Humanistic tourism? Personal constructions of a tourist: Sam visits Japan

Abstract

The underlying model of the person that pervades contemporary observations of tourism is closely aligned to that of behavioural psychology where a person's behaviour is assumed to be rooted in his or her response to an external environment. It is argued that this has contributed to the widespread derogation of tourists and the predominance of research studies relating to the creation of a structure for the tourism industry. Through a brief discussion of humanistic psychology and the reporting of a case study using the theory and methods of Personal Construct Psychology the author attempts to re-frame tourism research and to demonstrate the potential of the approach for other areas of leisure studies. In conclusion it is suggested that the future challenge for both tourist generating regions and nations and host communities should be to recognize the potential role of tourism in the celebration of human diversity.