Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities

IF 2.3 4区管理学 Q2 HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM

Tourist Studies Pub Date : 2019-03-08 DOI:10.1177/1468797619832307

E. Huijbens, G. T. Jóhannesson

{"title":"Tending to destinations: Conceptualising tourism’s transformative capacities","authors":"E. Huijbens, G. T. Jóhannesson","doi":"10.1177/1468797619832307","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relies on an understanding of tourism resources and entrepreneurial activities as pure social constructs, which does not fully grasp the dynamics of emergent tourism realities and destinations’ transformative capacities. We argue for alternative conceptualisations of tourism that equip tourism scholars with the conceptual tools to grasp the plurality of tourism futures. These involve ‘vital materialism’ built on a relational ontology foregrounding the creative life force that permeates us and all that surrounds us. We conclude with outlining the implications this approach has for the discussion of tourism destination development. We argue that these conceptual tools will lay the foundations for ethically sound tourism development in times of global uncertainties from the perspective of people, their commitments and aspirations and the environment.","PeriodicalId":47199,"journal":{"name":"Tourist Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"279 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2019-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1468797619832307","citationCount":"20","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Tourist Studies","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797619832307","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 20

Abstract

This article is a theoretical contribution to inform scholarship on tourism destination development and dynamics. Our point of departure is the prevailing linear ‘economic growth paradigm’ animating tourism development discourse and practice. Through this discourse, people, landscapes, heritage and artefacts become valued as commodities and claims laid to tourism benefits emerge as objective, measurable facts. We contend that this discourse relies on an understanding of tourism resources and entrepreneurial activities as pure social constructs, which does not fully grasp the dynamics of emergent tourism realities and destinations’ transformative capacities. We argue for alternative conceptualisations of tourism that equip tourism scholars with the conceptual tools to grasp the plurality of tourism futures. These involve ‘vital materialism’ built on a relational ontology foregrounding the creative life force that permeates us and all that surrounds us. We conclude with outlining the implications this approach has for the discussion of tourism destination development. We argue that these conceptual tools will lay the foundations for ethically sound tourism development in times of global uncertainties from the perspective of people, their commitments and aspirations and the environment.

查看原文本刊更多论文

走向目的地：概念化旅游业的变革能力

本文是对旅游目的地发展及其动态研究的理论贡献。我们的出发点是流行的线性“经济增长范式”，激励旅游发展的话语和实践。通过这种论述，人、景观、遗产和文物被视为商品，对旅游利益的主张成为客观的、可衡量的事实。我们认为，这种论述依赖于将旅游资源和创业活动理解为纯粹的社会结构，而没有充分把握新兴旅游现实和目的地变革能力的动态。我们主张对旅游的其他概念，为旅游学者提供概念工具，以掌握旅游业未来的多样性。这包括建立在关系本体论基础上的“重要唯物主义”，它强调了渗透我们和我们周围一切的创造性生命力量。最后，我们概述了这种方法对旅游目的地发展讨论的影响。我们认为，从人们、他们的承诺和愿望以及环境的角度来看，这些概念性工具将为在全球不确定时期进行合乎道德的旅游发展奠定基础。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Tourist Studies HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM-

CiteScore

6.90

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Tourist Studies is a multi-disciplinary journal providing a platform for the development of critical perspectives on the nature of tourism as a social phenomenon through a qualitative lens. Theoretical and multi-disciplinary. Tourist Studies provides a critical social science approach to the study of the tourist and the structures which influence tourist behaviour and the production and reproduction of tourism. The journal examines the relationship between tourism and related fields of social inquiry. Tourism and tourist styles consumption are not only emblematic of many features of contemporary social change, such as mobility, restlessness, the search for authenticity and escape, but they are increasingly central to economic restructuring, globalization, the sociology of consumption and the aestheticization of everyday life. Tourist Studies analyzes these features of tourism from a multi-disciplinary perspective and seeks to evaluate, compare and integrate approaches to tourism from sociology, socio-psychology, leisure studies, cultural studies, geography and anthropology. Global Perspective. Tourist Studies takes a global perspective of tourism, widening and challenging the established views of tourism presented in current periodical literature. Tourist Studies includes: Theoretical analysis with a firm grounding in contemporary problems and issues in tourism studies, qualitative analyses of tourism and the tourist experience, reviews linking theory and policy, interviews with scholars at the forefront of their fields, review essays on particular fields or issues in the study of tourism, review of key texts, publications and visual media relating to tourism studies, and notes on conferences and other events of topical interest to the field of tourism studies.