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Tourism: A Critical Business

University of Surrey

A research and practice gap is identified demonstrating tourism to be an insufficiently critical business. Initially the idea of critical tourism is addressed in two ways. First, an array of meanings is exposed from which the idea of critical theory is developed. Next, discussion turns to how critical approaches can contribute to good management and governance of tourism by providing understandings that technical rationality can overlook. Finally, the limited extent of critical tourism research is established. The article concludes that tourism should be a critical business and offers pointers for such an agenda. For although positivist research informed by technical rationality is crucial to the better operational management of tourism, critical research is essential for setting an agenda for ethical management, governance and coexistence with the wider world. Indeed it is critical to deep, long-term sustainability and even the survival of tourism.

Key Words: critical theory • ideology • power • governance

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