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1 An Introduction to The
Handbook
Chris Cooper
William C. Gartner
Noel Scott
Serena Volo
The aim of the two SAGE Handbooks of Tourism Management is to publish critical,
state of the art, authoritative reviews of tourism management written by leading
thinkers and international academics in the field. The focus of The SAGE
Handbook of Tourism Management: Theories, Concepts and Disciplinary
Approaches to Tourism is on theories, concepts and disciplines that
underpin tourism management and development, whilst this volume, The SAGE
Handbook of Tourism Management: Applications of Theories and Concepts to
Tourism, takes those ideas and shows how they have been applied to
enrich the subject of tourism.
Each chapter in The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Management: Applications of
Theories and Concepts to Tourism is designed to be a critical, readable
and sometimes controversial account of the development of the literature in each
of the key sub-fields of tourism, as identified by the editors. Each chapter in
this Handbook has been commissioned and written by an internationally
renowned scholars in the field. The chapters are framed as synoptic pieces for
an audience that may be new to the subject – including upper-level
undergraduates, postgraduates, faculty members and practitioners. Each chapter
therefore acts as a comprehensive set of signposts to further information on the
subject. The chapters have been written to cover key areas:
- The development of the field – key milestones, literature,
methodologies, events and writers involved;
- The framing of the field – the current state of the art/thinking and a
clearly legible mapping of the field into main areas of study. In other
words, a comprehensive and timely discussion of where the literature is
now, and why;
- Emerging issues and a future-focused agenda for the field, including any
methodological issues; and
- A comprehensive reference list is provided in each chapter.
As editors, we have ensured that each chapter provides a coherent bounding of the
literature surveyed and that there are justifiable reasons why certain literature is included and other
literature excluded. In addition, the calibre of the authors was a key
determinant to ensure that the analysis of the literature surveyed is complete
in terms of relevant methodologies used in the literature, general conclusions
to be drawn from the literature and current debates surrounding the topic. This
has allowed each chapter to draw reasoned and authoritative conclusions as to
where the literature is (or should be) going and the important questions left to
be asked. Every chapter has been subject to a light touch review by the
editors.
The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Management: Applications of Theories and Concepts
to Tourism focuses upon the applied nature of tourism as a subject area,
moving away from the theoretical and conceptual approach found in The SAGE
Handbook of Tourism Management: Theories, Concepts and Disciplinary
Approaches to Tourism. It opens with a set of chapters examining
contrasting and contemporary approaches to tourism studies ranging from the
mobilities paradigm, through the critical turn in tourism studies and gender, as
well as the debate around tourism for poverty alleviation, to an overview of
tourism education and scholarship and, finally, social tourism. We then turn to
one of the most significant elements of the tourism system – the destination –
examining competitiveness, marketing, destination management organisations,
emerging markets and crisis management.
Parts III and IV of the Handbook are devoted to marketing and the
different tourism product markets. The marketing chapters in Part III discuss
the emergent services marketing logic in tourism and go on to examine products,
experiences and both destination image and destination branding. Part III
continues with chapters devoted to elements of the marketing mix – promotion,
pricing and distribution – leaving discussion of particular product markets to
Part IV.
In Part IV, chapters look at a variety of applications of supply which deliver
distinctive tourism experiences including attractions, the creative economy,
hospitality, special interest tourism, event tourism and business tourism.
Reflecting the structure of The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Management:
Theories, Concepts and Disciplinary Approaches to Tourism, Part V
examines applications of technology in tourism, a rich area of literature that
continues to develop. Here the obvious consideration of Internet and social
media applications are complemented by chapters on mobile commerce, different
tourism realities and tourism futures. Part VI contains a set of chapters on
environmental applications. These chapters cover different environmental
contexts for tourism – natural, built and specific environments such as deserts
and mountains. The Handbook closes with chapters on the host community,
low carbon tourism and corporate social responsibility.
The editors are grateful to all of the authors who have contributed to this
volume, not only for their scholarship and subject leadership but also as they
have been a pleasure to deal with, professional and thorough at all times. We
are also grateful to the staff at Sage who have been hugely supportive and
encouraging of the Handbook – to Matthew Waters as Commissioning Editor
who had the vision for the Handbook, as well as Colette Wilson, Serena
Ugolini and Matthew Oldfield for their support in managing the various chapter
drafts and submissions.
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Part I Approaching Tourism
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2 The Mobilities Paradigm and Tourism Management
Kevin Hannam
Introduction
The management of tourism has frequently been conceptualized as a place bound activity where tourism is sought to be managed by governments for the benefit of both local people and visitors. The plethora of studies into the impacts of tourism, for example, highlight the specific positive and negative influences that tourism has had and continues to have on particular destinations. The mobilities paradigm seeks to challenge this conceptualization by offering a way of thinking through such impacts and management issues as not being fixed in specific places but as being part of fluid networks connected with other forms of mobility including migration, transport use, developments in mobile ICT use, and so on. It also seeks to engage with issues of sustainable tourism which have been at the forefront of tourism management for many years.
Theoretically, the mobilities paradigm also develops a more sophisticated interdisciplinary analysis of movement within societies. It also helps to develop mobile methodologies that are useful to collect and analyse data relating to contemporary social and cultural mobilities, in order to capture the messiness of everyday life. In terms of policy and politics, the mobilities paradigm arguably also helps us to understand and think critically about some of the key ‘problems’ that face societies through the movement of people and things using various informational and communicational practices.
This chapter thus reviews and develops work from what has been termed the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ (Hannam et al., 2006; Sheller and Urry, 2006, 2016; Adey et al., 2013) and what has become known more recently as the study of tourism mobilities (Sheller and Urry, 2004; Hannam et al., 2014; Rickly et al., 2016). Tourism research has paid attention to various forms of human mobility such as migration through, for example, second homes, ancestry tourism and Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR). Developing this, Salazar (2012: 576) notes, however, that ‘as a polymorphic concept, mobility invites us to renew our theorizing, especially regarding conventional themes such as culture, identity, and transnational relationships'.
A mobilities approach further develops such research through a critical approach to our understandings of the complex and dynamic integration of environmental impacts that have been the mainstay of much tourism management research. Tourism research has also considered its relationships with transport previously; however, the mobilities paradigm allows us to develop a more critical perspective on how discourses and practices of ‘freedom', for instance, underpin the contemporary tourism experiences of transport (Freudendal-Pedersen, 2009; Hannam, 2016; Sheller and Urry, 2016). In this chapter I want to specifically examine how the mobilities paradigm can be used for the applied management of...
