As 2018 marks the 20th volume of Tourism Geographies, it is timely to reflect upon the contribution of geography to tourism studies. Geography is the ideal discipline to study the global tourism industry given tourism's distinct place, time, distance and activity patterns (Meyer-Arendt & Lew, Citation2003) which transform the economy and environment of visited places. As such, geography which ‘synthesizes both the social sciences and physical sciences in its understanding of places, regions and the world in which we live’ (CitationTourism Geographies, n.d.) has been one of the earliest disciplines to influence tourism research. In their study of tourism doctoral research in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand from 1951 to 2010, Weiler, Moyle, and McLennan (Citation2012) found that the earliest tourism dissertation/thesis was a geography one completed at Clark University in the US in 1951. Geographers have subsequently developed some of the most influential conceptual models for explaining tourism development including resort morphology, the tourist-historic city, and the tourist area life cycle. With a strong emphasis on place and space, they have also made the most sustained contributions to the study of environmental dimensions of tourism and have been major contributors to tourism research regarding sustainability, development, entrepreneurship and innovation, and poverty (Hall & Page, Citation2009). Geography's foundational role in tourism studies can be seen in over one-third of the most cited tourism scholars from 1970 to 2007 having graduate qualifications in geography (McKercher, Citation2008).
Compared to geographic knowledge as a whole, tourism geography is more cosmopolitan in terms of the country of case study, with the Anglo-American axis being far less dominant in tourism geography (Gibson, Citation2008). This cosmopolitanism can also be seen in tourism geography presentations at national geography association conferences, publications, and particularly in Tourism Geographies, which was founded in 1999 as the key journal and home for the global community of tourism geographers. Tourism Geographies features research far beyond the Anglo-American axis in each issue and through regionally focused special issues such as the recent ‘Theme Park Experience in East and South Asia’. With its English-language overviews of research from France (Lazzarotti, Citation2002), Germany (Kreisel, Citation2004), and China (Xu, Zhang, & Lew, Citation2014), the journal has also highlighted research contributions of tourism geography scholars publishing in their own languages that the wider community of tourism scholars might otherwise be unaware of. Tourism Geographies has not only drawn attention to geographers’ past research achievements, but also to new ideas, models, and paradigms through its new Research Frontiers section, which features research frameworks, theoretical perspectives, leading insights, and literature summaries.
As tourism as a field of academic study has grown, it has become increasingly multidisciplinary. Its disciplinary breadth and multidisciplinarity may be indicative of tourism studies’ maturation and strength (Weiler et al., Citation2012). However, such disciplinary breadth may not be entirely positive. With the growth of environmental studies and tourism programs, the number of tourism theses from geography and economics, two of the earliest disciplines to influence doctoral tourism research, has declined (Moyle, Weiler, & McLennan, Citation2013). The decline in the absolute and relative numbers of geographically informed theses could lead to a reduced supply of graduates able to conduct tourism research informed by geographic theory and to the increased employment of researchers with desirable spatial skills/GIS, but with little or no tourism background. On this 20th volume anniversary of Tourism Geographies, the journal fostering tourism geography research and tourism geographers worldwide, it is important to highlight tourism geography's past, present and future role as a bridge between disciplines as well as a significant contributor to tourism research with its strong spatial focus and synthesizing approach (Butler, Citation2004).
References
- Butler, R. (2004). Geographical research on tourism, recreation and leisure: Origins, eras, and directions. Tourism Geographies, 6(2), 143–162.
- Gibson, C. (2008). Locating geographies of tourism. Progress in Human Geography, 32(3), 407–422.
- Hall, C. M., & Page, S. J. (2009). Progress in tourism management: From the geography of tourism to geographies of tourism – A review. Tourism Management, 30, 3–16.
- Kreisel, W. (2004). Geography of leisure and tourism research in the German-speaking world: Three pillars to progress. Tourism Geographies, 6(2), 163–185.
- Lazzarotti, O. (2002). French tourism geographies: A review. Tourism Geographies, 4.2, 135–147.
- McKercher, B. (2008). A citation analysis of tourism scholars. Tourism Management, 29(6), 1226–1232.
- Meyer-Arendt, K. J., & Lew, A. A. (2003). Recreation, tourism and sport. In G. L. Gaile & C. J. Willmott (Eds.), Geography in America at the dawn of the 21st century (pp. 524–540). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Moyle, B. D., Weiler, B., & McLennan, C. (2013). The disciplinary influence of economics and geography in tourism doctoral research. In N. Kozak & M. Kozak (Eds.), Tourism research: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 79–94). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Tourism Geographies (n.d.). The aims, scope & history of T ourism G eographies. Retrieved from http://www.tgjournal.com/aims–scope.html
- Weiler, B., Moyle, B. D., & McLennan, C. (2012). Disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(3), 1425–1445.
- Xu, H., Zhang, C., & Lew, A. A. (2014). Tourism geography research in China: Institutional perspectives on community tourism development. Tourism Geographies, 16(5), 711–716.