GEO 106 Chapter 1-41: pg1-41
18 Jun 2018
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INTRODUCTION
Tourism Matters!
Geographical knowledge is more important than ever
in an increasingly global and interconnected world.
How can a graduate claim to be a learned scholar
without any understanding of geography?
(Susan Cutter, President of the Association of
American Geographers (2000: 2))
Tourism is widely recognised as the world’s largest
industry. The figures on the size and significance
of tourism are staggering. For example, according
to the World Tourism Organisation (WTO 1996),
in 1995:
• World tourist arrivals reached 567 million.
• More than 360 million passengers were carried
on international air services, an increase of 5
per cent over the preceding year.
• International tourism receipts (excluding inter-
national transport) increased by 7.2 per cent
between 1994 and 1995 to US$372 billion.
International fare receipts in 1995 were
estimated at US$60 billion.
• Tourism receipts represented more than 8 per
cent of the world merchandise exports and one-
third of world trade in services.
Five years on the figures were even more incredible
(WTO 2001):
• World tourism arrivals were estimated to have
reached 698.3 million.
• World tourism grew by an estimated 7.4 per
cent – its highest growth rate in nearly a decade
and almost double the increase of 1999.
• Receipts from international tourism climbed to
US$476 billion, an increase of 4.5 per cent over
the previous year.
However, tourism, tourists and their impacts, are
clearly not evenly distributed. Substantial differen-
tiation occurs at a variety of international, regional
and local scales. For example, to continue the
snapshot from 2000 (WTO 2001):
• All regions of the world hosted more tourists
in 2000, although the fastest developing area
continued to be East Asia and the Pacific with
a growth rate of 14.5 per cent and some 14
million more tourists than in 1999.
• Europe, which accounts for 58 per cent of
international tourism, grew by 6.2 per cent to
403 million arrivals, nearly 25 million more
trips than one year earlier.
• Despite the strong dollar, the United States
achieved a growth rate of 8.7 per cent in
international tourism arrivals.
• Africa increased its international arrivals by
1.5 per cent – its poorest growth rate ever.
While Kenya, Zambia, Mauritius, Morocco,
Tunisia and Algeria all enjoyed strong growth,
international arrivals to South Africa and
Zimbabwe, two of Africa’s biggest destinations,
stagnated.
Yet tourism is also highly dynamic and is
strongly influenced by economic, political, social,
environmental and technological change. For
example, following the dramatic downturn in a
number of South-East Asian economies in the
second half of 1997 and early 1998, the WTO
revised its outbound figures for intraregional travel
in the East Asia Pacific (EAP) region from a
previous estimate for 1998 of 8 per cent growth to
a revised estimate of there being no growth, while
in terms of travel from EAP countries to outside the
region the change was from an original estimate of
6.3 per cent growth to a fall of 2 per cent. In
addition, of great significance in terms of outbound
tourism and the overall competitiveness of some
international tourism destinations is the extent to
which the devaluation of some Asian currencies has
served to attract tourists (WTO 1998; Hall and
Page 2000).
At a global level the World Travel and Tourism
Council (WTTC 2000), using a tourism satellite
accounting system, have measured that, directly
and indirectly, the travel and tourism industry
constitutes: 11 per cent of global GDP (US$3,575
billion); supports 200 million jobs worldwide; 8 per
cent of total employment or 1 in every 12.4 jobs.
By 2010, the travel and tourism economic contri-
bution is estimated to grow to 11.6 per cent
(US$6,591 billion) of global GDP and will support
250 million jobs, 9 per cent of total employment
or 1 in every 11 jobs. More recently, the WTTC
(2001a) estimated that by 2011, the travel and
tourism economy will constitute: 11.0 per cent of
global GDP; support 260,417,000 jobs worldwide,
9 per cent of total employment or 1 in 11.2 jobs.
The immediate economic significance of such
figures is to be seen not only in tourist destination
and tourist generating areas but also in those
destinations from which tourists switch their travel
in order to take advantage of cheap prices. How-
ever, changes in the international tourism market
will also be related to domestic holiday travel, as
consumers can switch their travel plans not only
between international destinations but also between
domestic and international destinations. Tourism,
as with other forms of economic activity, therefore
reflects the increasing interconnectedness of the
international economy. Indeed, by its very nature
in terms of connections between generating areas,
destinations and travel routes or paths, tourism is
perhaps a phenomenon which depends more than
most not only on transport, service and trading
networks but also on social, political and environ-
mental relationships between the consumers and
producers of the tourist experience. Such issues are
clearly of interest to geographers. For example,
according to Mitchell (1979: 237), in his discussion
of the contributions that geography can make to
the investigation of tourism:
The geographer’s point-of-view is a trilogy of biases
pertaining to place, environment and relationships.
. . . In a conceptual vein the geographer has trad-
itionally claimed the spatial and chorographic aspects
as his realm. . . . The geographer, therefore, is con-
cerned about earth space in general and about place
and places in particular. The description, appreciation,
and understanding of places is paramount to his
thinking although two other perspectives (i.e. environ-
ment and relationships) modify and extend the primary
bias of place.
Yet despite the global significance of tourism and
the potential contribution that geography can make
to the analysis and understanding of tourism, the
position of tourism and recreation studies within
geography is not strong. However, within the fields
of tourism and recreation studies outside main-
stream academic geography, geographers have made
enormous contributions to the understanding of
tourism and recreation phenomena. It is therefore
within this somewhat paradoxical situation that this
book is being written, while the contribution of
geography and geographers is widely acknowledged
and represented in tourism and recreation depart-
ments and journals, relatively little recognition is
given to the significance of tourism and recreation
in geography departments, journals, non-tourism
and recreation-specific geography texts, and within
other geography subdisciplines. This book therefore
seeks to explain how this situation has developed,
indicate the breadth and depth of geographical
research on tourism and recreation, and suggest
ways in which the overall standing of research
and scholarship by geographers on tourism and
recreation may be improved.
This first chapter is divided into several sections.
First, it examines the relationship between tourism
and recreation. Second, it provides an overview of
the development of various approaches to the study
THE GEOGRAPHY OF TOURISM AND RECREATION
2
of tourism and recreation within geography. Finally,
it outlines the approach of this book towards the
geography of tourism and recreation.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
TOURISM AND RECREATION
Tourism, recreation and leisure are generally seen
as a set of interrelated and overlapping concepts.
While there are many important concepts, defin-
itions of leisure, recreation and tourism remain
contested in terms of how, where, when and why
they are used. In a review of the meaning of leisure,
Stockdale (1985) identified three main ways in
which the concept of leisure is used:
1 as a period of time, activity or state of mind in
which choice is the dominant feature; in this
sense leisure is a form of ‘free time’ for an
individual;
2 an objective view in which leisure is perceived
as the opposite of work and is defined as non-
work or residual time;
3 a subjective view which emphasises leisure as a
qualitative concept in which leisure activities
take on a meaning only within the context of
individual perceptions and belief systems and
can therefore occur at any time in any setting.
According to Herbert (1988), leisure is therefore
best seen as time over which an individual exercises
choice and undertakes activities in a free, voluntary
way.
Leisure activities are of considerable interest to
geographers (e.g. Lavery 1975; Patmore 1977,
1978, 1979, 1980; Coppock 1982; Herbert 1987).
Traditional approaches to the study of leisure by
geographers focused on leisure in terms of activities.
In contrast, Glyptis (1981a) argued for the adop-
tion of the concept of leisure lifestyles which
emphasised the importance of individual percep-
tions of leisure.
This allows the totality of an individual’s leisure
experiences to be considered and is a subjective
approach which shifts the emphasis from activity to
people, from aggregate to individual and from
expressed activities to the functions which these fulfill
for the participant and the social and locational
circumstances in which he or she undertakes them.
(Herbert 1988: 243)
Such an experiential approach towards leisure has
been extremely influential. For example, Feather-
stone (1987: 115) argued that ‘The significance and
meaning of a particular set of leisure choices . . .
can only be made intelligible by inscribing them
on a map of the class-defined social field of leisure
and lifestyle practices in which their meaning and
significance is relationally defined with reference to
structured oppositions and differences’. Similarly,
such an experiential definition of leisure was used
by Shaw and Williams (1994) in their critical exam-
ination of tourism from a geographical perspective.
However, while such a phenomenological
approach to defining leisure, and therefore tourism
and recreation, is valuable in highlighting the social
context in which leisure is both defined and occurs,
such an approach will clearly be at odds with
‘objective’, technical approaches towards defini-
tions which can be applied in a variety of situations
and circumstances (see Chapter 2). Yet it should
be emphasised that such definitions are being used
for different purposes. A universally accepted
definition of leisure, tourism and recreation is an
impossibility. Definitions will change according to
their purpose and context. They are setting the
‘rules of the game’ or ‘engagement’ for discussion,
argument and research. By defining terms we give
meaning to what we are doing.
Even given the subjective nature of leisure,
however, at a larger scale it may still be possible to
aggregate individual perceptions and activities
to provide a collective or commonly held impres-
sion of the relationship between leisure, tourism
and recreation. In this sense, tourism and recreation
are generally regarded as subsets of the wider
concept of leisure (Coppock 1982; Murphy 1985;
Herbert 1988). In the wider context of geography,
Johnston (1985a: 10) argued that ‘Academic
disciplines exist to maintain, further and promote
knowledge’, and this is certainly the case in tourism
and recreational geography.
INTRODUCTION 3
