The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Studies

"This is the strongest overview I have encountered of the scope and the current state of research across all the fields involved in advancing our understanding of tourism. For its range of topics, depth of analyses, and distinction of its contributors, nothing is comparable. It will be greeted enthusiastically as an indispensable reference source."
--Dean MacCannell, University of California, Davis


Tourist Studies developed as a sub-branch of older disciplines in the social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology and economics, and newer applied fields of study in hospitality management, civil rights and transport studies. This Handbook is a sign of the maturity of the field. It provides an essential resource for teachers and students to determine the roots, key issues, and agenda of Tourism Studies.

Among the key features covered in the book are:

• The evolution and position of Tourism Studies
• The relationship of tourism to culture
• Route maps to the ecology and economics of tourism
• Special Events, Destination Management and Tourism
• Methodologies of Study
• Tourism and Transport
• Tourism and Heritage
• Tourism and Postolonialism
• Global Tourist Business Operations

Ranging from local to global issues, and from questions of management to the ethical dilemmas of tourism, this is a comprehensive, critically informed, constructively organized overview of the field. It draws together an inter-disciplinary group of contributors who are among the most celebrated names in the field. It will be quickly recognized as a landmark in the new and expanding field of Tourism Studies.