Empowerment in Tourism: A Review of Peer-reviewed Literature

Abstract

This article presents a review of the peer-reviewed scholarship that explores the relationship between tourism and empowerment. The concept of empowerment has attracted much interest from social scientists, and we begin by briefly synthesizing those perspectives. Our query of scholarly databases reveals 53 peer-reviewed articles that focus either conceptually or empirically on the topic of tourism-related empowerment. A thematic analysis of these writings revealed five main areas of focus: (1) issues related to local residents, (2) issues related to gender, (3) issues related to employees of tourism and hospitality firms, (4) issues related to disempowerment, and (5) issues related to tourists. We emphasize three main summary points about this literature. First, empowerment is typically assessed via single-shot case studies that focus on outcome rather process. Second, subjects of research on empowerment are not limited to local resident "hosts." Third, although scholars have addressed a related notion of disempowerment, it is not clear whether this exists at the opposite end of a single empowerment continuum or if instead these are two distinct concepts, each occurring along a unique dimension. Finally, we build upon other social sciences and our synthesis of the tourism literature to offer a reconciliatory definition of empowerment as "a multidimensional, context-dependent, and dynamic process that provides humans, individually or collectively, with greater agency, freedom, and capacity to improve their quality of life as a function of engagement with the phenomenon of tourism." We conclude by suggesting several opportunities for further empirical research on tourism-related empowerment.

Antecedents and Outcomes of Resident Empowerment through Tourism

“…Empowerment, a well-established tenet of sustainable tourism development (Robinson & Picard, 2006), is considered a multi-level, interdependent phenomenon functional at individual, organizational, and community levels (Rodrigues, Menezes, & Ferreira, 2017). Aghazamani and Hunt (2017) highlight that research on empowerment undertaken in political science (Friedman, 1992), psychology (Rappaport, 1987), education (Kreisberg, 1988), health studies (Gibson, 1995), and women's studies (Longwe, 2002) has greatly influenced the work in tourism. The importance of resident empowerment to sustainable tourism research (Aghazamani & Hunt, 2017) cannot be understated.…”

“…Aghazamani and Hunt (2017) highlight that research on empowerment undertaken in political science (Friedman, 1992), psychology (Rappaport, 1987), education (Kreisberg, 1988), health studies (Gibson, 1995), and women's studies (Longwe, 2002) has greatly influenced the work in tourism. The importance of resident empowerment to sustainable tourism research (Aghazamani & Hunt, 2017) cannot be understated. This is because empowerment revolves around community members making a conscious effort to discover and analyze problems, seek and implement solutions, and evaluate resultant impacts of tourism (Cole, 2018).…”

“…Zimmerman (1995) further offered that empowerment involves, "efforts to gain control, access to resources, and a critical understanding of one's sociopolitical context" (p. 583).Empowerment is defined as the ability of people, organizations, and communities to gain control over their destiny or determine their own affairs by exerting control over factors that affect their lives (Cole, 2011;Scheyvens, 1999;Strzelecka et.al, 2017;Rappaport, 2002). More recently, Aghazamani and Hunt (2017) offered a more comprehensive definition of empowerment reflecting its antecedents and outcomes as well, stating the concept is "a multidimensional, context-dependent, and dynamic process that provides humans, individually or collectively, with greater agency, freedom, and capacity to improve their quality of life as a function of engagement with the phenomenon of tourism" (p. 335). Some researchers also created typologies of empowerment with as few as two, and as many as six, categories (Moswete & Lacey, 2015).…”

Modeling Residents’ Attitudes toward Short-term Vacation Rentals

“…Multidisciplinary efforts to define empowerment (Friedmann 1992; Rappaport et al 1984) highlight its elusiveness, which Rappaport et al (1984) attribute to its situational manifestation with individuals. Despite these definitional struggles, Aghazamani and Hunt (2017) define empowerment in the context of tourism as “a multidimensional, context-dependent, and dynamic process that provides humans, individually or collectively, with greater agency, freedom, and capacity to improve their quality of life as a function of engagement within the phenomenon of tourism” (p. 343).…”

“…In their assessment of empowerment research across disciplines, Aghazamani and Hunt (2017) delineate the process of empowerment from empowerment outcomes. In the context of tourism, the former realm of research has been traditionally approached through qualitative methods to identify the mechanisms required in stakeholder participation processes to ensure inclusion and representation of the entire community (Idziak, Majewski, and Zmyślony 2015; Sebele 2010; Tosun 2000).…”