Jan Mosedale | University of Applied Sciences Chur (original) (raw)
Books by Jan Mosedale
Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoli... more Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoliberalisation are relatively under-explored. This book provides a wide-ranging inquiry into the particular manifestations of different variants of neoliberalism, highlighting its uneven geographical development and the changing dynamics of neoliberal policies in order to explain and evaluate the effects of neoliberal processes on tourism.
Covering a variety of different aspects of neoliberalism and tourism, the chapters investigate how different types of tourism are used as part of more general neoliberalisation agendas, how neoliberalism differs according to the geographic context, the importance of discourse in shaping neoliberal practices and the different approaches of putting the neoliberal ideology into practice. Aiming to initiate debates about the connections between neoliberalism and tourism and advance further research avenues, this book makes a timely contribution which discusses the relationships between markets, nation-states and societies from a social science perspective. Neoliberalism is considered as a political-economic ideology, as variants of the global neoliberal project, as discourse and practices through which neoliberalism is enacted.
Political economy, in its various guises and transfigurations, is a research philosophy that pres... more Political economy, in its various guises and transfigurations, is a research philosophy that presents both social commentary and theoretical progress and is concerned with a number of different topics: politics, regulation and governance, production systems, social relations, inequality and development amongst many others. As a critical theory, political economy seeks to provide an understanding of societies – and of the structures and social relations that form them – in order to evoke social change toward more equitable conditions.
Despite the early influence of critical development studies and political economy on tourism research, political economy has received relatively little attention in tourism research. Political Economy and Tourism the first volume to bring together different theoretical perspectives and discourse in political economy related to tourism. Written by leading scholars, the text is organised into three sequential Parts, linked by the principle that ‘the political’ and ‘the economic’ are intimately connected. Part one presents different approaches to political economy, including Marxist political economy, regulation, comparative political economy, commodity chain research and alternative political economies; Part two links key themes of political economy, such as class, gender, labour, development and consumption, to tourism; and Part three examines the political economy at various geographical scales and focuses on the outcomes and processes of the political act of planning and managing tourism production.
This engaging volume provides insights and alternative critical perspectives on political economy theory to expand discussions of tourism development and policy in the future. Political Economy and Tourism is a valuable text for students, researchers and academics interested in Tourism and related disciplines.
Papers by Jan Mosedale
The concept of social innovation has, in recent years, received increased attention yet has recei... more The concept of social innovation has, in recent years, received increased attention yet has received limited attention in the academic tourism literature. This chapter on social innovations in tourism has three aims: first, to provide a conceptual overview of social innovation, particularly in context of social entrepreneurship; second, to link the theoretical concept to existing literature and themes in tourism research; and third, to provide an impetus for not only thinking about, but also enacting and performing social innovation in a tourism context. At a general level, social innovation can be viewed as a process of collaborative innovation, where the innovation process benefits from networks, cooperation and co-production or as a social outcome, which changes social interactions and practices. With reference to examples from tourism, the chapter discusses new technologies and their effect on transforming social practices, on social innovations as a new form of governance, social entrepreneurship as one aspect of social innovation and the largely bottom-up and collaborative characteristics of social innovation.
Viele Wanderwege in alpinen Destinationen werden auch für die Land- und Forstwirtschaft genutzt u... more Viele Wanderwege in alpinen Destinationen werden auch für die Land- und Forstwirtschaft genutzt und entsprechend auch ausgebaut. Die Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft HTW Chur hat untersucht, inwiefern dieser Ausbau Auswirkungen auf den Tourismus hat. Die Ergebnisse deuten einen jährlichen Verlust an touristischer Wertschöpfung in Millionenhöhe allein im Testgebiet Arosa-Schanfigg an, wenn zu viele naturnahe Wege ausgebaut werden.
Each contribution in this volume deals with different aspects of neoliberalization in the context... more Each contribution in this volume deals with different aspects of neoliberalization in the context of tourism and raise several significant questions regarding the neoliberal projects, discourses and practices in particular as they shape the relationships between states, the economy and society.
This is the Authors' Original Manuscript of a chapter published in Mosedale, J. (2016) Neoliberal... more This is the Authors' Original Manuscript of a chapter published in Mosedale, J. (2016) Neoliberalism and the political economy of tourism. Ashgate. Neoliberalism and the political economy of tourism: Projects, discourses and practices Jan Mosedale Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoliberalization have received relatively little specific attention in the literature. Only few
This paper aims to follow on from prior critical engagements with nature to provide a basis for f... more This paper aims to follow on from prior critical engagements with nature to provide a basis for further discussions of society-nature relationships. Tourism is often dependent on nature for consumption via the production of tourist experiences and is thus an important economic activity in the interplay between societies and nature in tourism/leisure. Both political economy and political ecology are suitable approaches for a critical engagement with nature. A political economy of nature is concerned with issues of relative power of social actors vis-à-vis nature and how they produce socio-natural environments, whereas political ecology adds a post-structural dimension by deconstructing society-nature relations and highlighting both discursive and material elements and create exclusive or inclusive spaces of socio-natural relationships.
The aim is therefore to provide a critical analysis of the complex society-nature relationships in order to contribute to ongoing critical discussion.
Forthcoming Roman Egger und Kurt Luger (eds.): Tourismus und mobile Freizeit – Lebensformen, Trends, Herausforderungen
Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different pol... more Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different policies towards accessibility can play an important role in maintaining the decentralised development in the Alps and thus ensure multi-functional environments which support particular economic, social and cultural landscapes. Diverse interpretations of and policies towards accessibilities have a strong effect on the current spatial structural development in the Alps. Yet current types and levels of accessibility are dependent on fossil fuel. In particular, the strategy of using tourism as a tool for regional development in less accessible regions of the Alps needs to be analysed in the context of peak oil. Three different scenarios of tourism after peak oil are discussed for the European Alps and possible implications in terms of political economy and tourist mobilities highlighted. Less accessible regions within alpine countries which follow centralised strategies towards development will be most affected by a decline of oil production as tourism will no longer be an effective tool for regional development.
TIMS Acta 9 (2): 91 - 103 , 2015
Private tourism entrepreneurship relies on special knowledge of the service sector with a strong ... more Private tourism entrepreneurship relies on special knowledge of the service sector with a strong focus on individual action and a general service mentality. The organization and regulation of tourism in post-socialist European countries experienced a shift from being state-driven to being determined by individual entrepreneurs. Yet in some cases, the adoption of the new entrepreneurial business principles is contested by different cultural understandings of how tourism should be 'produced'. With examples from the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia (Svaneti) we will demonstrate that these different understandings can play a major role in creating barriers for developing community-based tourism. Shortly after the transition to the market economy, a number of different small-scale, community-based tourism projects emerged, with individual entrepreneurship contesting the traditional values of hospitality in these regions (predominantly based on religious and 'tribal' values and norms rather than purely on entrepreneurial values). The methods used for this preliminary study of post-socialist tourism development included a short-term, mobile ethnography consisting of semi-structured interviews of tourism producers in the region, participant observation, as well as mapping occupancy of buildings according to unoccupied, agriculture and agritourism and second homes categories based on the condition of the gardens. Further changes in the political-economic framework have now shifted the focus towards larger-scale tourism developments supported by public-private partnerships. This paper analyses the impacts of these political-economic changes on the development of community-based tourism in Svaneti and explores in particular the friction between collective traditions and individual entrepreneurship in the experience economy of transition countries and its relationship with regional economic growth and rural depopulation.
Upon reading the invitation to contribute to a relevance debate in tourism policy, I was dreadin... more Upon reading the invitation to contribute to a relevance debate in tourism policy, I was dreading an argumentation for a narrowing of research into tourism policy and was pleasantly surprised to read Dianne Dredge’s argument ‘… that there are multiple versions of what might constitute “relevant policy research”…’. The debates about relevance may thus serve as reflective moments that might lead to reflexive practice (see Hall, 2004 for a discussion of reflexivity in tourism research). Such a reflective analysis of tourism research should be encouraged with a view to providing space for other, alternative meanings of research and for wider interpretations of who may constitute the publics for our research. Going beyond Dianne Dredge’s call for more efficiently communicating the value of our research, such a reflection requires a consideration of different approaches towards research and their possible implications for research practices e.g., deciding what matters (research themes) as well as whether and how to engage (not just communicate) with certain publics.
Tourismus und mobile Freizeit: Lebensformen, Trends, Herausforderungen
Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different pol... more Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different policies towards accessibility can play an important role in maintaining the decentralised development in the Alps and thus ensure multi-functional environments which support particular economic, social and cultural landscapes. Diverse interpretations of and policies towards accessibilities have a strong effect on the current spatial structural development in the Alps. Yet current types and levels of accessibility are dependent on fossil fuel. In particular, the strategy of using tourism as a tool for regional development in less accessible regions of the Alps needs to be analysed in the context of peak oil. Three different scenarios of tourism after peak oil are discussed for the European Alps and possible implications in terms of political economy and tourist mobilities highlighted. Less accessible regions within alpine countries which follow centralised strategies towards development will be most affected by a decline of oil production as tourism will no longer be an effective tool for regional development.
Political economy spans various disciplines leading to an array of approaches labeled as such. Th... more Political economy spans various disciplines leading to an array of approaches labeled as such. This chapter provides a very brief overview of the political economy of tourism before concentrating on regulation theory as one approach to analyzing political economy and providing an overview of regulation theory as applied to tourism. A recent increase in awareness of tourism governance offers the opportunity to re-engage with regulation theory. Regulation theory as a critical approach examines the relationships between states, institutions and society, of particular interest to regulation theory has been the shift in institutional regime towards multilevel governance. This chapter illustrates that a shift of focus from institutions as unit of analysis to governance networks requires a more socialized approach to regulation theory and political economy. The chapter concludes by highlighting consumption and discursive analysis as future areas of enquiry for the political economy of tourism.
Pacific Geographies, 2013
Individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are personifications of economic categorie... more Individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are personifications of economic categories, the bearers of particular class-relations and interests (Marx, 1972: 92).
"Research on tourism economies still lags behind contemporary research in the wider economic soci... more "Research on tourism economies still lags behind contemporary research in the wider economic social sciences (mainly in anthropology, geography and sociology). It is dominated by quantitative, universalistic survey methods framed by studies of consumer behaviour and to-date largely ignores the cultural meanings of exchange relationships. The bulk of research on tourism economies either fails to mention alternative economies or simply views them as minor distortions of a capitalist system. The inherent difficulty of quantifying and measuring alternative exchanges and thus incorporating or addressing alternative economic practices in national accounts or official accounting
systems offers governments and researchers a pretext to disregard, ignore or trivialize these economies.
In this chapter, I claim that critical tourism scholars should engage with and think critically about the representations of „the economy‟. I aim to challenge a capitalocentric understanding of tourism and argue for an economy that is constituted of complex and dynamic relationships between a variety of economic practices at multiple sites and spaces."
International Business and Tourism: Global Issues, …, Jan 1, 2008
"Much has been said about the growth and internationalisation of tourist flows, especially by sup... more "Much has been said about the growth and internationalisation of tourist flows, especially by supranational tourism organisations –such as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)– intent on promoting tourism development as a principal mode of economic development. While these organisations are keen to underline the quantitative changes (growth and increased internationalisation) experienced in the tourism sector, especially in emergent regions (i.e. the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific and Africa), the simultaneous qualitative and structural changes in the tourism sector (transformative globalisation processes) have by and large been overlooked. The few exceptions (e.g. Gotham, 2002 and Britton, 1982) have taken a destination-based approach to analysis, thus neglecting the meso- and macro-level of analysis necessary to understand the functioning of global economic activity and tourism development. However, tourism is best understood as a multiscalar economic activity that spans geographical scales (global, regional, national, local) and defies geo-political boundaries (Dallen, 2006). For Milne and Ateljevic (2001: 371-2):
[t]ourism, in simple terms, must be viewed as a transaction process which is at once driven by the global priorities of multinational corporations, geo-political forces and broader forces of economic change, and the complexities of the local – where residents, visitors, workers, governments and entrepreneurs interact at the industry ‘coal-face’.
While destination-based analyses provide a detailed examination of local economic activity and interactions between local economic actors, tourism researchers need to recognise the importance of analysing the firm linkages that transcend individual geographical scales. Rather than providing yet another destination-based analysis, this chapter adopts a systems-based approach -by way of explaining and encouraging the use of commodity chain analysis- as a means of unravelling international business behaviours and relationships in the tourism sector."
Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoli... more Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoliberalisation are relatively under-explored. This book provides a wide-ranging inquiry into the particular manifestations of different variants of neoliberalism, highlighting its uneven geographical development and the changing dynamics of neoliberal policies in order to explain and evaluate the effects of neoliberal processes on tourism.
Covering a variety of different aspects of neoliberalism and tourism, the chapters investigate how different types of tourism are used as part of more general neoliberalisation agendas, how neoliberalism differs according to the geographic context, the importance of discourse in shaping neoliberal practices and the different approaches of putting the neoliberal ideology into practice. Aiming to initiate debates about the connections between neoliberalism and tourism and advance further research avenues, this book makes a timely contribution which discusses the relationships between markets, nation-states and societies from a social science perspective. Neoliberalism is considered as a political-economic ideology, as variants of the global neoliberal project, as discourse and practices through which neoliberalism is enacted.
Political economy, in its various guises and transfigurations, is a research philosophy that pres... more Political economy, in its various guises and transfigurations, is a research philosophy that presents both social commentary and theoretical progress and is concerned with a number of different topics: politics, regulation and governance, production systems, social relations, inequality and development amongst many others. As a critical theory, political economy seeks to provide an understanding of societies – and of the structures and social relations that form them – in order to evoke social change toward more equitable conditions.
Despite the early influence of critical development studies and political economy on tourism research, political economy has received relatively little attention in tourism research. Political Economy and Tourism the first volume to bring together different theoretical perspectives and discourse in political economy related to tourism. Written by leading scholars, the text is organised into three sequential Parts, linked by the principle that ‘the political’ and ‘the economic’ are intimately connected. Part one presents different approaches to political economy, including Marxist political economy, regulation, comparative political economy, commodity chain research and alternative political economies; Part two links key themes of political economy, such as class, gender, labour, development and consumption, to tourism; and Part three examines the political economy at various geographical scales and focuses on the outcomes and processes of the political act of planning and managing tourism production.
This engaging volume provides insights and alternative critical perspectives on political economy theory to expand discussions of tourism development and policy in the future. Political Economy and Tourism is a valuable text for students, researchers and academics interested in Tourism and related disciplines.
The concept of social innovation has, in recent years, received increased attention yet has recei... more The concept of social innovation has, in recent years, received increased attention yet has received limited attention in the academic tourism literature. This chapter on social innovations in tourism has three aims: first, to provide a conceptual overview of social innovation, particularly in context of social entrepreneurship; second, to link the theoretical concept to existing literature and themes in tourism research; and third, to provide an impetus for not only thinking about, but also enacting and performing social innovation in a tourism context. At a general level, social innovation can be viewed as a process of collaborative innovation, where the innovation process benefits from networks, cooperation and co-production or as a social outcome, which changes social interactions and practices. With reference to examples from tourism, the chapter discusses new technologies and their effect on transforming social practices, on social innovations as a new form of governance, social entrepreneurship as one aspect of social innovation and the largely bottom-up and collaborative characteristics of social innovation.
Viele Wanderwege in alpinen Destinationen werden auch für die Land- und Forstwirtschaft genutzt u... more Viele Wanderwege in alpinen Destinationen werden auch für die Land- und Forstwirtschaft genutzt und entsprechend auch ausgebaut. Die Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft HTW Chur hat untersucht, inwiefern dieser Ausbau Auswirkungen auf den Tourismus hat. Die Ergebnisse deuten einen jährlichen Verlust an touristischer Wertschöpfung in Millionenhöhe allein im Testgebiet Arosa-Schanfigg an, wenn zu viele naturnahe Wege ausgebaut werden.
Each contribution in this volume deals with different aspects of neoliberalization in the context... more Each contribution in this volume deals with different aspects of neoliberalization in the context of tourism and raise several significant questions regarding the neoliberal projects, discourses and practices in particular as they shape the relationships between states, the economy and society.
This is the Authors' Original Manuscript of a chapter published in Mosedale, J. (2016) Neoliberal... more This is the Authors' Original Manuscript of a chapter published in Mosedale, J. (2016) Neoliberalism and the political economy of tourism. Ashgate. Neoliberalism and the political economy of tourism: Projects, discourses and practices Jan Mosedale Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoliberalization have received relatively little specific attention in the literature. Only few
This paper aims to follow on from prior critical engagements with nature to provide a basis for f... more This paper aims to follow on from prior critical engagements with nature to provide a basis for further discussions of society-nature relationships. Tourism is often dependent on nature for consumption via the production of tourist experiences and is thus an important economic activity in the interplay between societies and nature in tourism/leisure. Both political economy and political ecology are suitable approaches for a critical engagement with nature. A political economy of nature is concerned with issues of relative power of social actors vis-à-vis nature and how they produce socio-natural environments, whereas political ecology adds a post-structural dimension by deconstructing society-nature relations and highlighting both discursive and material elements and create exclusive or inclusive spaces of socio-natural relationships.
The aim is therefore to provide a critical analysis of the complex society-nature relationships in order to contribute to ongoing critical discussion.
Forthcoming Roman Egger und Kurt Luger (eds.): Tourismus und mobile Freizeit – Lebensformen, Trends, Herausforderungen
Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different pol... more Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different policies towards accessibility can play an important role in maintaining the decentralised development in the Alps and thus ensure multi-functional environments which support particular economic, social and cultural landscapes. Diverse interpretations of and policies towards accessibilities have a strong effect on the current spatial structural development in the Alps. Yet current types and levels of accessibility are dependent on fossil fuel. In particular, the strategy of using tourism as a tool for regional development in less accessible regions of the Alps needs to be analysed in the context of peak oil. Three different scenarios of tourism after peak oil are discussed for the European Alps and possible implications in terms of political economy and tourist mobilities highlighted. Less accessible regions within alpine countries which follow centralised strategies towards development will be most affected by a decline of oil production as tourism will no longer be an effective tool for regional development.
TIMS Acta 9 (2): 91 - 103 , 2015
Private tourism entrepreneurship relies on special knowledge of the service sector with a strong ... more Private tourism entrepreneurship relies on special knowledge of the service sector with a strong focus on individual action and a general service mentality. The organization and regulation of tourism in post-socialist European countries experienced a shift from being state-driven to being determined by individual entrepreneurs. Yet in some cases, the adoption of the new entrepreneurial business principles is contested by different cultural understandings of how tourism should be 'produced'. With examples from the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia (Svaneti) we will demonstrate that these different understandings can play a major role in creating barriers for developing community-based tourism. Shortly after the transition to the market economy, a number of different small-scale, community-based tourism projects emerged, with individual entrepreneurship contesting the traditional values of hospitality in these regions (predominantly based on religious and 'tribal' values and norms rather than purely on entrepreneurial values). The methods used for this preliminary study of post-socialist tourism development included a short-term, mobile ethnography consisting of semi-structured interviews of tourism producers in the region, participant observation, as well as mapping occupancy of buildings according to unoccupied, agriculture and agritourism and second homes categories based on the condition of the gardens. Further changes in the political-economic framework have now shifted the focus towards larger-scale tourism developments supported by public-private partnerships. This paper analyses the impacts of these political-economic changes on the development of community-based tourism in Svaneti and explores in particular the friction between collective traditions and individual entrepreneurship in the experience economy of transition countries and its relationship with regional economic growth and rural depopulation.
Upon reading the invitation to contribute to a relevance debate in tourism policy, I was dreadin... more Upon reading the invitation to contribute to a relevance debate in tourism policy, I was dreading an argumentation for a narrowing of research into tourism policy and was pleasantly surprised to read Dianne Dredge’s argument ‘… that there are multiple versions of what might constitute “relevant policy research”…’. The debates about relevance may thus serve as reflective moments that might lead to reflexive practice (see Hall, 2004 for a discussion of reflexivity in tourism research). Such a reflective analysis of tourism research should be encouraged with a view to providing space for other, alternative meanings of research and for wider interpretations of who may constitute the publics for our research. Going beyond Dianne Dredge’s call for more efficiently communicating the value of our research, such a reflection requires a consideration of different approaches towards research and their possible implications for research practices e.g., deciding what matters (research themes) as well as whether and how to engage (not just communicate) with certain publics.
Tourismus und mobile Freizeit: Lebensformen, Trends, Herausforderungen
Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different pol... more Accessibility is an important aspect for regional development in the European Alps. Different policies towards accessibility can play an important role in maintaining the decentralised development in the Alps and thus ensure multi-functional environments which support particular economic, social and cultural landscapes. Diverse interpretations of and policies towards accessibilities have a strong effect on the current spatial structural development in the Alps. Yet current types and levels of accessibility are dependent on fossil fuel. In particular, the strategy of using tourism as a tool for regional development in less accessible regions of the Alps needs to be analysed in the context of peak oil. Three different scenarios of tourism after peak oil are discussed for the European Alps and possible implications in terms of political economy and tourist mobilities highlighted. Less accessible regions within alpine countries which follow centralised strategies towards development will be most affected by a decline of oil production as tourism will no longer be an effective tool for regional development.
Political economy spans various disciplines leading to an array of approaches labeled as such. Th... more Political economy spans various disciplines leading to an array of approaches labeled as such. This chapter provides a very brief overview of the political economy of tourism before concentrating on regulation theory as one approach to analyzing political economy and providing an overview of regulation theory as applied to tourism. A recent increase in awareness of tourism governance offers the opportunity to re-engage with regulation theory. Regulation theory as a critical approach examines the relationships between states, institutions and society, of particular interest to regulation theory has been the shift in institutional regime towards multilevel governance. This chapter illustrates that a shift of focus from institutions as unit of analysis to governance networks requires a more socialized approach to regulation theory and political economy. The chapter concludes by highlighting consumption and discursive analysis as future areas of enquiry for the political economy of tourism.
Pacific Geographies, 2013
Individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are personifications of economic categorie... more Individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are personifications of economic categories, the bearers of particular class-relations and interests (Marx, 1972: 92).
"Research on tourism economies still lags behind contemporary research in the wider economic soci... more "Research on tourism economies still lags behind contemporary research in the wider economic social sciences (mainly in anthropology, geography and sociology). It is dominated by quantitative, universalistic survey methods framed by studies of consumer behaviour and to-date largely ignores the cultural meanings of exchange relationships. The bulk of research on tourism economies either fails to mention alternative economies or simply views them as minor distortions of a capitalist system. The inherent difficulty of quantifying and measuring alternative exchanges and thus incorporating or addressing alternative economic practices in national accounts or official accounting
systems offers governments and researchers a pretext to disregard, ignore or trivialize these economies.
In this chapter, I claim that critical tourism scholars should engage with and think critically about the representations of „the economy‟. I aim to challenge a capitalocentric understanding of tourism and argue for an economy that is constituted of complex and dynamic relationships between a variety of economic practices at multiple sites and spaces."
International Business and Tourism: Global Issues, …, Jan 1, 2008
"Much has been said about the growth and internationalisation of tourist flows, especially by sup... more "Much has been said about the growth and internationalisation of tourist flows, especially by supranational tourism organisations –such as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)– intent on promoting tourism development as a principal mode of economic development. While these organisations are keen to underline the quantitative changes (growth and increased internationalisation) experienced in the tourism sector, especially in emergent regions (i.e. the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific and Africa), the simultaneous qualitative and structural changes in the tourism sector (transformative globalisation processes) have by and large been overlooked. The few exceptions (e.g. Gotham, 2002 and Britton, 1982) have taken a destination-based approach to analysis, thus neglecting the meso- and macro-level of analysis necessary to understand the functioning of global economic activity and tourism development. However, tourism is best understood as a multiscalar economic activity that spans geographical scales (global, regional, national, local) and defies geo-political boundaries (Dallen, 2006). For Milne and Ateljevic (2001: 371-2):
[t]ourism, in simple terms, must be viewed as a transaction process which is at once driven by the global priorities of multinational corporations, geo-political forces and broader forces of economic change, and the complexities of the local – where residents, visitors, workers, governments and entrepreneurs interact at the industry ‘coal-face’.
While destination-based analyses provide a detailed examination of local economic activity and interactions between local economic actors, tourism researchers need to recognise the importance of analysing the firm linkages that transcend individual geographical scales. Rather than providing yet another destination-based analysis, this chapter adopts a systems-based approach -by way of explaining and encouraging the use of commodity chain analysis- as a means of unravelling international business behaviours and relationships in the tourism sector."
Current Issues in Tourism, Jan 1, 2006
Tour operators have received considerable attention as gatekeepers of the tourism system. However... more Tour operators have received considerable attention as gatekeepers of the tourism system. However, corporate changes in the European package tourism industry via mergers and acquisitions have resulted in horizontal as well as vertical integration, with the resultant modification of relationships within the tourism system. This paper examines the structural organisation of UK package tourism by analysing the Commodity Chain to St Lucia. First, it considers the commodification process of tourism and the range of commodification, before turning to a macro-level analysis of the tourism system following the vertical assembly of the tourism product. Finally, the paper underlines the additional importance of intra-nodal relationships. Specific circumstances, as exemplified by the market entry of the Virgin Travel Group, can lead to the amplification of pre-existing governance structures.
Journal of …, Jan 1, 2008
Call for papers for a special issue on Knowledege Management for the Journal of Policy Research i... more Call for papers for a special issue on Knowledege Management for the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure & Events