The evolution of tourism and tourism research

This paper reviews the development of tourism to emphasize the fact that tourism, even ‘mass tourism’, is not a new phenomenon but process which has characterized human behaviour for many centuries, and is essentially iterative in nature. To understand it fully it is necessary to review what has gone before, along with the influences of factors such as technological innovation, and social and economic changes in societies. Similarly, academic research in tourism has a long history, despite the fact that some tourism scholars and students appear to think such research is a recent development. Tourism research is best thought of as an ongoing process with varying emphases and foci at different times, beginning with essentially factual case studies, followed by a period of extensive if somewhat shallow theoretical development, and the current situation with its paradoxes and fallacies. The paper concludes with noting the suggested divisions of tourism research between management (applied) and social (theoretical) approaches, and between sophisticated statistical analysis and highly personal descriptions, which leaves many academic researchers and those in the tourist industry frustrated and disappointed by the failure to study and help resolve the real problems of tourism and its development.