•Explores the role of empathy in tourism encounters and tourism studies.•Collates and reviews the extant literature which has linked empathy and tourism.•Draws on critical discussions of empathy ...outside of tourism studies.•Discusses critically the limitations, risks and possibilities of empathy in tourism.•Suggests questions for taking the links between tourism and empathy forward.
Promoted as an emotional pre-requisite for cross-cultural understanding, the notion of empathy connects with tourism in a variety of ways. This article explores this connection by considering the current and potential role of empathy in tourism encounters and tourism studies. The discussion develops a critical understanding of the positioning of empathy in tourism, highlighting the importance of examining empathy’s limitations and risks. It is argued that important differences lay between an unquestioned or non-reflective empathy and a more ‘unsettled’ empathy, which is reflective and renders possible a productive sense of shame. The article concludes by considering the possibilities of and for empathy within tourism and tourism studies, and by suggesting questions to take the links between tourism and empathy forward.
This article analyses the recent closure of the Uluru climb in the settler colonial context of Australia and reflects on (im)possibilities for doing tourism otherwise to practices and logics of ...coloniality. Tourism at Uluru is embedded within settler colonial map-making, privileging supply side models of consumption at the expense of the Anangu Traditional Custodians. We contribute to the emerging body of research in tourism that argues for a dismantling of colonial logics in practice and theory and discuss the possibilities inherent in forms of tourism led by the Aboriginal custodians. In this context, tourism can promote deeper engagement to place that is ‘more-than-human’, beyond the Eurocentric dualisms of nature and culture, human/non-human/spirit. Unlearning coloniality is key for promoting transformative tourism.
•The article makes a contribution to the emerging critical trajectory of decolonial theorising in tourism studies•Tourism practices and the Tourism Academy more broadly contains assumptions underpinned by coloniality•The recent closure of the climbing of Uluru is explored in relation to the settler colonial Australian identity and processes of map-making framing the coloniality of the tourism gaze•Possibilities for tourism otherwise can lead to transformative encounters with place that can subvert coloniality, through for example unmapping and centring the agency of Indigenous led tourism.
From the British Century of the 1800s to the American Century of the 1900s to the contemporary Asian Century, tourism geographies are deeply entangled in broader shifts in geopolitical power (Luce, ...1999; Scott, 2008; Shenkar, 2006). This paper considers what the transition into the Asian Century means for some of the most urgent issues of our time such as sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, and environmental change. We critique Anglo-Western centrism in tourism theory and call on tourism scholars to make radical shifts toward more inclusive epistemology and praxis. In the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, the significance of the themes addressed are more urgent than ever. The pandemic has hastened claims that the Asian century has further accelerated given the contrasting successes of many Asia-Pacific countries, especially as compared to their Euro-American counterparts (Park, 2020). As critical tourism scholars, we are faced with an unprecedented situation, even as the pandemic looks set to become globally endemic and the true extent of its fullest impacts are only beginning to emerge, with more to surface in the years ahead. That the world faces increasing turmoil is abundantly clear. Yet, amidst the disruption to the everyday, it is hope and compassion, but also political-economic restructuring that is needed to reset the tourism industry in more sustainable, equitable, and ethical directions (Cheer, 2020; Lew, Cheer, Haywood, Brouder, Salazar, 2020; Mostafanezhad, 2020). While in no uncertain terms, the pandemic has forever changed the tourism industry as we once knew it, it is our hope that we can collectively build on the momentum of the inclusive scholarship that Critical Tourism Studies-Asia Pacific is renowned for (Edelheim, 2020; Pernecky, 2020) as we pause to reflect on the possibilities and challenges of tourism in a post-pandemic Asian Century.
The relationship between Critical Tourism Studies (CTS) and Asian tourism research is worthy of research. In particular, the challenges that CTS offers to Asian tourism scholarship and how the latter ...expands the scope of critical thought are areas for consideration. CTS deconstructs mainstream concepts and theorizations and gives voice to the marginalized in the real world of tourism industry and also in the research domain of knowledge creation. How CTS and Asian tourism scholarship are mutually implicated is considered through six exploratory questions relating to principle, language, authorship, concepts, emancipation and pedagogy. Drawing on select literature in Asia, the criticality of extant studies is examined and meaningful directions for further critical scholarship charted. The ultimate goal is to work towards a Critical Asian Tourism Studies (CATS) in which the mutually reinforcing relationship between Asian tourism scholarship and CTS is celebrated, and where research on Asian tourism can be made more theoretical, inclusive and emancipative.
► Definition of tourism as a scientific object with specific complexity. ► A reconstruction of three important moments of the history of tourism studies. ► An acknowledgment of English-, German- and ...French-speaking literature. ► An identification of key issues for interdisciplinary research of tourism.
Tourism is currently a complex and globalised phenomenon with demonstrated socio-economic importance. While tourism is a socially recognised phenomenon, its status as scientific object within an academic field seems to be still in question. We ask the following questions: What is the order of construction of the field of knowledge constituted around tourism? Is it a paradigmatic order or an epistemic order? In what ways do the scientific object’s specificities constitute an important element of understanding of a new episteme? How do different definitions of tourism allow for a reconstruction of the field? This article seeks to summarise the current debate in the light of broader reconstructions of scientific discourse and reflect from an interdisciplinary epistemological perspective.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine mixed methods research (MMR) that appeared in eight tourism and hospitality journals (“Annals of Tourism Research”, “Tourism Management”, “Journal of Travel ...Research”, “Journal of Sustainable Tourism”, “International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management”, “International Journal of Hospitality Management”, “Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management” and “Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research”) from 1998 to 2019.
Design/methodology/approach
This review paper was a mixed methods design and was conducted in three phases. In the first phase, a content analysis was performed to determine if each article could be classified as non-empirical, qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In the second phase, descriptive statistics was used to present the number and characteristics of MMR articles. In the third phase, the contributions of MMR to addressing particular issues in tourism and hospitality studies were investigated.
Findings
This study identified 753 mixed methods articles, wherein 482 articles (64%) were published in the chosen tourism publication outlets and 271 (36%) in the chosen hospitality publication outlets. MMR studies having a dominant focus on specific methods (459 articles; 61%) outnumbered those having an equal focus on the qualitative and quantitative parts (294 articles; 39%). In case one method was dominant, this was typically the quantitative. Sequential data collection was prevalent in most of the cases (94.2%). The contributions of MMR to addressing generic and specific research problems were also analyzed.
Originality/value
This is the first comparison of MMR in major tourism and hospitality journals.
Age has a significant influence on environmental attitudes and behaviour but there is no consensus on the effect that generational cohort has on these attitudes and behaviour. Using the New ...Environmental Paradigm (NEP) as the theoretical lens, this study evaluates whether Gen Z is similar or different to three other generations (Gen X, Y and Baby Boomers) on their environmental attitudes toward travel. The sustainability practices that these generational cohorts undertake during their travel are also evaluated. Based on 615 useable surveys of international visitors to the Canterbury region of New Zealand, we identify segments of visitors based on environmental attitudes and behaviour toward travel and generational cohort using a two-step clustering procedure. The results confirm inter-generational differences in environmental attitudes and travel behaviours but also highlight intra-generational differences. Gen Z tourists are more likely to belong to "Environmental" or "Mixed-Bag Environmental" segments that are more likely engage in sustainable practices related to resource saving and buying local food compared to other generations. The findings have implications for destination marketing and management.