Twenty Years of Tourism Research

Professor Victor T. KingSchool of Oriental and African Studies, London; University of Leeds; Chiang Mai University, Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Twenty Years of Tourism Research• My first encounter with

tourism research in 1990, Malaysia;

• Interest in impacts on local communities;

• Cultural and ethnic tourism;

• 1980s and 1990s tourism becoming a major growth industry (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines)

Comparison• Some detailed studies of

specific countries and peoples (Thailand, Bali, Sulawesi, Malaysia);

• But very little comparison across countries in the region;

• And very little attention to studying tourism from different disciplines: sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, history, geography

Tourism Studies• Only began to be

established as a separate field of studies in the 1980s;

• But it is not easily defined and separated from academic disciplines;

• What is tourism? Leisure, relaxation; something different from everyday life; travel to somewhere else; new experiences; a pilgrimage/sacred journey

Contributions to Tourism Studies

Developments• Sun, sand, sea, shopping,

sex;• 1990s a shift to issues of

sustainability;• Ecotourism;• Heritage (UNESCO World

Heritage Sites from 1991);• Community-based tourism;• Increasing importance of

tourism within Asia; no longer Western-Asian encounters dominant;

• Emerging tourisms

Heritage Tourism

• Some of the major challenges in Southeast Asia; cultural and natural heritage;

• How to conserve our legacies from the past and enable visitors to enjoy them without creating too many pressures

Heritage in great danger

Research approaches

• Tourism Studies a multidisciplinary field of studies;

• Does not have its own theories, concepts, methods;

• We rely on the academic disciplines; in my case sociology and anthropology;

• But usually adopt mixed methodologies

Methodologies for Research

• Tourism Studies can be defined in a number of ways according to different disciplinary and research interests;

• therefore the methodologies will vary depending on the task in hand, the research problem formulated, the breadth and depth of the study contemplated;

Interests of Different Disciplines• as an anthropologist my

tourism is not that of the political scientist focusing on how tourism is used by government for political purposes; nor is the tourism of the economist (examining financial costs and benefits) that of the historian looking at the development of tourism during the colonial period, for example

What to do in research?• Not a set of specific practices

in tourism studies which we might adopt or follow in the ways in which we

• formulate research issues or questions;

• make decisions on how we address the subject, question, problem or theme before us;

• decide how we might identify what kinds of evidence or information we require to address the research task we have set for ourselves;

Continued• decide on the most

appropriate ways in which we gather and select the data;

• evaluate the robustness, utility and validity of the evidence we have mustered;

• sift and choose the evidence which we then use to make our case;

• and develop or choose concepts or theories to make sense of, give some kind of logical and coherent form to, and draw some conclusions from the data collected;

• make decisions about ethical issues

UNESCO World Heritage Project• Hosts and guests

(complex);• But we examine

encounters, interactions, meetings;

• These can be positive and friendly or negative and in conflict, tension; or complementary and collaborative; or transformative

Importance of Local Involvement

Tourism Sites

• Defined and delimited sites for encounters and conflicts between a range of stakeholders: local people, tourists (domestic and international), NGOs, national governments, international agencies;

Concepts Valued legacy; the use of

the past; interpreted, given meaning and significance;

Heritage not handed down unchanged from one generation to the next: subject to selection, construction, negotiation and discussion in the context cultural politics and economic development;

tangible and intangible;

natural, cultural and mixed

Authenticity and Nostalgia• ‘WHS do not simply carry

a prescribed set of essential “authentic meanings” with them which are unproblematic and passively accepted’, (Meethan,2006)

Globalisation • globalised industry;

international agencies: UNESCO:

• WHC; • ICOMOS; • IUCN; • ICCROM• WMF• International tourism;• International media;

The Central Problem the need to protect and

conserve special sites and their authenticity in relation to government concerns to use the sites for national identity construction and prestige, as well as economic development through the promotion of tourism and related activities; globalised but located in nation-states;

Management and Policy

• What is best practice? How best can they be managed?

• Can different interests and agendas be reconciled?

Methods• Research team• Research assistants• Research associates• Rapid appraisal• Pilot studies• Participant

observations as tourists• Photographic records;• Photo-essays and

working papers

Methods continued

• UNESCO websites; other international organisations

• Tourist blogs; tripadvisor

• Structured interviews with key personnel;

• Questionnaire survey of domestic/international tourists;

• Conference panels and workshops

Region-wide Study: Comparisons

Sites (21 out of 33)

• Malaysia (3 sites)• Indonesia (6 sites)• Thailand (3 sites)• Philippines (3 sites)• Vietnam (4 sites)• Cambodia (1 site)• Laos (1 site)

Conclusions

• Great variations in characteristics and pressures across sites and countries;

• National dimension; some sites are used more than others in the interests of nation-building and economic development;

Conclusions• issues of authenticity;

cultural tourism versus mass tourism;

• Tourism pressures; both domestic and international;

• and everyday cultural use;

• though global sites must also focus on domestic use;

Conclusions• Management

coordination; multiple stakeholders; importance of local involvement;

• UNESCO approach needs further thought; are there sites which should not be inscribed as WHS?