ABSTRACT
Within the literature on recreation and tourism, there has been a paucity of conceptual and theoretical research on the supply component of these activities, although Song (2012) has provided a recent review of the advances in tourism supply chain management. The geographer has traditionally approached the supply issues informed by concepts and models from economic geography focusing on the location and the spatial distribution of recreational and tourism resources which shape the activity patterns and spectrum of opportunity for leisure pursuits. However, since the mid-1990s more qualitative research challenged the positivist approach to spatial analysis with reference to leisure supply (e.g. Aitchison 1999; Mansvelt 2010). This has resulted in more sophisticated cultural geographies of leisure (as discussed more fully in Chapter 2) that highlight the importance of more theoretically derived explanations of key geographical questions on leisure and tourism provision (i.e. supply). In particular, such research questions the notion of who gets what, where, with more emphasis on why, the classic statement by Lasswell (1936) with respect to the study of politics. More theoretically informed research from a political economy perspective (Hall 2012c) tends to utilise structural explanations to help understand issues of location. This approach focuses on the way society is managed and controlled by those exercising power in examining causes rather than just the effects in time and space. The result is that the geographer needs to consider more challenging perspectives related to the way in which leisure (and tourism) supply is produced by the state and private sector at different scales. Indeed, Schwanen and Kwan (2009) extend the debate, arguing for more critical spatial analysis by geographers that challenges the different forms of oppression and exploitation that reflect the long tradition of radical geography developed by Peet (2009; see also Hall 2012a). This chapter will review some of these new debates together with the evolution of the geographer’s contribution to the analysis of supply issues.
