The tourism system

Recap
 The notion of environment is one we need to
question as what it means;
 Perceptions of the environment are important;
 What governs these - is the environment 'out
there' as a resource to be used?
 What factors influence our views our values?
 Perceptions of humanity as being in a position of
dominance in an era of the anthropocene;
 But we are not in control;
 A situation of complexity where we need to slow
down at key points?
 And speed up changes in economic priorities, state
policies, and better management?
And yet mega-resorts - Hainan Island - China -
tourism, growth, and environmental change

*http://www.theguardian.com/environme
nt/video/2010/apr/23/china-golf-
courses-hainan

http://blog.euromonitor.com/2014/05/hainan-
province-one-of-the-fastest-growing-travel-
and-tourism-economies.html
 Session objectives
Upon completion of this lecture, you should be able to:
 Understand the main components of the tourism

system;
 be able to outline the differing aspects of the tourism
system;
 Understand how tourism is embedded within
environments as part of a complex system;
 How tourism is a hybrid activity - involving orderings
of space to produce it;
 And how tourism is a hybrid of social-ecological-
technological things all of which are agents of changes;
What is a system?

 A system has parts

 These are interconnected and
interrelated.
 They are changing all the time -
dynamic;
 The system is part of society and
environment.
 All parts influence each other;
The tourism system
 Six aspects:
1- Tourists;
2. Traveller-generating regions;
3. Tourist-destination regions;
4. Transit route regions
5. Tourism industries - range of
businesses and organizations involved
in delivering the tourism product.
6. The social, technological, legal,
ecological context in which the system
is embedded;
The Tourism System
A more complex representation of the
tourism system
Tourism as a complex-adaptive system?

 What are complex adaptive system?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfnY
9gn6ktk&list=UUG0QUKa0MTBzBKiW1
8AZfTg
 How can we apply this to tourism?
 Definitions of Tourism Reviewed

 Demand-Side Definition
Tourism comprises the activities of persons
travelling to and staying in places outside their usual
environment for not more than one consecutive year
for leisure, business or other purposes (Holloway and
Taylor 2006:6)
 The 'Tourist syndrome' Z. Bauman
 Spatial aspect: Travel outside the individual’s ‘usual
environment’ - international, domestic, excursionist;
 Modern tourism is a way of being in & of the world
and navigating ourselves around our complicated
worlds;
 For Bauman the tourist has become a metaphor for
modern life;
 To be mobile, travelled, connected, but with few ties
to a locale is how a successful life is often measured;
 'The tourist syndrome', he argues affects how we live
in our home places too;
 Does this affect how tourists care, or lack care, for
places?
 Mobilities and Travel Purpose

 The globalised worlds we live in are

characterized by objects in motion;
 People, traded goods, foods, animals, etc.

 Tourism travel is but one part of wider

movements of people and objects;
 Tourism travel purposes:

 Holidays; VFR; Business related;

 Pilgrimages, spirituality (ashrams), health;

 Sport, educational study;

 Others?
Tourism generating regions
 Governments of generating regions can
also affect tourism, How?
 Can limit tourism to some places
(Bhutan), ban it, or regulate where
people go;
 E.g China - Approved Destination
Status;
 They can facilitate tourism by opening
borders, developing systems of travel.
 Or provide legal protection - 1990 EU
package tourism directive (now revised).
 Tourism generating regions

 Tourism depends on where we look at it

from - arrival or generating regions.
 What are the main tourism generating
regions?
 How might international tourism affect
regions people return home to?
 Culturally - in terms of wider experiences -
food, décor, habits, etc.
 Environmentally - more concerned about
ecology?
 Transit regions / spaces
 What are transit regions in international
tourism?
 Transit spaces as anonymous spaces of

supermodernity - Marc Augé;

 Environmental consequences of transit

spaces?
 Socio-political, economic changes and new
technologies may change transit spaces;
 E.g Foynes in W.Ireland:
http://www.flyingboatmuseum.com/
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3sA-c6i8w
Tourism Industries

 What makes up the tourism industries?

 The tourist industry consists of all those firms,
organisations and facilities which are intended
to serve the specific needs and wants of the
tourists. (Leiper, 1979:400);
* These are enormously diverse, ranging from
accommodation investors; family run hotels;
* Attractions from disneyworld, to cathedrals,
museums, landscapes, monuments, and more;
Destination regions / spaces
Destination regions
 Geographies of destinations changed massively
in the post 1950 period; How and Why?
 Consumer interest, fashions, lifestyle changes;
 Technological changes;
 Active promotional efforts;
 Destination peoples - consequences of tourism
for them?
 People in destinations are diverse - some will
benefit, others will bear the consequences more
negatively;
 How might we understand destination places
and their views?
Learning from Anthropology about
destinations – Valene Smith

 Overview 4Hs of tourism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STU
Yz3tdf9Q
 Habitat as part of the 4Hs of tourism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxd
YWLNffig
 The ‘context’ of tourism
 Often the context of tourism has not been taken
seriously enough;
 Environments, politics, social factors, economic
changes always effect tourism;
 This might be temporarily or permanently;
 How might tourism be affected by these factors?
Questions
 What ‘external’ factors of the tourism
system affected tourism from 2008,
and how?
 What factors have affected tourism in
recent years in: a Egypt; b Greece; c
Kenya; and in what ways?
Tourism as an ordering

 We might begin to see tourism as a system of

orderings;
 Franklin seeks to show this through looking at
the ordering logistical work of Thomas Cook;
 He was widely admired by the British Army;
 Tourism (re)orders places, spaces, cities and
cultures, natures, leaving them changed in
specific ways;
 Tourism orderings have gradually spread out
globally - effecting nearly all places;
 The logistics of tourism orderings are
immensely complex and require 'translation' of
interests to fit within an ordering;
Tourism as an ordering
 Tourism is often seen as simply a social-economic
activity - business - practice (how it is done);
 Tourism is a hybrid practice;
 An assemblage of social, political, economic,
ecological, legal, architectural things;
 Many tourism orderings start with a plan of how
it should be;
 And they have consequences - intended and very
often unintended ones;
 One ordering intersects with other orderings
which transforms them both;
 Often small interventions in one system affect
other systems
Tourism ordering - Cancun
 Planned and begun as a new Miami style resort
in Mexico in 1968 - opened 1974;
 In Quintano Roo - new state in SE Mexico - as a
tax revenue source for the state;
 Planned as an integrated resort for luxury
tourists;
 With local agriculture supplying food, local use of
labour...
 But the ordering did not work easily:
 Agriculture failed; hurricane 1988; price
reductions - budget tourism; pollution;
Questions
 Focus on a destination you know;
 How might tourism be seen as a hybrid
form of development involving social,
political, economic and environmental
reorderings to make it?
 Can you think of other orderings that
this development intersected with?
Environment and Tourism as ordering

 if negative environmental impacts are a

result of a particular ordering then
minimising them requires reorderings;
 This can be done through better
environmental management;
 And this requires other changes to the
system of tourism;