This book provides an overview of a number of major themes on tourism studies nowadays, allowing readers to become familiar with a wide range of topics. Twenty chapters in this book and 20 issues with some common characteristics: they are all contemporary and under‐researched (some of them still “emerging”), with good potential for generating new knowledge and for inspiring both academics and practitioners to do more.
Of course the list of issues is not exhaustive – that would have been a Herculean task: a limited number of them had to be chosen, and the editors have undoubtedly made an interesting selection, although others could have been added. That would be an endless and not very fruitful discussion, although in such a young academic discipline (or indiscipline, as argued by Tribe and others) it is not easy to find themes that are over‐researched.
Nevertheless, I would classify the book's chapters into two different types of content:
- 1.
Some of them are transversal in character, addressing issues of general interest; they include the first seven chapters (mass tourism vs niche tourism, tourism development, tourist behavior and motivation, authenticity, semiotics, sustainability, and community‐led tourism, plus the slow movement in food, cities and tourism, tackled in chapter nine).
- 2.
Others focus on the analysis of diverse niches of the tourism industry: ranging from those of rural or cultural character to those based on events, festivals and arts, sports and adventures, heritage, films, gastronomy, and historical or religious sites; some niches are even based on particular types of tourist, such as the LGBT grouping (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders), and others on particular motivations for travel, such as health or medical treatments, and on a particular means of transportation, such as cruise vessels.
At the same time, there are evident interactions between some of the chapters: for instance, a type of tourism centered on arts, heritage or gastronomy is considered as cultural tourism; in other words, those are sub‐segments of cultural tourism. The criteria used to select the chapters, and their sequence, are not apparent or clear enough to me. As a suggestion, its structure could have been organized in several blocks, according to the different nature of the topics under study.
In particular, I would have like to see some more chapters devoted to transversal research topics, such as knowledge management and innovation, strategy and competitiveness, or human resources management, among other possibilities, because tourism firms present clear and interesting peculiarities in these fields. With such an approach, the book's structure would have been more balanced.
However, the title does suggest to readers what they will find inside: a number of interesting research themes in contemporary tourism. Besides, given the layout and orientation provided to the chapters, with a mix of theory (with the corresponding literature reviews) and practice (including examples), the editors have tried to target two different audiences: researchers and professionals. The merit of this attempt is well worth recognition: it is always a difficult challenge to be addressed. The ultimate and inevitable question in these cases is whether both audiences will finally be satisfied.
This work tends to fall between differing needs: researchers may feel some disappointment, given a certain lack of deeper insight into theoretical and, above all, methodological issues, that generally command most interest from this group; for their part, professionals would maybe like to see more concrete answers to their day‐to‐day concerns, and a selection of proven “best practices” that would make their work easier. But part of our job as academics is to present not only answers, but also questions for further discussion, new research projects and future advances.
So, I would say that the prime target market for this book is the academic community, in a double sense:
- 1.
The contents provide valuable working material for PhD courses and students; the latter will find a good starting point with regard to literature reviews and guidelines for future research in any of the 20 topics under study. This should make it much easier for them to identify the seminal publications and the gaps in existing research for their own work and future original contributions.
- 2.
The book also constitutes valuable working material for teaching purposes, given the many examples (I do not consider case study to be the proper term for the real experiences encapsulated in the various chapters; case studies present real problems which demand decisions and possible solutions) and review questions included. From this material students, on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses, can see how the theoretical underpinnings are, or are not, reflected in real situations.
Therefore, assuming that the main objective of this book is to present the state of the art of a number of current issues in the field of tourism, with both rigorous theoretical foundations and practical implications, the final outcome is satisfactory. However, this book cannot constitute an optimal approach for the two main target populations: researchers and practitioners. Moreover, the selection of topics and the sequence of presentation are debatable.
This book is complementary to others more tightly focused on research methodologies: quantitative and qualitative, descriptive, explanatory or predictive, and underlying the interdisciplinary and cross‐cultural profile of tourism as a field of study. Some of these readily come to mind: Tourism Research (by G. Jennings, 2010), “Planning Research in Hospitality & Tourism” (by L. Altinay and A. Paraskevas, 2008), Research Methods for Leisure & Tourism: A Practical Guide (by A.J. Veal, 2006), Tourism Research Methods (by B.W, Ritchie, P.M. Burns and C.A. Palmer, 2005).
Finally, I would definitely recommend this book to those with a research interest: students, faculties and managers. It is a valuable and relevant collection, to be complemented with other works, depending on the type of reader: academics (who will still need to consult books with a stronger orientation to research methodologies and, eventually, other works that address the general or specific topics of interest), and practitioners (who need works with more detailed managerial implications).
