The Problem with Tourism Theory

I am convinced that there remain some fundamental problems with how we understand tourism, how we conceive of tourism as an object/focus of investigation and how we frame the relevance of tourism in the world. In recent years, there has been good progress in the area of tourism theory and I will first try to characterise where this has occurred. In addition, there have been some further clarifications of what the problems are and I will also allude to these. Finally, as others and I have grappled with some of these problems, some new solutions seem to be emerging and these are worth including here. Notably, and no doubt annoyingly and frustratingly, I have also come to the conclusion that we need new theory (how do we uncover aspects of tourism that remain otherwise obscured) less than we need a new ontology of tourism (describing what tourism is/does). So, it is to this problem, rather than a review of theoretical progress and over the past few years, that I give most attention. To be perfectly clear, this paper is less about the problem with existing tourism theory than the problem of tourism theory per se. Tb put it even more bluntly: I am less inclined to look for theoretical explanations of tourism than to explore an account ontology of tourism. I will be suggesting that far from seeing tourism as behaviour to be explained it might be more worthwhile considering it as an ordering, a rather special ordering of modernity.