The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Studies

"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."

- Professor Dean MacCannell, University of California, Davis

"The breadth of vision and sweep of accounts is remarkable, and range of topics laudable... a rare combination of the authoritative, the challenging and stimulating."

- Professor Mike Crang, Durham University



Tourism 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, exploring:

• The evolution and position of tourism studies


• The relationship of tourism to culture


• The ecology and economics of tourism


• Special events and destination management


• Methodologies of study


• Tourism and transport


• Tourism and heritage


• Tourism and postcolonialism


• 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 and will be quickly recognized as a landmark in the new and expanding field of tourism studies.