Few would deny that tourism is one of the defining phenomena of our age. It has a significant, and growing, impact on a wide range of issues - such as the environment, leisure and transport - and in fewer than three hundred years tourism has come to be a global service industry of great economic, cultural and political importance. Published to critical acclaim, the Encyclopedia of Tourism - now available as a Routledge World Reference title - is the definitive one-volume reference source to this challenging multisectoral industry and multi disciplinary field of study. This book comprises over one thousand entries and has been written by an international team of more than three hundred contributors to provide a comprehensive guide to both the manifest and hidden dimensions of tourism. The Encyclopedia explicates and explores the wide range of basic definitions, concepts, perspectives and institutions embraced by tourism, and consolidates research carried out in the field to date.
Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of academic exploration within Tourism, the entries embrace areas of study such as Anthropology, Economics, Education, Geography, History, Management, Marketing, Political Science and Psychology, among others.
The Encyclopedia of Tourism includes: * comprehensive coverage of the all the key general issues and concepts specific to tourism, such as accommodation, consumerism, gambling, globalization, policy, seasonality; * definitions of all the key terms and acronyms, including ecoresort, professional native, room nights; * entries on the significant institutions, associations and journals in the field, such as the Caribbean Tourism Organization, WTO, the Journal of Leisure Research and the Journal of Tourism Studies ; * country-specific tourism profiles, from Greece, Hungary and Japan to Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Singapore and South Africa; * thorough analysis of the trends and patterns of tourism development and growth, with entries such as: community development, demography, ecologically sustainable tourism, forecasting, zoning; and studies of tourism as an industry with many businesses, for example, adventure tourism, business travel, convention bureaux, hospitality, marketing, public relations. The Encyclopedia of Tourism 's extensive cross-referencing and its comprehensive index will assist the reader to make links between the diverse aspects of tourism studies.
And the suggestions for further reading which follow most articles are also invaluable in guiding the user to sources of additional research.