Knowledge 7.3 Jim Macbeth: Tourism: The Good, the Bad and the Sinner? 7.4 Peter Smith: In Defence of Tourism: A Re-assessment 8. Is Concept of Sustainability Utopian? Ideally Perfect but Hard to Practice 8.1 Stephen McCool: Sustainable Tourism: Guiding Fiction, Social Trap or Path to Resilience? 8.2 Richard Butler: Sustainable Tourism - The Undefinable and Unachievable Pursued by the Unrealistic? 8.3 Ralf Buckley: Tourism and the Sustainability of Human Societies 8.4 David Weaver: Whither Sustainable Tourism? But First, a Good Hard Look in the Mirror 8.5 Brian Wheeller: Sustainable Tourism: Milestone or Millstone? 9. What is Wrong with the Concept of Carrying Capacity? 9.1 Ralf Buckley: Tourism Capacity Concepts 9.2 Sagar Singh: A Twist in the Tale of Carrying Capacity: Towards a Formula for Sustainable Tourism? 9.3 Gene Brothers: Tragedy of the Tourism Commons: A Need for Carrying Capacities 9.4 Simon McArthur: Why Carrying Capacity Should be a Last Resort? 10. Knowledge Management in Tourism: Are the Stakeholders Research-Averse? 10.1 Chris Cooper: Transferring Tourism Knowledge - A Challenge for Tourism Educators and Researchers 10.2 Lisa Ruhanen: Transferring Tourism Knowledge: Research on Climate Change and Sustainability 10.3 Noel Scott: A Market Approach to Tourism Knowledge 11. Tourism for Whom? - The Unmet Challenge 11.1 Richard Butler: What has Tourism Ever Done for Us? 11.2 C. M. Hall: What has Tourism Ever Done for Us? Depends Where You're Looking from and Who's Looking 11.3 Geoffrey Wall: Tourism has Done a Lot for Us, for Both Good and Ill 11.4 John Sw