science

Tourism geography

Tourism geography is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tourism geography rather than just read about it. In short: Tourism geography is the study of travel and tourism, as an industry and as a social and cultural activity. Tourism geography covers a wide range of interests including the environmental impact of tourism, the geographies of tourism and leisure economies, answering tourism industry and management concerns and the sociology of tourism and locations of tourism.

Key takeaways

Tourism geography belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tourism geography to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tourism geography from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tourism geography is the study of travel and tourism, as an industry and as a social and cultural activity. Tourism geography covers a wide range of interests including the environmental impact of tourism, the geographies of tourism and leisure economies, answering tourism industry and management concerns and the sociology of tourism and locations of tourism. Tourism geography is that branch of human geography that deals with the study of travel and its impact on places. Geography is fundamental to the study of tourism, because tourism is geographical in nature. Tourism occurs in places, it involves movement and activities between places and it is an activity in which both place characteristics and personal self-identities are formed, through the relationships that are created among places, landscapes and people. Physical geography provides the essential background, against which tourism places are created and environmental impacts and concerns are major issues, that must be considered in managing the development of tourism places. The approaches to study will differ according to the varying concerns. Much tourism management literature remains quantitative in methodology and considers tourism as consisting of the places of tourist origin (or tourist generating areas), tourist destinations (or places of tourism supply) and the relationship (connections) between origin and destination places, which includes transportation routes, business relationships and traveler motivations. Recent developments in human geography have resulted in approaches such as those from cultural geography, which take more theoretically diverse approaches to tourism, including a sociology of tourism, which extends beyond tourism as an isolated, exceptional activity and considering how travel fits into the everyday lives and how tourism is not only a consumptive of places, but also produces the sense of place at a destination. The Tourist by Dean MacCannell and The Tourist Gaze by John Urry are classics in this field.

See also Cultural tourism Ecotourism Geotourism Heritage tourism Hospitality management studies Leisure studies List of tourism journals Sociology of leisure Tourism region

References

External links Pioneering China-based Geotourism (China Daily March 31, 2006) Tourism Geographies: An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment (Routledge)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tourism geography

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tourism geography claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tourism geography before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tourism geography ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tourism geography

In research: Tourism geography appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tourism geography in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tourism geography is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human geography, Tourism geography, Types of tourism, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tourism geography outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Tourism geography” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Tourism geography in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tourism geography means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tourism geography out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tourism geography in simple terms?

Why does Tourism geography matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tourism geography?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tourism geography.