Current Issues in Tourism
Editor: C. Michael Hall (Department of Management, College of Business and Economics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand) and Chris Cooper (Foundation Professor of Tourism, University of Queensland, Australia) Michael and Chris are joint editor of the book series Aspects of Tourism. Reviews Editor John Jenkins (University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia)
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Volume: 10 Number: 1 Page: 61–86
doi:10.2167/cit300.0
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Towards Developing a Framework for Analysing Tourism Phenomena: A Discussion
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David Harrison
International Institute for Culture, Tourism and Development, London Metropolitan University, 277–281 Holloway Road, London N7 8HN, UK and Overseas Development Institute, 111, Westminster Bridge Road, London SE17 7JD, UK
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The social and cultural phenomena related to tourism have been studied for more than three decades, but evaluations of their role and importance are inevitably subjective. In addition, despite contributions from scholars in numerous disciplines, there is no single paradigm in tourism studies. In this paper, explicitly written from a sociological perspective, three basic and complementary levels of analysis are indicated, focusing on globalisation and wider systems, social and economic structures and institutions, and interactional processes. Prominent contributions to the tourism literature from these different methodological foundations are discussed, and it is concluded that wider recognition of such levels would facilitate a more coherent, comprehensive and comparative understanding of tourism's role and importance in a wide range of societies, and would also help clarify the questions being addressed in empirical research and theoretical analyses.
Keywords: tourism theory, methodology, social systems, interaction
© 2007 D. Harrison
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