Tourism: A Critical Business

Abstract

A research and practice gap is identified demonstrating tourism to be an insufficiently critical business. Initially the idea of critical tourism is addressed in two ways. First an array of meanings is exposed from which the idea of critical theory is developed. Next discussion turns to how critical approaches can contribute to good management and governance of tourism by providing understandings that technical rationality can overlook. Finally the limited extent of critical tourism research is established. The article concludes that tourism should be a critical business and offers pointers for such an agenda. For although positivist research informed by technical rationality is crucial to the better operational management of tourism, critical research is essential for setting an agenda for ethical management, governance and co-existence with the wider world. Indeed it is critical to deep, long term sustainability and even the survival of tourism.

Conceptual research in tourism

“…The year 1981 was chosen because although the abstracts were first fully compiled in 1974 only a few articles were collected between 1974 and 1980. *** insert Table 1 about here The proxy terms are listed in the first column of Table 1 and the "wild symbol" of an asterisk is used in the search string in order to pick up different forms of the term (Tribe, 2008). So for example "Concept*" enabled the various forms such as concept, conceptual and conceptualise to be captured.…”

“…Three limitations to this method were identified by Tribe (2008). First, articles having the search terms only in the main body of their texts may be missed because only titles, keywords and abstracts were initially interrogated.…”

“…The second theme, Comparing Concepts, suggests that after a definition is proposed, conceptual research often proceeds with the distinction of concepts, sometimes the comparison of similar concepts and sometimes the contrast of different ones. This can be found in Tribe's (2008) article which clarifies the concept of critical theory by distinguishing it from positivism, interpretivism and constructionism. Other articles compare the definitions of a concept from different perspectives.…”

Epistemologia do turismo: escolas teóricas e proposta crítica

“…A necessidade do desenvolvimento dos estudos críticos em turismo é uma consideração aceita por muitos investigadores na atualidade (Ateljevic, Pritchard, Morgan, 2007;Botterill, Gale, Haven, 2003;Castillo Nechar, Lozano, 2006;Castillo Nechar, Panosso Netto 2010;Dann, 2011;Franklin, 2004, Panosso Netto, Tomillo Noguero, Jäger, 2011Tribe, 2008). Sobre a falta da crítica nos estudos turísticos, Tribe identificou que "uma significativa lacuna na pesquisa tem sido encontrada entre a ausência da pesquisa crítica e os vários temas significativos que requerem seus insights e orientações" e também "verificou-se que a crítica em turismo ainda é marginal em relação a todo o esforço da pesquisa em turismo (Tribe, 2008, p.253).…”

The reflexive journal: Inside the black box

“…These are values-based research, "other" knowledges, under-empowered groups, and extra-metropolitan research. What these examples suggest is that journals may not be operating in an interest free manner (Tribe, 2008) and that it might therefore be prudent to investigate more carefully both the internal complexities and the outputs of these black boxes and the possible relations between these.…”