Publication Cover
Tourism Geographies
An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment
Latest Articles
109
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Article Commentary

A critical reflection on tourism geopolitics: research progress and future agenda

&
Received 19 Feb 2024, Accepted 05 Jun 2024, Published online: 21 Jun 2024

References

  • Agnew, J. (2004). Geopolitics: Re-visioning world politics. Routledge.
  • Amoamo, M. (2021). Brexit – Threat or opportunity? Resilience and tourism in Britain’s Island Territories. Tourism Geographies, 23(3), 501–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1665093
  • An, N., & Dittmer, J. (2023). The geopolitics of tourism in the Indo-Pacific. Geopolitics, 28(4), 1405–1421. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2023.2200940
  • An, N., Zhang, J., & Wang, M. (2023). The everyday Chinese framing of Africa: A perspective of tourism-geopolitical encounter. Geopolitics, 28(4), 1422–1441. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2020.1807957
  • Baranowski, S., Covert, L. P., Gordon, B. M., Jobs, R. I., Noack, C., Rosenbaum, A. T., & Scott, B. C. (2019). Discussion: Tourism and diplomacy. Journal of Tourism History, 11(1), 63–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2019.1584974
  • Becklake, S., & Wynne-Hughes, E. (2023). The touristic transformation of postcolonial states: Human zoos, global tourism competition, and the emergence of zoo-managing states. Tourism Geographies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2231410
  • Bennett, M. M., & Iaquinto, B. L. (2023). The geopolitics of China’s Arctic tourism resources. Territory, Politics, Governance, 11(7), 1281–1302. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2021.1887755
  • Bhandari, K. (2019). Tourism and the geopolitics of Buddhist heritage in Nepal. Annals of Tourism Research, 75, 58–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2018.12.006
  • Bianchi, R. V., Stephenson, M. L., & Hannam, K. (2020). The contradictory politics of the right to travel: Mobilities, borders & tourism. Mobilities, 15(2), 290–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2020.1723251
  • Burrai, E., Mostafanezhad, M., & Hannam, K. (2017). Moral assemblages of volunteer tourism development in Cusco, Peru. Tourism Geographies, 19(3), 362–377. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2016.1236145
  • Butler, R., & Suntikul, W. (2010). Tourism and political change. Goodfellow Publishers Ltd.
  • Caldara, D., & Iacoviello, M. (2022). Measuring geopolitical risk. American Economic Review, 112(4), 1194–1225. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191823
  • Chubb, A. (2020). PRC assertiveness in the South China Sea: Measuring continuity and change, 1970–2015. International Security, 45(3), 79–121. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00400
  • Dalby, S. (2016). Realism and geopolitics. In K. Dodds, M. Kuus, & J. Sharp (Eds.), The Ashgate research companion to critical geopolitics (pp. 33–47). Ashgate.
  • Davis, S., Munger, L. A., & Legacy, H. J. (2020). Someone else’s chain, someone else’s road: US military strategy, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and island agency in the Pacific. Island Studies Journal, 15(2), 13–36. https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.104
  • Dittmer, J. (2010). Popular culture, geopolitics, and identity. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Dittmer, J. (2014). Geopolitical assemblages and complexity. Progress in Human Geography, 38(3), 385–401. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132513501405
  • Dodds, K. (2007). Geopolitics: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford.
  • Doğan, B., Ghosh, S., Tiwari, A. K., & Abakah, E. J. A. (2023). The effect of global volatility, uncertainty and geopolitical risk factors on international tourist arrivals in Asia. International Journal of Tourism Research, 25(1), 1–62. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2550
  • Dowler, L., & Sharp, J. (2001). A feminist geopolitics? Space and Polity, 5(3), 165–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562570120104382
  • Elliott, A. (2019). Orient calls. Japan Review, 33, 117–142.
  • Enloe, C. (2014). Bananas, beaches and bases: Making feminist sense of international politics. University of California Press.
  • Fan, S.-P. (2010). The effects of China’s tourism diplomacy and a “united front”. China: An International Journal, 8(2), 247–281. https://doi.org/10.1353/chn.2010.a398683
  • Fayard, G. (2023). Theorising the politics of tourism: Global travel and the nation-state. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 51(2), 489–518. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298221142948
  • Franceschini, I., & Loubere, N. (2022). Global China as method. Cambridge University Press.
  • Franklin, A. (2004). Tourism as an ordering: Towards a new ontology of tourism. Tourist Studies, 4(3), 277–301. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797604057328
  • Franklin, A., & Crang, M. (2001). The trouble with tourism and travel theory? Tourist Studies, 1(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/146879760100100101
  • Geary, D. (2013). Incredible India in a global age: The cultural politics of image branding in tourism. Tourist Studies, 13(1), 36–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797612471105
  • Gillen, J. (2024). Tourism geopolitics: Roots and branches. Tourism Geographies, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2332354
  • Gillen, J., & Mostafanezhad, M. (2019). Geopolitical encounters of tourism: A conceptual approach. Annals of Tourism Research, 75, 70–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2018.12.015
  • Gonzalez, V. V. (2013). Securing paradise: Tourism and militarism in Hawai’i and the Philippines. Duke University Press.
  • Goodall, A. (2023). Passing the torch? Anglo-American encounters in the British West Indies and negotiating White Supremacy, c. 1865–1914. Journal of World History, 34(1), 15–45. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2023.0001
  • Hall, C. M. (1994). Tourism and politics: Policy, power and place. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Hall, D. R. (2017). Tourism and geopolitics: Issues and concepts from central and Eastern Europe. CABI.
  • Harden, M. (2023). Unmade in America: The gendered politics of birth tourism in the United States. Political Geography, 107, 102972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102972
  • Hartal, G. (2022). Touring and obscuring: How sensual, embodied and haptic gay touristic practices construct the geopolitics of pinkwashing. Social & Cultural Geography, 23(6), 836–854. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2020.1821391
  • Hashimoto, A., & Telfer, D. J. (2019). Contested geopolitical messages for tourists at the Okinawa Peace Park and memorials. Japan Forum, 31(3), 378–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2018.1451354
  • Hazbun, W. (2004). Globalisation, reterritorialisation and the political economy of tourism ­development in the Middle East. Geopolitics, 9(2), 310–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040490442881
  • Hazbun, W. (2008). Beaches, ruins, resorts: The politics of tourism in the Arab world. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Henry, J. (2021). The geopolitics of travel blogging. Geopolitics, 26(3), 817–837. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2019.1664473
  • Higgins-Desbiolles, F. (2006). More than an “industry”: The forgotten power of tourism as a social force. Tourism Management, 27(6), 1192–1208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2005.05.020
  • Hingley, R. (2023). Diverging Antarctic heritage discourses: The geopolitical ramifications of non-state actor engagement with the ‘state-sanctioned’ version of Antarctic heritage. The Geographical Journal, 189(1), 40–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12383
  • Hipwell, W. T. (2007). Taiwan aboriginal ecotourism: Tanayiku natural ecology park. Annals of Tourism Research, 34(4), 876–897. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2007.04.002
  • Hollinshead, K., Ateljevic, I., & Ali, N. (2009). Worldmaking agency–worldmaking authority: The sovereign constitutive role of tourism. Tourism Geographies, 11(4), 427–443. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616680903262562
  • Huang, X., Xu, H., & Li, X. R. (2022). Spatial development of two villages: Bordering, debordering, and rebordering in a community scenic area. Annals of Tourism Research, 93, 103370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2022.103370
  • Huang, Y. (2022a). Consuming geopolitics and feeling maritime territoriality: The case of China’s patriotic tourism in the South China Sea. Political Geography, 98, 102669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102669
  • Huang, Y. (2022b). Cruising a disputed sea—The geopolitics of tourism in the South China Sea [Doctoral dissertation]. Griffith University.
  • Huang, Y., & Liu, Y. (2023). Encountering and experiencing the geopolitics of tourism (im)mobilities: A case of China’s tourism in the South China Sea. Australian Geographer, 54(4), 545–559. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2023.2261097
  • Huang, Y., & Suliman, S. (2023). Geopolitics, (re)territorialisation, and China’s patriotic tourism in the South China Sea. Geopolitics, 28(4), 1465–1488. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2020.1784144
  • Huijbens, E. H., & Alessio, D. (2015). Arctic ‘concessions’ and icebreaker diplomacy? Chinese tourism development in Iceland. Current Issues in Tourism, 18(5), 433–449. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2013.837867
  • Hyndman, J. (2001). Towards a feminist geopolitics. Canadian Geographer, 45(2), 210–222.
  • Iaquinto, B. L., Bennett, M. M., & Liu, X. (2023). The biopolitics of Chinese tourism governance in the Arctic. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/04353684.2023.2224356
  • Kearns, G. (2009). Geopolitics and empire: The legacy of Halford Mackinder. OUP Oxford.
  • Kelly, P. (2006). A critique of critical geopolitics. Geopolitics, 11(1), 24–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040500524053
  • Lee, K.-J., & Choi, S.-Y. (2023). A comparative wavelet analysis of the differential sensitivities of leisure and business travel to geopolitical risks and economic policy uncertainty: A study of inbound travel to South Korea. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 55, 202–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2023.03.021
  • Lisle, D. (2016). Holidays in the danger zone: Entanglements of war and tourism. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Liu, Y., & Song, Z. (2019). Progress and trends in tourism geopolitics. Tropical Geography, 39(6), 931–941.
  • Mains, S. P. (2018). In/secure conversations: Retheorizing life and debt, tourism, and Caribbean geopolitics. Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 22(3), 90–104. https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-7249174
  • Massaro, V. A., & Williams, J. (2013). Feminist geopolitics. Geography Compass, 7(8), 567–577. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12054
  • Mathews, H. G. (1975). International tourism and political science research. Annals of Tourism Research, 2(4), 195–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-7383(75)90032-8
  • Mayer, M., Bichler, B. F., Pikkemaat, B., & Peters, M. (2021). Media discourses about a superspreader destination: How mismanagement of COVID-19 triggers debates about ­sustainability and geopolitics. Annals of Tourism Research, 91, 103278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2021.103278
  • Melis, C., Wise, N., & Badurina, J. Đ. (2022). Geo-political complexities of governmentality and Balkanism: Deconstructing UNESCO world intangible cultural heritage discourses. Political Geography, 95, 102578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102578
  • Miller, J. C., & Casino, V. D.Jr. (2020). Spectacle, tourism and the performance of everyday geopolitics. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 38(7-8), 1412–1428. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420930722.
  • Miller, J. C., & Del CasinoJr, V. J. (2018). Negative simulation, spectacle and the embodied geopolitics of tourism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 43(4), 661–673. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12244
  • Mostafanezhad, M. (2014). Volunteer tourism and the popular humanitarian gaze. Geoforum, 54, 111–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.04.004
  • Mostafanezhad, M. (2018). The geopolitical turn in tourism geographies. Tourism Geographies, 20(2), 343–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2018.1434820
  • Mostafanezhad, M. (2020). Tourism frontiers: Primitive accumulation, and the “free gifts” of (human) nature in the South China Sea and Myanmar. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45(2), 434–447. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12357
  • Mostafanezhad, M., & Promburom, T. (2018). ‘Lost in Thailand’: The popular geopolitics of film-induced tourism in northern Thailand. Social & Cultural Geography, 19(1), 81–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2016.1257735
  • Mostafanezhad, M., Azcárate, M. C., & Norum, R. (2021). Tourism geopolitics: Assemblages of infrastructure, affect, and imagination. University of Arizona Press.
  • Murphy, A. B., Bassin, M., Newman, D., Reuber, P., & Agnew, J. (2004). Is there a politics to geopolitics? Progress in Human Geography, 28(5), 619–640. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132504ph508oa
  • Oakes, T. (2021). Afterword: A critical reckoning with the ‘Asian Century’ in the shadow of the anthropocene. Tourism Geographies, 23(4), 937–943. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1833973
  • Parker, G. (1998). Geopolitics: Past, present and future. Pinter Pub Ltd.
  • Pfoser, A., & Yusupova, G. (2022). Memory and the everyday geopolitics of tourism: Reworking post-imperial relations in Russian tourism to the ‘near abroad’. Annals of Tourism Research, 95, 103437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2022.103437
  • Pleasant, T., & Spalding, A. (2021). Development and dependency in the periphery: From bananas to tourism in Bocas del Toro, Panama. World Development Perspectives, 24, 100363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2021.100363
  • Rhodes, M. A.II, & Price, W. R. (2023). “A nation built on coal”: Transcalar memory work at the Big Pit. Tourism Geographies, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2253793
  • Richter, L. K. (1989). The politics of tourism in Asia. University of Hawaii Press.
  • Rowen, I. (2014). Tourism as a territorial strategy: The case of China and Taiwan. Annals of Tourism Research, 46, 62–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2014.02.006
  • Rowen, I. (2016). The geopolitics of tourism: Mobilities, territory, and protest in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2015.1113115
  • Rowen, I. (2021). Tourism studies is a geopolitical instrument: Conferences, Confucius Institutes, and ‘the Chinese Dream’. Tourism Geographies, 23(4), 895–914. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1666912
  • Sheller, M., & Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A, 38(2), 207–226.
  • Shoval, N., & Cohen-Hattab, K. (2001). Urban hotel development patterns in the face of political shifts. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(4), 908–925. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-7383(00)00083-9
  • Shtern, M. (2022). Passing as a tourist: Exploring the everyday urban geopolitics of tourism. Political Geography, 93, 102526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102526
  • Sin, H. L., Mostafanezhad, M., & Cheer, J. M. (2021). Tourism geographies in the ‘Asian Century’. Tourism Geographies, 23(4), 649–658. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1826571
  • Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. Routledge.
  • Stoffelen, A. (2022). Managing people’s (in) ability to be mobile: Geopolitics and the selective opening and closing of borders. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 47(1), 243–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12486
  • Su, X. (2024). Security, economy, and the touristification of borders. Annals of Tourism Research, 105, 103734. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2024.103734
  • Su, X., & Li, C. (2021). Bordering dynamics and the geopolitics of cross-border tourism between China and Myanmar. Political Geography, 86, 102372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102372
  • Tribe, J. (2008). Tourism: A critical business. Journal of Travel Research, 46(3), 245–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287507304051
  • Tuathail, G. Ó., & Dalby, S. (1998). Rethinking geopolitics. Routledge.
  • Tuathail, G. Ó., & Toal, G. (1996). Critical geopolitics: The politics of writing global space. University of Minnesota Press.
  • Vainikka, V., Vainikka, J. T., & Prokkola, E.-K. (2024). Geopolitics of mobile masses: Refugee and tourist metaphors in Finnish-Russian bordertown media. Tourism Geographies, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2328608
  • Wang, Y., & Li, X. (. (2021). Human territoriality in P2P accommodation: An examination of guest experience. Journal of Travel Research, 60(8), 1735–1751. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287520964588
  • Wang, Y., & Li, X. R. (2022). Developing and validating a scale of host territoriality in peer-to-peer accommodation. Tourism Management, 88, 104425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2021.104425
  • Weaver, D. (2015). Tourism and the Chinese Dream: Framework for engagement. Annals of Tourism Research, 51, 54–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2015.01.001
  • Weaver, D. B. (2017). Core–periphery relationships and the sustainability paradox of small island tourism. Tourism Recreation Research, 42(1), 11–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2016.1228559
  • Weaver, D., Moyle, B. D., & McLennan, C-L (2023). Geopolitics and touristrategic borderlands: Balancing nationalism and globalisation in Hainan, China. Tourism Management, 95, 104679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2022.104679
  • Woon, C. Y., & Zhang, J. (2021). Subterranean geopolitics, affective atmosphere and peace: Negotiating China-Taiwan relations in the Zhaishan Tunnel. Geoforum, 127, 390–400. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.11.020
  • Xu, L. (2023). The ‘awkward’ geopolitics of tourism in China’s ‘Arctic’ village. Tourism Geographies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2286304
  • Yang, C. (2021). Visuality and violence: Touring the occupied West Bank. Geopolitics, 26(4), 1175–1195. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2019.1656609
  • Zelenskaya, E. (2018). Geopolitics and tourism in the Arctic: The case of the national park ‘Russian Arctic’. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 10(1), 33–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1324861
  • Zhang, J. (2013). Borders on the move: Cross-strait tourists’ material moments on ‘the other side’ in the midst of rapprochement between China and Taiwan. Geoforum, 48, 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.04.014

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.