Tourism Geography: Critical Understandings of Place, Space and Experience

346 Pages·2014·3.566 MB·English

by  Stephen Williams, Alan A. Lew

Alan Lew provides a valuable update to the Williams classic, and in doing so brings together
two of the most important voices in the fi eld of tourism. They demonstrate in compelling
fashion that geographers bring a great deal to the study of tourism practices, patterns and
impacts as well as to the ambitious project of creating a sustainable and responsible tourism
industry. Especially welcomed are Tourism Geography’s new interactive online tools and
concluding chapter, which maps emerging critical paradigms in tourism studies – from new
theories about economy, human – ecosystem relations, and the cultural politics of language
to the application of resiliency planning, mobile technologies and place-based information
systems within tourism development.
Derek Alderman, Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, USA
A comprehensive update on the second edition, Tourism Geography remains very well grounded
in current geographic concepts. The expanded global perspectives that Alan Lew has
contributed as a new co-author are welcome additions to Stephen Williams’ excellent
introductory text. Enhanced access to web-based case studies will be an appealing feature for
students and allow fl exibility for instructors to customize relevant examples.
Alison Gill, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Fully revised and updated, this classic text has once again been brought back to the vanguard
of the tourism geography literature. The addition of Lew’s considerable expertise and
experience to this new edition has added further value to Williams’ already strong work.
Tourism Geography has reconfi rmed its status as a bookshelf essential for geographers and non-
geographers with an interest in tourism.
Julie Wilson, Faculty of Tourism and Geography, Rovira i Virgili
University, Spain and University of the West of England, UK
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Tourism Geography,
Third edition
For human geographers, a central theme within the discipline is interpreting and
understanding our changing world – a world in which geographic patterns are constantly
being reworked by powerful forces of change. These forces include population shifts, new
patterns of economic production and consumption, evolving social and political structures,
new forms of urbanism, and globalisation and the compressions of time and space that are
the product of the ongoing revolutions in information technology and telecommunications.
This book attempts to show how tourism has also come to be a major force for change as
an integral and indispensable part of the places in which we live, their economies and their
societies. When scarcely a corner of the globe remains untouched by the in(cid:192) uence of
tourism, this is a phenomenon that we can no longer ignore.
Tourism is also an intensely geographic phenomenon. It exists through the desire of
people to move in search of embodied experience of other places as individuals and en
mass and at scales from the local to the increasingly global. Tourism creates distinctive
relationships between people (as tourists) and the host spaces, places and people they
visit, which has signi(cid:191) cant implications for destination development and resource use and
exploitation, which are exhibited through a range of economic, social, cultural and
environmental impacts that have important implications for local geographies.
This third edition of Tourism Geography: critical understandings of place, space and
experience presents an essential understanding of critical perspectives on how tourism
places and spaces are created and maintained. Drawing on the holistic nature of geography,
a range of social science disciplinary views are presented, including both historical and
contemporary perspectives. Fundamentally, however, the book strives to connect tourism
to key geographical concepts of globalisation, mobility, production and consumption,
physical landscapes, and post-industrial change. The book is arranged in (cid:191) ve parts. Part I
provides an overview of fundamental tourism de(cid:191) nitions and concepts, along with an
introduction to some of the major themes in contemporary geographic research on tourism,
which are further developed in subsequent chapters of this book. In Part II the discussion
focuses on how spatial patterns of modern tourism have evolved through time from
regional to global geographies. Part III offers an extended discussion of how tourism
relates to places that are toured through their economic landscape, contemporary
environmental change and socio-cultural relations. Part IV explores a range of major
themes in the geographies of tourism, including place creation and promotion, the
transformation of urban tourism, heritage and place identity, and creating personal identity
through consumption, encounters with nature and other embodied forms of tourism
experience. Part V turns to applied geography with an overview of the different roles of
planning for tourism as a means of spatial regulation of the activity, and a look at emerging
themes in the critical geography of contemporary and future geographies of tourism.
This third edition has been revised by Dr Alan A. Lew, who becomes the new co-author
of Tourism Geography. Some of the major revisions that have been incorporated include
moving most of the case study boxes to the website http://tourismgeography.com, which
will provide a growing wealth of new case studies, over time. New material has been
incorporated, some of the content reorganised to balance the topics covered, a new
concluding chapter added that explores some recently emerging perspectives in critical
tourism geography, and the text re-written to make it more accessible to a global English-
speaking world. That said, the book is still very much the work of Dr Stephen Williams.
As such, it maintains its original concise yet comprehensive review of contemporary
tourism geography and the ways in which geographers critically interpret this important
global phenomenon. It is written as an introductory text for students, and includes guidance
for further study in each chapter that can form the basis for independent work. Lecturers
using this textbook are welcome to contribute to the book’s content developing through
the supporting website by contacting the author at any time.
More online for Tourism Geography, third edition at
http://tourismgeography.com
Stephen Williams is Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at Staffordshire University,
UK. His extensive interests in recreation and tourism are re(cid:192) ected in his publications,
which include Outdoor Recreation and the Urban Environment (Routledge), Tourism and
Recreation (Prentice Hall) and a four-volume edited work Tourism: critical concepts in
the social sciences (Routledge).
Alan A. Lew is Professor of Geography, Planning and Recreation at Northern Arizona
University, USA. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Tourism Geographies
and his publications include World Regional Geography: tourism destinations, human
mobilities, sustainable environments (Kendall-Hunt) and Understanding and Managing
Tourism Impacts: an integrated approach (Routledge).
Tourism Geography
Critical understandings
of place, space and
experience
Third edition
Stephen Williams and
Alan A. Lew
First published 1998
by Routledge
Second edition published 2009
by Routledge
This third edition published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Stephen Williams and Alan A. Lew
The right of Stephen Williams and Alan A. Lew to be identi(cid:191) ed as authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identi(cid:191) cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Williams, Stephen,
Tourism geography: critical understandings of place, space and
experience / Stephen Williams and Alan A. Lew. – Third edition.
pages cm
1. Tourism. I. Lew, Alan A. II. Title.
G155.A1W49 2014
338.4'791–dc23
2014008107
ISBN: 978-0-415-85443-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-85444-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-74388-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
Contents
List of plates ix
List of (cid:191) gures xi
List of tables xiii
List of more online case studies xv
Acknowledgements xvii
PART I INTRODUCTION: TOURISM AND GEOGRAPHY 1
Chapter 1 Tourism, geography and geographies of tourism 3
PART II THE EMERGENCE OF GLOBAL TOURISM 29
Chapter 2 The birth of modern tourism 31
Chapter 3 International patterns of travel and tourism 51
PART III TOURISM’S ECONOMIC, ENVIRONMENTAL
AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 77
Chapter 4 Costs and bene(cid:191) ts: the local economic landscape of tourism 79
Chapter 5 Tourism, sustainability and environmental change 104
Chapter 6 Socio-cultural relations and experiences in tourism 125
PART IV UNDERSTANDING TOURISM PLACES AND SPACES 147
Chapter 7 Cultural constructions and invented places 149
Chapter 8 Theming the urban landscape 173
Chapter 9 The past as a foreign country: heritage as tourism 199
Chapter 10 Nature, risk and geographic exploration in tourism 217
Chapter 11 Consumption, identity and specialty tourisms 235
viii • Contents
PART V APPLIED AND FUTURE TOURISM GEOGRAPHIES 253
Chapter 12 Planning and managing tourism development 255
Chapter 13 Emerging and future tourism geographies 276
Appendix: a guide to the use of the Internet in tourism geography 291
Glossary 294
Bibliography 297
Index 324
Plates
1.1 Tourism as an integral part of daily life at this subway station
entrance in Singapore’s Chinatown 8
2.1 Near Fraser, British Columbia, Canada on the White Pass and
Yukon Railway 37
2.2 Part of the picturesque landscapes of Brittany that were discovered
by tourists in the second half of the nineteenth century: the river-
front at Auray 38
3.1 Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains are a fast and ef(cid:191) cient way to cover
distances too short to be convenient for airplanes and too long for
comfortable car travel 64
4.1 Tourism development in a dif(cid:191) cult environment: the mountain resort
of Zermatt, Switzerland 85
4.2 A traditional pattern of linear development of hotels and attractions
along the sea front in Eastbourne, UK 89
5.1 Tourists in nature, on and off the protective trail, at Kanas National
Park in Xinjiang, China 116
6.1 Colourful traditional culture commodi(cid:191) ed for tourists in Durban,
South Africa 132
7.1 The innovator and his innovations: Walt Disney and Mickey
Mouse greet the visitors to Disneyland, Los Angeles 166
8.1 The downtown (cid:191) nancial district of San Francisco 178
8.2 Hotel development in a fantasy city: ‘New York, New York’ hotel
and casino on Las Vegas Boulevard 182
8.3 Urban regeneration based on leisure and tourism in the inner city:
Brindley Plaza, Birmingham, UK 192
8.4 ‘Pier 39’: a festival market developed from disused wharfs on the
waterfront of San Francisco 195
9.1 The heritage appeal of historic townscapes: part of Le Mont
St Michel, France 211
9.2 Alternative heritage: the Spanish mission church at San Xavier
del Bac, Arizona 212
10.1 An ecocamp platform cabin on the Kinabatangan River provides
an intimate encounter with the rainforest of northern Borneo 220
11.1 Beach performance (dress and behaviour) is different from the non-
beach, as seen here on Ipenema Beach in Rio de Janiero, Brazil 241
12.1 Balancing commercial interests and heritage conservation is a tourism
planning task in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico 263
13.1 Free wi(cid:191) is available at this rural Cambodia village homestay 286