Tourism Management Perspectives

Tourism Management Perspectives , 2019

Asian tourist behaviour is often characterised along essentialistic terms such as Asians are collectivistic and hierarchical. The essentialist approach to understanding culture faces serious criticisms. In using cultural complexity instead of culture, this paper introduces functional culture and negotiated culture perspectives, as derived from structural functionalism and conflict theory respectively, to situate Asian tourist behaviour. Cultural complexity is manifested as a dynamic web of stable and yet changing social manifestations. The pool of contrasting and contradicting cultural manifestations is a resource for members of society to express, control and navigate the variety of situations they encounter in life. The diversity of potential cultural expressions also provides society room to experiment, respond and manage changing circumstances. This paper offers implications from the functional culture and negotiated culture perspectives on the management of Asian tourists. It also addresses the academic implication, in the context of the Asianisation of tourism scholarship.

2014

Rethinking Asian Tourism addresses some of the latest developments in on-going tourism research in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia region (encompassing, in geographical terms, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea). It examines many of the emerging, as well as established, themes and issues in Asian tourism and promotes the development of critical scholarship within Asia to overcome Anglo-Western ethnocentrism in tourism studies of the region. There is some attention to such familiar concepts as authenticity, commoditisation, culture, heritage, and hosts and guests, but more especially to the diversification of phenomena which traditionally would not have been included within the parameters of tourism studies: retirees and long-stays, gastronomy, family-based leisure, popular culture, and local branding. Above all, the book addresses and develops a conceptual understanding from a multidisciplinary perspective of the character, experie...

International Journal of Tourism Cities, 2020

Purpose This paper aims to intend to contextualize touristification with a focus on Asia. It argues that touristification in Asia extends beyond physical transformation and is used as a socio-political mechanism by the state and communities alike. This study aims to broaden the discussions on touristification by noting how the issue of authenticity and state intervention is approached in Asia. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on literature review, sourced from academic material discussing touristification and the influence of tourism. Findings Aside from undertaking physical changes, states in Asia adopt a socio-political angle in the commercialization of culture for tourism so that the culture that is presented to tourists is aligned to its national image. The construction of culture and narration of history for tourism branding predominate touristification in Asia. Conversely, minority culture had also used cultural touristification in asserting their identity, as c...

2012

“…if these practices are described properly and accurately, one might understand better how tourism characterizes daily lives of social groups living in host environments and how it offers a distinctive sense of what happens to people, thus comprehending societies and cultures in tourism contexts” (pp. xxvi). This is the last sentence of the introduction to this volume. Linking this statement to the heading of the Conclusion acknowledges that, being one of the most important economic realities in the world and a product of “the industrial structures of the Western world” (Lanquar, 1991, p. 7), tourism is a result of the practices carried out by millions of people moving all over the world spending their incomes to enjoy themselves. Moreover, these processes are either politico-economic and/or ideological in character (Lengkeek & Swain, 2006) and thereof sociocultural.

Cultural Studies Review, 2006

Annals of Tourism Research, 2014

The present notes of research centres on the problem of fragmentation, which is experienced by tourism applied research in the recent years. Echoing the original claims issued by John Tribe-followed by many others scholars-, we discuss further on the socioeconomic factors that prevented tourism its maturated and stylised form. Though we introduce a materialist viewpoint, echoing David Harvey, no less true is that the point is open to further debate-incorporating cultural viewpoints-. The impulses and bursts of interest received simultaneously from social science but also by the theory of scientifisation coined by Jafar Jafari did not suffice to gain purchase over a maturated discipline. Even if followers of Jafari envisaged that the maturation of tourism hinged on the proficiency and prolificity of published works, this obscured more than it clarified. Nowadays, the epistemology of tourism is facing a serious crisis which needs immediate attention.

Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 2010

Whereas the internal activities of the service provider are often portrayed in form of a service blueprint, the counterpart on the customer side is missing. In order to take the service transaction as one process entity into account, this paper aims at identifying an implicit structure that defines the customer process as an equivalent to the explicit tool of a service blueprint. Such a structure can be found in a customer service script. With the objective to extend the traditional service blueprint by the customer dimension and reduce transaction costs, the article analyses service scripts and tests relevant influential factors.