Reworking Tourism

Book excerpt: There is a growing backlash against extractive and exploitative forms of tourism that have unleashed what some argue as unacceptable levels of change on local communities and environments. Examples include the rise of ‘overtourism’, the environmental impacts of the cruise sector, and collaborative economy platforms that have contributed to concerns over housing affordability and availability. Anti-tourism activism is on the rise, and the need to rethink the economic, political and social organisation of tourism in a global world has never been more apparent. It is increasingly clear that we need to rework the values underpinning tourism and visitor economies and move the focus from its traditional emphasis on profit, jobs and growth towards new models of economic and social exchange. This book gives voice to a growing movement of scholars, activists and business leaders who acknowledge that we need to reinvent relationships between tourism production and consumption, and between labour, capital and resources. In the Global North, this exploration of alternative economic and political relationships in tourism has tended to be located at the margins of discussion. The Global South has much to teach the Global North about alternative economic models, different kinds of exchange, new relationships between labour, capital and resources, and resilience. Drawing from case studies in both the North and the South, this edited collection explores how some are reworking tourism, reshaping the economies of tourism, and in the process, how tourism can deliver social and economic wellbeing in a changing world. Reworking Tourism will be of interest to scholars of tourism and development, as well as tourism and economics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Tourism Planning & Development.