Tourism, Capital, and Place: Towards a Critical Geography of Tourism

Abstract

Travel and tourism has become one of the largest industrial complexes and item of consumption in modern Western economies. It is argued here that, to date, geographers studying tourism have done so without fully grasping the fact that tourism is an important avenue of capitalist accumulation. I contend that if this weakness is rectified the geographic analysis of tourism could provide important contributions to contemporary debates in geography, In an attempt to integrate critical theory and political economy into the study of tourism, two themes are developed: the capitalistic nature of most travel and tourism production and consumption; and the contribution of tourism to the analysis of territorial competition and economic restructuring. The core of the argument presented is that the study of tourism assists us to recognise how the social meaning and materiality of space and place is created, and how these representations of place are explicitly incorporated into the accumulation process. To understand how tourism is involved in this, we need a thcorisation that recognises, and unveils, tourism as a capitalistically organised activity driven by the inherent and defining social dynamics of that system, with its attendant production, social, and ideological relations.

The Dynamic Role of Entrepreneurs in Destination Development

“…Authors such as Shapero (1981) and Pearce (1995) suggest that entrepreneurship provides communities with the diversity and dynamism that assures continuous development and its influence may extend beyond individual development projects to stimulate others to undertake development. Britton (1991) clarifies how the building of just one hotel in an area can trigger further development because it provides a base from which further construction can proceed and signals a confidence in the location. Hall (2004) similarly acknowledges that innovation in New Zealand has occurred primarily because of champions and individual innovators who have been able to generate local interest and involvement.…”

Tourist attitudes towards water use in the developing world: A comparative analysis

“…Water equity also connects with many wider issues of tourism and development, notably the debate over how western tourism interests exploit the developing world, as highlighted by Britton (1982Britton ( , 1991. This political economy approach acts as a means to understand, theorise and rationalise the tourism economies built around mass coastal tourism in fragile and vulnerable coastal tourism communities, particularly in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (UNWTO 2012).…”

Tourism Development: A Geographical Perspective

“…These guidelines give scholars, governments and institutions a means to not only measure the growth of tourism within their own constructed borders but also a means to compare them on a global level. Smith (1988) and Britton (1991) argue that much tourism work lacks a theoretical framework, due to the fact that many of the contributors are trained in peripheral fields, and thus are not exposed to the dynamic complex of social and cultural processes, which inundate tourism phenomena. Previous tourism related studies in the literature, which has a significant amount of work revolving around the impacts of tourism, witnessed concepts and theories that were borrowed or adopted mainly from other branches of social sciences, including geography, though, many researchers failed to recognise their origin (Goeldner et al, 2000).…”