Evolutionary economic geography: reflections from a sustainable tourism perspective

ABSTRACT

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) is receiving increasing attention from tourism geographers with over 30 publications explicitly incorporating EEG into tourism between 2011 and 2016. Many of these contributions are conceptual, which is not surprising given the novelty of EEG within economic geography, in general, and tourism, in particular. However, a sizeable number of these are built on detailed case studies, using EEG as an analytical lens rather than as a conceptual point of departure. Thus, many tourism researchers have found that EEG has great potential for understanding change in tourism destinations. In this Research Frontiers paper I critically reflect on this early research of EEG in tourism geographies from a sustainable development perspective. In the cases presented, EEG offers a fresh understanding of two related challenges in each of two separate aspects of sustainable tourism development. First, pro-growth governance models can be disrupted by engaged local stakeholders in order to make tangible sustainability gains but these gains remain precarious over time as pro-growth governance models prove tenacious in the very long-term. Second, regional institutional legacies hamper new path emergence in two ways – through institutional inertia which keeps the region's focus on past success in other sectors and through the (possibly competing) institutional imperatives of the dominant and emerging tourism sub-sectors or sub-regions. These challenges are illustrated through two complementary Canadian cases drawn from the extant literature – the mass tourism destination of Niagara and the resort community of Whistler. I highlight how a sustainable tourism perspective can also help to critique EEG theory and empirics in line with other recent political economy critiques in economic geography. I conclude that sustainable tourism, at its best, is an established reflexive lens which will help to develop, validate, and challenge aspects of EEG theory within tourism studies, in particular, and economic geography, in general.

摘要

演化经济地理学逐渐引起旅游地理学者的关注, 在2011–2016期间有30多篇文章明确地把演化经济地理学融合进旅游研究中。这些文章多是概念性的文章, 这一点也不意外, 这是因为演化经济地理学即使在经济地理学中也是一个比较新的研究领域, 更不要说在旅游研究中了。但是, 这些文章中有相当一部分是建立在详细的案例研究基础上, 把演化经济地理学作为分析工具, 而不是研究的概念起点。因此, 很多旅游研究人员发现, 演化经济地理学对于理解旅游目的地的变化有很大潜力。 在本研究前沿文章中, 我从可持续发展的视角批判性地反思了演化经济地理学在旅游地理学方面的早期研究。在本部分的案例研究中, 演化经济地理学对于理解可持续发展中两个相关的挑战提供了新鲜的理解:第一, 当地旅游发展的利益相关者为了获取可见的持续性收益, 造成前增长管制模型会受到当地地方利益相关者的干扰。虽然该模型从长期来看是强韧的, 但是可持续性收益随着时间发展表现出不确定性。第二, 区域制度以两种方式阻碍新路径的出现, 一是制度惯性, 使该区域聚焦于其它部门过去的成功经验;二是主导性旅游分部门或亚区域与新出现旅游分部门或亚区域的 (可能是竞争性的) 制度性强制力。这些挑战通过取自现有文献的两个互补性的加拿大案例 (尼亚加拉大众旅游目的地和惠斯勒度假胜地社区) 进行了说明。我强调可持续旅游视角如何有助于评论经济地理学中与其它晚近政治经济学有关的演化经济地理学理论与实证结果。我发现, 可持续旅游充其量可以作为一个明确的、反思性的透镜, 助于发展、验证与挑战经济地理学特别是旅游研究中演化经济地理学理论。

KEYWORDS:

• Development
• evolutionary economic geography
• institutions
• Niagara
• sustainable
• tourism
• Whistler

关键词:

• 发展
• 演化经济地理学
• 制度
• 尼亚加拉
• 可持续
• 旅游

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patrick Brouder

Patrick Brouder is a Banting postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, Brock University, Canada. He is also a senior research fellow at the School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and an associate researcher at the Department of Tourism Studies and Geography, Mid Sweden University, Sweden.