ABSTRACT
Social scientists engage in studies of industrial development of many kinds, and the tourism industry is one of them. One of the particularities of social science language is its inherent capacity to see beyond an industry’s economic meanings and to unveil the richness of actors, materials and practices as well as the values and rationalities that are tied to it and that enable or disable its development. Such approaches challenge conventional notions of an industry like tourism. This is why social scientists’ way of looking at tourism may lead to a – for some annoyingly banal, but for many scholars demanding and fundamental – question like ‘what is tourism?’ The authors of this anthology have focused on the term ‘destination’, motivated by its widespread but often blurred and non-reflexive use among those who relate to tourism. The assumptions that mark academic as well as political, governmental and industrial usages of the term have been challenged through conceptual and empirical explorations from a variety of angles. This has produced reports on current conceptual and empirical trends – i.e. about turns and tactics – in the field of tourism.
