Tourism Geographies Podcast

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2562976
Abstract

The Australian settler government has repeatedly promised Indigenous peoples (Anangu) of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park that they will benefit from settler government’s use of their lands as a significant tourism destination, yet the Anangu community of Uluru remains one of the poorest communities in Australia. This article utilises historical analysis and qualitative interviews with Anangu, Parks staff, and tourism staff to chart key dynamics in the relationship between the tourism industry and Anangu over 39 years of Joint Management in the Park. We show how the prioritisation of settler logics of tourism and work over Anangu benefit is not just an arbitrary cultural decision meted out in day-to-day interpersonal relations but is built into the geographies and temporalities of work in the Park. Highlighting how Anangu benefit is deferred through settler logics of work draws attention to the possibility for alternatives that are founded on Indigenous lifeworlds. This article’s analytic focus on quotidian, relational dynamics in intercultural contexts brings insights from Indigenous and settler colonial studies into tourism research and demonstrates a new way of identifying opportunities for transformation in Indigenous tourism industries in settler colonies. From a practical perspective, these insights underscore the importance of developing shared understandings of what meaningful and good “work” is in intercultural industries and highlights possible interventions into entrenched dynamics between Indigenous and settler peoples in these contexts.
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https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2533471

Abstract

This study investigates the regenerative potential of community-based ecotourism (CBET) through the lens of culinary value chains and experiential perspectives, analyzing their role in promoting cultural preservation, environmental stewardship, and local economic resilience. Employing Critical Place Inquiry (CPI) and ethnographic research methods, including participatory video, photography, walks, and mental mapping, the research examines the integration of Indigenous knowledge and place-based culinary traditions in fostering sustainable tourism models within Trà Vinh province, Vietnam. Findings reveal that culinary practices are deeply embedded within broader ecological, cultural, and social landscapes, functioning as socio-ecological systems that bolster local agency, facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer, and promote environmental protection. The research identifies four key place-based resources—culinary diversity & cultural identity, gastronomic harmony & social cohesion, environmental conservation & sustainability, and cultural exchange & intercultural understanding—critical for understanding the significance of place in CBET. Case studies exemplify how community-led culinary initiatives, rooted in Indigenous knowledge, strengthen agricultural traditions, foster biodiversity, and enhance community resilience. The study demonstrates that incorporating participatory methods enhances the comprehension of place-based tourism practices, positioning culinary value chains as essential mechanisms for preserving cultural traditions and ecological well-being. It offers novel insights into the transformative capacity of localized, community-based ecotourism, highlighting the crucial role of Indigenous viewpoints in tourism planning and advocating for holistic, inclusive, and sustainable culinary tourism strategies that lead to net-positive socio-environmental outcomes.
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https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2417853
Abstract

This review tracks the genealogy of the term militourism and its development and use since the early 1990s primarily through the scholarship of Teresia Teaiwa. It begins with a discussion of the concept’s emergence, with particular attention to the Pacific region, and examines other sites where the term has shed light on tourism and militarism’s collusions. In addition, the review considers scholarship that works with and through the term militourism, but which do not necessarily engage with its specific analytic. The review also examines the centrality of race, indigeneity, and gender in militourism’s analytical scope, and notes how its origins in the militarized Pacific necessarily tether the term to land and decolonial struggles.
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https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2495192
Abstract

The global rise of heritage tourism has intensified struggles over the ownership, meaning, and spatial governance of religious sites, yet the contested interplay of ideology, power, and sacred space remains understudied. This article addresses this gap through a longitudinal analysis of China’s Famen Temple, where two decades of state‑led tourism development have reconfigured sacred space through historical reinterpretations, institutional transformations, and spatial negotiations. Drawing on critical heritage studies and qualitative fieldwork, the study reveals how official discourses strategically reframe religious pasts to align with contemporary economic and ideological agendas, manifesting in spatial restructuring, ritual commodification, and redistributed power among stakeholders. Heritage tourism here emerges as a contested process: state and commercial actors leverage tourism for territorial control and economic growth, while monks and local communities navigate, resist, and adapt to these changes. The tensions between economic imperatives, religious traditions, and authoritarian governance illustrate that sacred sites are neither passively secularised nor sacralised but continually redefined through socio‑spatial contestation. By framing religious heritage as arenas of political negotiation, this study advances critical debates on tourism’s role in spatialising state power, arguing that such transformations reflect broader global struggles over cultural legitimacy, authority, and the right to define “heritage” itself.
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https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2502507
Abstract

This paper utilises bibliometric data on peer-reviewed publications to examine the characteristics and dominant narratives in overtourism research to date. Departing from earlier state-of-the-art reviews, it introduces a spatial perspective with a distinct focus on spatial processes and geographical scales. The analysis identifies six overarching themes in the literature, which predominantly centre on metropolitan contexts and are characterised by a normative critique of tourism. While the literature often identifies the causes of overtourism at either the global or local scale, proposed solutions tend to emphasise local-level responses, particularly through planning and destination management. The paper makes two key contributions: first, it highlights the need to broaden overtourism research beyond its current urban and metropolitan focus to encompass a wider range of geographical contexts; second, it emphasises the significance of engaging with geographies of scale to address overtourism not merely as a local planning challenge, but as a structural and systemic issue demanding multi-scalar interventions.
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