Critical Issues in Tourism

Few industries have expanded faster over the last fifty years than tourism. Tourism has brought employment to millions, frequently in the poor and more remote parts of the world, and given pleasure, variety, rest and recreation to countless numbers of travelers and holiday-makers. It has at the same time destroyed and polluted pristine environments, threatened local cultures, and in doing so, frequently devalued just those characteristics of a place that had made it a desirable tourist objective. The issues that tourism raises are of critical and vital importance throughout the world: this book provides a much-needed geographical perspective upon them. The authors focus on both the production and consumption of tourism, and show that it is this interrelationship which holds the key to understanding the ways in which tourism shapes, and reshapes, human and physical environments. They analyze the key features of the tourism and leisure industries, and place them in the context of changing social, political and economic structures and behavior. The argument is accompanied throughout by illustrative case studies, drawn from a wide range of countries, including both the developed and developing economies.