Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
fi ve to ten years and should be seen as providing impetus for the fi eld. Although a number of
these are external to tourist fi rms it should also be noted that geographers have also made very
signifi cant contributions to understanding tourism entrepreneurship, innovation, distribu-
tion channels and tourism-related international trade and business. Indeed, it is likely that this
research will remain a signifi cant focus for geographers, particularly those based in business
schools, in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, geography is also facing increasing institu-
tional challenges for its long-term survival, especially with respect to a separate identity and
skill base. Even though it is a fi eld which has been a major contributor to the sustainability of
tourism, its own long-term sustainability is becoming increasingly problematic. Much of the
future role of geographers' research on tourism in universities, society and in the wider
policy-making environment will depend upon their ability to foster and adapt to the new
research agendas which will bring tourism into the public domain, particularly with respect
to conservation and environmental change. For example, debates will continue over the
desirability of long-haul travel and our tourism carbon footprint on society (e.g. Gössling and
Hall, 2006a, 2006c; Gössling
et al.
, 2009; Hunter and Shaw, 2007; Scott
et al.
, 2007; Simpson
et al.
, 2008), as well as growing concerns over social inclusion and exclusion debates in the
developed and developing world associated with how tourism can create artifi cial social
divides and exacerbate notions of poverty (Aitchison, 2007; Hall, 2007b; Hall and Brown,
2006).
While geographers will clearly not have a monopoly on the way tourism develops as a
subject in the next fi ve to ten years, their continued role is vital, so that the subject embraces
many of the contemporary debates and research agendas facing tourism not only at the level
of the fi rm and its economic concerns but also some of the broader social and environmental
challenges. Tourism and the communities that depend on it clearly face an uncertain future
given the issues of global security, environmental change and energy supply. Yet with the
growing blurring of the boundaries of the social science subjects that now contribute to the
study of tourism and the potential homogenisation of disciplinary space in the short term and
skills in the longer one, it is perhaps pertinent to conclude with a reconfi guration of Cohen's
(1974) 'Who is a tourist?' to 'Who is a tourism geographer?' The conceptual clarifi cation of
both tourism and tourism geography remains an important ongoing task, because it infl u-
ences not just how we think, but, perhaps far more signifi cantly, what we actually do now,
given the broader development of spatiality in tourism research.
