Resource Management in Tourism Research: A New Direction?

Abstract

This analysis of papers in tourism journals found that tourism research is expanding in volume but is static in content; non-responsive to contemporary issues; dominated by academics; disinterested in resource, host community and cultural issues; oriented towards supply and descriptive rather than directed towards methodology and theory development. Despite concern for sustainability, the absence of resource management in tourism discourse is highlighted. While others have attributed this situation to the evolutionary development of tourism inquiry, this paper suggests that this is symptomatic of a discipline that lacks direction, and which is not moving towards maturity. This situation contrasts with other disciplines where a clear evolutionary development is evident. Our diagnosis is that tourism research can and will develop and mature only when it explicitly considers the nature of the tourism resource, and the interaction of the industry with it, thereby finding a place in the spectrum of resource management sciences.