Travel, Tourism & Leisure Studies Book of the Month, February 2010

"This revised edition of Stephen William's book contributes significantly to an understanding of the importance of geographical issues in the theory and practice of tourism. Leavened with useful case studies and questions this new edition links some conventional and basic issues to the intricacies of the geographical perspectives to provide some new insights into practices of tourism." Dr. Michael Fagance, The University of Queensland, AUS

Tourism is an intensely geographic phenomenon. It stimulates large-scale, global movement of people and forges distinctive relationships between people and the places they visit. It shapes processes of physical development and resource exploitation, whilst the presence of visitors exerts a range of economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts that oftentimes have important implications for local geographies.

This second edition of Tourism Geography develops a critical understanding of how different geographies of tourism are created and maintained. Drawing on both historical and contemporary perspectives, the discussion – which is in three main parts - connects tourism to key geographical concepts relating to globalization, mobility, new geographies of production and consumption, and post-industrial change. Part I examines how spatial patterns of tourism are formed and evolve through time. Part II offers an extended discussion of how tourism relates to places that are toured, examining physical and economic development, socio-cultural and environmental relations and the role of tourism planning. Part III develops a range of new material for this second edition that considers important contemporary influences upon tourism geographies, including place promotion, new forms of urban tourism, heritage, identity and embodied forms of tourism.