Tourism Geographies Podcast

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2024.2325932AbstractThe tourist area life cycle has been in existence for over four decades since its publication in The Canadian Geographer and was described as ‘one of the most cited and contentious areas of tourism knowledge….(and) has gone on to become one of the best known theories of destination growth and change within the field of tourism studies’ It was noted as one ‘Of the most influential conceptual models for explaining tourist, development’. The model was developed primarily from the Product Life Cycle model used in business and management studies and modified to explain the process of development and change that took place in tourist destinations throughout the world. The model has received considerable attention over its life span, but has often been cited from second hand sources or misquoted on many occasions. Its appearance in a non-tourist journal has resulted in it often not appearing in various early literature surveys based on tourism-focused sources and for its first decade access to the original article was limited and difficult, as demonstrated by many requests to the author for copies of the article. Electronic access to journals and libraries have resolved this problem, but its considerable visibility (in excess of 56,000 reads on Research Gate) and use (close to 5000 citations) means that it has possibly entered the realm of tourism myths and become part of accepted dogma in the field of tourism development. This could present problems to those challenging the original concept and introducing alternative or contradictory ideas and propositions, and it is perhaps, appropriate to briefly review the history of the concept. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2462777AbstractThe polar areas have long endured as an exotic playground for adventure in the wilderness. Tourism figures have remained low and hence the regions hold a marginal position in the global tourism system. Today, climate change and its significant impact on ecosystems and communities in high latitudes as well as geopolitical change drive attention to the polar regions. Increasing tourist numbers manifest this. While early travel records and diaries are an integral part of the history of exploration, academic research into tourism cannot be found to any greater degree prior to the 1980s This review highlights major traits in polar tourism research to date and identifies potential avenues for future research within the field. It shows that polar tourism research is a well-established orientation for tourism research today. However, great variations are in place, and far-fetched generalizations about the two polar regions are growing increasingly problematic. In this context, geographical perspectives should be utilized in order to understand polar tourism and its repercussions in a wider context of development, on different geographical scales, and even beyond the polar regions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2598624AbstractPortugal has become one of the most popular countries for digital nomadism in Europe, with Lisbon being a top-rated destination. The global digital nomad hotspots are usually more affordable destinations in which people can live better with their salaries, escaping the high cost of living in Western countries. As such, digital nomads, similar to other types of lifestyle movers, engage in geoarbitrage – the utilization of opportunities for affordable costs of living in foreigner destinations. In Portugal, governmental policies have been developing favorable conditions for these types of travelers. The launch of the digital nomad visa to attract an even greater number of digital nomads supports the growth of this social phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to examine the ways Portuguese government policies are driven by the logic of geoarbitrage, targeting affluent visitors or migrants. Despite the growing relevance of these developments, a comprehensive understanding of how geoarbitrage is constructed and practiced through public policies remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by exploring the interrelationship between digital nomad visas and geoarbitrage practiced at an institutional level by the Portuguese government. The focus is on the recent Digital Nomad Visa (D8) as well as other residence permits such as the D7 visa previously used by digital nomads. The study shows a pathway of digital nomadism in Portugal from 2007 to the present that has been shaped by strategic policy development of the national government and targeted initiatives like the Digital Nomad Village in Madeira. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates the ways the Portuguese government enacted a geoarbitrage strategy envisioning a logic of immigration of wealthy and highly skilled digital nomads. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2580393AbstractThis paper combines Schumpeter’s creative destruction concept with Harvey’s urban capital circulation theory to investigate the influence of political-economic structures and crisis settings on the development cycles of urban tourism destinations. Using Beirut, Lebanon as a case study, the analysis shows how Beirut’s post-civil war trajectory triggered waves of creative destruction, driven by real estate, tourism, and creative industries, that unfolded in sub-waves across Beirut’s neighbourhoods, reshaping the urban tourism landscape. The relocation of tourism hubs acted as spatial fixes fuelled by cycles of post-crisis capital influx and by tensions between creativity and destruction by overaccumulation. Despite variations in the sources and motivations behind capital injections, their impact on the urban destination’s social and spatial fabric collectively led to creative destruction. The analysis reveals the path-dependent and temporally sensitive nature of urban tourism development patterns, which in the case of Beirut was structurally entangled with broader capital dynamics. Tourism plays a dual role as both a mechanism for advancing capital interests and a source of disruption within capitalist urban transformation processes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2584356AbstractThis study focuses on Las Vegas’ Historic Westside and analyzes how prolonged historical geographies of segregation shaped the area’s tourism present and future. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, railway and highway development adjacent to this neighborhood led to redlining and discriminatory practices. While the area experienced a cultural and economic revival in the mid-twentieth century—with Jackson Street being nicknamed ‘The Black Strip’—it later faced decline and exclusion from the city’s tourism economy due to systemic racism. While research has explored revitalization processes in Black communities, few works have specifically examined their role as destinations. We conducted a qualitative study among Westside residents, small business owners, politicians, and activists to uncover tourism placemaking processes. Moreover, we analyzed archival material, such as newspaper articles, oral histories, and public documents from the City of Las Vegas. While community members expressed their desire to share their rich Civil Rights history and cultural heritage with tourists, they acknowledged the area’s socioeconomic challenges as an obstacle. On the one hand, territorial stigmatization causes tourists to be discouraged from visiting the area due to incorrect perceptions about crime and violence. On the other hand, revitalization strategies that could improve the area’s reputation and attract more visitors might result in harmful forms of gentrification and enhance undesirable kinds of ‘poverty tourism.’ One of this work’s main contributions is the analysis of the relationship between a difficult past and a tourism-oriented future, heard in the voices of those who are often ignored but directly affected by planning strategies and policies. Our findings aim to encourage both academics and professionals working with communities that experience spatial racism to undertake a historical geography approach rooted in decolonial and Critical Race Theory. In line with recent research on Black travel and regenerative tourism, this study advocates for a shift in power dynamics that focuses on inclusion, co-governance, and participatory practices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2594713AbstractTourism geographers have long addressed the spatiality of injustice, taking concern with the struggles over access to resources and capital that shape inequities in tourism-dominant landscapes. And yet, the substance of justice, that is, what we really mean by ‘justice’ is rarely discussed, with tourism geographers possessing a hesitancy to engage in the constitution of justice, preferring practice-informed ‘bottom up’ identifications. This article argues that there is a requirement to openly discuss the substance of justice, to consider the specificities of claims in relation to one another, avoid extreme relativism whereby all claims to justice are equally valid without grounds for critique, and steer clear of any reductions in its political and analytical utility. To facilitate consideration of a distinctly spatial reading of justice for tourism geographers, we propose a framework to consider injustice as governance-informed situated, patterned and collective in ways that inhibit self-development and self-determination. We end with an articulation of three ways through which the proposed framing brings benefits to tourism geographers: (1) Proposes a distinctly spatial reading of justice, (2) Articulates what might constitute injustice, beyond the universalism/pluriversality binary, (3) Facilitates consideration of the forms of justice worthy of attention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2593978AbstractDominant narratives in tourism shape perceptions of place, often marginalising certain localities, people, and perspectives. This study examines digital counter-narrative place-making in rural communities and the equalising possibilities it can provide. We combine Doreen Massey’s relational theory of place with Hanna Meretoja’s dialogical narrative theory, following a dialogical narrative approach. Empirically, the study draws on a digital place-making project conducted in Ardgour, Scotland, and the Upper Kemijoki river area, Lapland. Utilising audio tours co-created with the local communities, we explore how the local narratives challenge and reframe prevailing tourist representations and culturally dominant narratives, fostering recognition of different perspectives, extending both residents’ and visitors’ sense of the possible, and enhancing equality and justice in tourism. Although community-created audio tours do not have the reach of dominant narratives and have other limitations in their equalising possibilities, they can establish deeper connections to place. Our relational theorisation of counter-narrative place-making contributes to theory in both tourism geography and the wider field of human geography, and our method of analysis can give new analytical ideas to both. A further contribution is our focus on the counter-narratives of rural communities, which has been lacking in previous tourism studies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2604082AbstractWhat if the future of sustainable tourism lies not in transactions, but in the ancient wisdom of reciprocity and relational ethics? This conceptual paper applies Jaakkola’s theory adaptation approach by revising tourism concepts through the lens of Indigenous worldviews and anthropological Mauss’s (1925) theory of Gift and Counter-Gift. Rather than proposing a new theory, the paper reframes existing ideas to highlight relational ethics over transactional logics. By doing so, the article explores how tourism can benefit from understanding the deep social bonds created through reciprocity and contributes to developing the concept of regenerative tourism, while echoing ongoing Indigenous research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2025.2593982AbstractThis collection advances geographic approaches to accessible tourism through six contributions that collectively double the published resources on this topic within Tourism Geographies. Accessible tourism enables people with access requirements to participate in tourism with independence, equity, and dignity. Despite the growth of accessible tourism research, geographic, spatial, and/or mobilities approaches have been conspicuously absent. Thus, the contributions of this collection include new toolkits to support more inclusive and co-designed accessible tourism (Dickson et al., Citation2024; Lu et al., Citation2025; Wan et al., Citation2024) and greater conceptual depth related to embodied tourism (im)mobilities (Chan et al., Citation2025; Cockburn-Wootten et al., Citation2025; Farkic et al., Citation2025). Progressing towards accessible tourism’s aim of seamless and equitable tourism experiences, geographic perspectives will have an important role to play in addressing the crucial research gaps that remain: destination-scale analyses, whole-of-journey approaches, and inclusive stakeholder-led methodologies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2575314AbstractThis study examines how the designation of Batur as Indonesia’s first UNESCO Global Geopark in 2012 has reshaped volcanic landscapes, socio-economic structures, and cultural life in Bali. Drawing on the framework of Landscape Political Geology, it traces how geological forces, spiritual cosmologies, and global heritage regimes converge to transform both land and livelihoods. Using a mixed-methods approach—combining qualitative interviews, secondary statistical data, and documentary analysis—the study reveals how the geopark has generated new opportunities—particularly in tourism and service employment—while simultaneously marginalizing small-scale farmers and miners, restricting ritual access to land, and intensifying governance tensions between state authorities, external investors, and village communities. These processes have reconfigured Batur’s material and symbolic landscapes, shifting its status from a sacred mountain–lake complex to a commodified tourism asset, yet one that remains deeply embedded in local cosmologies. The study contributes to debates on the politics of nature and tourism geographies by showing how geoparks operate as contested arenas where geology, power, and culture are continuously renegotiated. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2562976AbstractThe Australian settler government has repeatedly promised Indigenous peoples (Anangu) of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park that they will benefit from settler government’s use of their lands as a significant tourism destination, yet the Anangu community of Uluru remains one of the poorest communities in Australia. This article utilises historical analysis and qualitative interviews with Anangu, Parks staff, and tourism staff to chart key dynamics in the relationship between the tourism industry and Anangu over 39 years of Joint Management in the Park. We show how the prioritisation of settler logics of tourism and work over Anangu benefit is not just an arbitrary cultural decision meted out in day-to-day interpersonal relations but is built into the geographies and temporalities of work in the Park. Highlighting how Anangu benefit is deferred through settler logics of work draws attention to the possibility for alternatives that are founded on Indigenous lifeworlds. This article’s analytic focus on quotidian, relational dynamics in intercultural contexts brings insights from Indigenous and settler colonial studies into tourism research and demonstrates a new way of identifying opportunities for transformation in Indigenous tourism industries in settler colonies. From a practical perspective, these insights underscore the importance of developing shared understandings of what meaningful and good “work” is in intercultural industries and highlights possible interventions into entrenched dynamics between Indigenous and settler peoples in these contexts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2533471AbstractThis study investigates the regenerative potential of community-based ecotourism (CBET) through the lens of culinary value chains and experiential perspectives, analyzing their role in promoting cultural preservation, environmental stewardship, and local economic resilience. Employing Critical Place Inquiry (CPI) and ethnographic research methods, including participatory video, photography, walks, and mental mapping, the research examines the integration of Indigenous knowledge and place-based culinary traditions in fostering sustainable tourism models within Trà Vinh province, Vietnam. Findings reveal that culinary practices are deeply embedded within broader ecological, cultural, and social landscapes, functioning as socio-ecological systems that bolster local agency, facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer, and promote environmental protection. The research identifies four key place-based resources—culinary diversity & cultural identity, gastronomic harmony & social cohesion, environmental conservation & sustainability, and cultural exchange & intercultural understanding—critical for understanding the significance of place in CBET. Case studies exemplify how community-led culinary initiatives, rooted in Indigenous knowledge, strengthen agricultural traditions, foster biodiversity, and enhance community resilience. The study demonstrates that incorporating participatory methods enhances the comprehension of place-based tourism practices, positioning culinary value chains as essential mechanisms for preserving cultural traditions and ecological well-being. It offers novel insights into the transformative capacity of localized, community-based ecotourism, highlighting the crucial role of Indigenous viewpoints in tourism planning and advocating for holistic, inclusive, and sustainable culinary tourism strategies that lead to net-positive socio-environmental outcomes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2417853AbstractThis review tracks the genealogy of the term militourism and its development and use since the early 1990s primarily through the scholarship of Teresia Teaiwa. It begins with a discussion of the concept’s emergence, with particular attention to the Pacific region, and examines other sites where the term has shed light on tourism and militarism’s collusions. In addition, the review considers scholarship that works with and through the term militourism, but which do not necessarily engage with its specific analytic. The review also examines the centrality of race, indigeneity, and gender in militourism’s analytical scope, and notes how its origins in the militarized Pacific necessarily tether the term to land and decolonial struggles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2495192AbstractThe global rise of heritage tourism has intensified struggles over the ownership, meaning, and spatial governance of religious sites, yet the contested interplay of ideology, power, and sacred space remains understudied. This article addresses this gap through a longitudinal analysis of China’s Famen Temple, where two decades of state‑led tourism development have reconfigured sacred space through historical reinterpretations, institutional transformations, and spatial negotiations. Drawing on critical heritage studies and qualitative fieldwork, the study reveals how official discourses strategically reframe religious pasts to align with contemporary economic and ideological agendas, manifesting in spatial restructuring, ritual commodification, and redistributed power among stakeholders. Heritage tourism here emerges as a contested process: state and commercial actors leverage tourism for territorial control and economic growth, while monks and local communities navigate, resist, and adapt to these changes. The tensions between economic imperatives, religious traditions, and authoritarian governance illustrate that sacred sites are neither passively secularised nor sacralised but continually redefined through socio‑spatial contestation. By framing religious heritage as arenas of political negotiation, this study advances critical debates on tourism’s role in spatialising state power, arguing that such transformations reflect broader global struggles over cultural legitimacy, authority, and the right to define “heritage” itself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2502507AbstractThis paper utilises bibliometric data on peer-reviewed publications to examine the characteristics and dominant narratives in overtourism research to date. Departing from earlier state-of-the-art reviews, it introduces a spatial perspective with a distinct focus on spatial processes and geographical scales. The analysis identifies six overarching themes in the literature, which predominantly centre on metropolitan contexts and are characterised by a normative critique of tourism. While the literature often identifies the causes of overtourism at either the global or local scale, proposed solutions tend to emphasise local-level responses, particularly through planning and destination management. The paper makes two key contributions: first, it highlights the need to broaden overtourism research beyond its current urban and metropolitan focus to encompass a wider range of geographical contexts; second, it emphasises the significance of engaging with geographies of scale to address overtourism not merely as a local planning challenge, but as a structural and systemic issue demanding multi-scalar interventions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2404643 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2515098AbstractTourism is vital in ensuring thriving communities in peripheral areas of the Arctic. However, many Arctic destinations have seen a dramatic increase in visitors, raising concerns about their ability to withstand tourism pressures. Simultaneously, socioecological systems in the region are undergoing rapid transformations with significant implications for future development. This study, based on qualitative research conducted from 2020 to 2024, explores how tourism actors at Arctic destinations navigate these changes and engage with various scales of tourism governance. Our findings highlight divergent approaches to governance: Svalbard’s top-down regime focuses on strict environmental preservation but faces resistance from local tourism actors, while Greenland is prioritizing tourism as a development strategy, aiming to balance national goals with local community needs. Despite differing views on regulation, tourism actors in both destinations seek greater involvement in tourism decision-making. We argue that employing place-based, collaborative, and adaptive governance approaches is essential to address common challenges such as sustainability, climate change, and (over)tourism in Arctic regions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2516098AbstractIndividual preferences are known to be influenced by people’s lived experience at home and on holidays, however, the factors contributing to higher or lower resource demands by hotel guests are not well understood. We advance a practice-based ‘Resource Cultures’ framework and examine the daily energy and water consumption rates of hotel guests from geographically diverse climates vacationing at a ecolodge in tropical North Queensland, Australia. Specifically, guests’ (n = 395) ‘home’ climate zone and continental origin, as a proxy for cultural background, are examined as potential drivers of resource consumption. The results show that climatic origin is a stronger determinant of resource use than cultural origin. Guests originating from tropical and arid climate zones used significantly more water and energy than those from warm temperate zones. Electricity consumption was highest among guests from humid tropical and subtropical climate zones, whilst those from arid climate zones used the most water. The findings provide empirical evidence of the influence of origin-related drivers of resource consumption patterns with tangible implications for accommodation providers. Considering guests’ climatic and cultural origins in targeted pro-environmental communication will enhance the effectiveness of operators’ sustainability programs. Furthermore, these factors should be considered when benchmarking resource use among comparable hotels. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2519331AbstractProjects are a standard strategy for rural tourism development. This study builds on the premise that sustainable rural tourism is conditioned by the involvement of key stakeholders and entrepreneurs’ ability to creatively and responsibly utilise local resources for tourism purposes. Accordingly, this research explores the project format as a framework for facilitating engagement and entrepreneurship. The empirical context is Visit Village, a collaborative tourism initiative in rural Sweden. This qualitative case study has followed the Visit Village project closely for nearly three years. Data was collected from observations, reviewing documents, in-depth interviews, and informal conversations. The analysis focused on the actors involved in the project, their respective roles, and the interactions between them. This study applies the Civic Wealth Creation (CWC) theoretical framework for stakeholder engagement. The framework directs the analysis to the meso level of the entrepreneurial ecosystems, where interactions generate value and promote positive social impact. The findings indicate that projects can be a fruitful setting for entrepreneurship by providing access to resources, knowledge, and support and forming communities and creative spaces; concurrently, the findings corroborate the difficulty of involving key stakeholders. The intricacy seems to lie in the incompatibility of the project format and the modus operandi of small-scale entrepreneurs and the local community. The analysis suggests generating a sense of progression, kinship, and ownership to adjust the project to the stakeholders’ logic of action. Owner-managers of local tourism businesses emerge as natural CWC promoters, and the study recommends entrusting embedded and entrepreneurial individuals with formal responsibilities in tourism projects. The analysis also underlines the need for project leaders to redefine their roles throughout the process. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2504039AbstractAirbnb research has focused primarily on a small number of Western countries. This study examines Airbnb and its hosts in a destination in the Global South—Bocas del Toro, Panama. Through an exploration of the nexus between Airbnb hosting and lifestyle migration, the study introduces the phenomenon of ‘Airbnburbs’—new geographical spaces shaped by external property investment, situated outside major population or touristic centres, and characterized by a plethora of short-term rentals. The research entailed a descriptive case study with two parts. The first part involved analysing the growth and current footprint of Airbnb in Bocas del Toro. Next, interviews with twenty local Airbnb hosts were conducted to investigate their motivations, experiences, and perceived impacts. The findings show that Airbnb has expanded quickly throughout Bocas del Toro, particularly in areas beyond traditional tourist centres. Interviews found that younger hosts were motivated to use Airbnb primarily to minimize work hours and facilitate their desired lifestyles. Hosts also tended to concentrate in ‘Airbnburbs’, often developed by converting forested land into foreign-owned enclaves. Such neighbourhoods were largely controlled by lifestyle migrant entrepreneurs to suit their lifestyle and income demands, while generally failing to create income-generating opportunities for locals. This research suggests ways these spaces might become more inclusive and proposes new areas for future research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.