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McKercher, B. and Prideaux, B. (2020). Tourism Theories, Concepts and Models. ISBN: 9781911635352, Oxford, UK: Goodfellow Publishers Ltd. 256 pp.
The authors lead the reader through a long and fascinating journey through a much-debated issue, that of the theoretical foundations of a complex and complicated domain: tourism. A discussion that seems to go on since academics and researchers have put together a "critical mass" of investigations and reflections of the many facets of this phenomenon and its basic constituents.
As we all know tourism is an intriguing subject of study, probably because no accepted definition of the matter exists. It involves many areas of study, research methodologies, and applications, has fairly indefinite boundaries and brings together quite many different activities, with a wide variety of products and services that use different technologies for the production process. It exhibits so little homogeneity, that it may be even questioned whether it can be classified as an industry by itself in the traditional sense.
What the vast literature has produced so far can be summarized in the fifty themes that the authors list at the end of the book and that are described and discussed throughout the book. If we map their connections (see figure 1) it is immediately clear (p. 306) "what a multi-discipline tourism is and why it is such a fascinating field to examine" and "also highlights the innate challenges we face when trying to teach it in a simplistic manner, for it is impossible to understand tourism with having at least a basic knowledge of the many area, fields and disciplines that have contributed to our collective knowledge, and how they interact". Quite a dense and intricate set of relationships.
The main objective of the book, as the title says, is that of providing, or at least attempting at providing, a summary of the theories and models that emerge from the vast literature on the subject. This is a much-needed task. Although usually interpreted as an applied field of research, there is no doubt...