Conclusion

As Hall comments in Chapter 2, globalisation is a ‘concept with consequences’. Not only do such consequences apply to tourism, but also the globalisation of society is now a fundamental consideration of all industrial and emerging economies with implications at the level of individual enterprises, governments and communities. The chapters in this book have shown that there is a range of approaches to know just what it means to be a global society. Whilst each social science and business subject area adopts a different stance viz-à-viz globalisation, it is possible to draw together these disparate threads by considering globalisation as boundarylessness and the various organisational responses to it (Parker 1998). Ashkenas et al. (1995) see this as a new paradigm for organisational behaviour, characterised by speed, flexibility integration and innovation. In other words, the process of globalisation not only reduces borders and barriers for trade between nations, but it also renders these boundaries permeable both within and between organisations. This increased permeability of boundaries has been brought about by a series of drivers operating at all scales, not simply at the global scale, and discussed further below. Some (such as Parker 1998: 6) assert that globalisation goes beyond the idea of permeating boundaries between nations and organisations, but also crosses the ‘traditional borders of time, space, scope, geography, functions, thought, cultural assumptions . . .’. This, in turn, demands both a different perspective and position to be taken on the management and operation of tourism organisations (Melin 1992). Of course, whilst tourism organisations themselves are affected by globalisation, so too they enhance and sustain the process of globalisation in terms of their own responses to the phenomenon. In many respects, as this book shows, tourism is at the forefront of the creation of a global society.