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Abstract
Tourism and geopolitics are intrinsically linked. However, current studies on the geopolitical facets of tourism are insufficient. This article first reflects on the diversified understandings of geopolitics and how these different interpretations are reproduced in existing tourism geopolitics scholarship. We then elucidate the multiple complicated and intimate entanglements between tourism and geopolitics and highlight the often underestimated geopolitical agency of tourism. Following this, we evaluate the state of the extant research on this topic. Finally, we suggest three directions for future research: (1) deepening theorisation and operationalisation, (2) attending to agency, mechanism, and non-state actors, and (3) adopting a spatially sensitive perspective. In summary, we argue that further conjoining the relatively isolated tourism and geopolitics terrain benefits both disciplines of tourism geography and political geography, and calls for the development of innovative interdisciplinary, theoretical, and methodological approaches to advance the field.
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Yan Huang
Yan Huang is a research associate in the Geography School, South China Normal University. Her research interests lie in the areas of tourism geopolitics, maritime borders, and the South China Sea area studies. Her works have been published in Political Geography, Geopolitics, Australian Geographers, etc.
Yungang Liu
Yungang Liu is a professor in the Geography School, South China Normal University and the creator of the Center for Asian Geographical Studies in South China Normal University. He is a political geographer and has published widely in Chinese, English, and Japanese.