ABSTRACT
Tourism activity, as viewed from space (i.e. ‘up there’), would probably baffl e and fascinate extraterrestrials in equal measure. Down here on Earth, tourism as viewed from a spatial perspective is easily as baffl ing and fascinating – one of the main reasons why scholars in geography have long since taken such an interest in studying the phenomenon. When considering the act of tourism as implying movement of some kind, we acknowledge that movement is fundamentally a geographic concept, as Knudsen et al. note in Chapter 26 of this volume. As such, those engaged in tourism studies from within geography (and related fi elds with a spatial and/or place-based focus) are arguably well placed to get to grips with the complex spatiality of tourism. Gibson’s (2008) review in Progress in Human Geography echoes this sentiment, highlighting tourism geography’s inherent ‘criticality, pervasiveness and scope to catalyse cutting-edge research’ (p. 15).
