ABSTRACT
Power is one of the core concepts of the social sciences. Elster (1976: 249) describes it as ‘the most important single idea in political theory, comparable perhaps to utility in economics’. Unfortunately, issues of power have not been at the centre of understanding tourism. Arguably, this situation is now beginning to change. Issues of power have started to rear their head with respect to such matters as tourism promotion and planning as well as tourism development in the less developed countries (eg. Reed 1997; Morgan and Pritchard 1999; Cheong and Miller 2000). More recently, there has been some limited interest in political security issues in tourism and the extent to which personal mobility is regulated as a result of new state approaches to the management of the terrorist threat (O’Byrne 2001; Hall 2002; Hall et al. 2004). Beyond such apparent enthusiasm, a more acute comment on tourism studies is that they are often not only cast as atheoretical but they may also be read as effectively apolitical.
