Creating a new epistemiology for tourism and hospitality disciplines

The present paper develops the need for an all-encompassing view of tourism, exploring the limitations of other previous approaches. Under the premise that tourism is associated to a dream-like sub-system which controls social and personal behaviour, it is hypothesised that a new methodology of understanding tourism from a cross-cultural point of view, rather than purely a Western point of view, is needed. Our thesis is that there is not one unique definition of tourism, but many definitions, adjusted to the requirements of each society, and demanding a new systemic dialogue involving economics, religion, politics and security. This is an inter-linguistic effort to link the most representative studies in epistemology written and published in Spanish, English and Portuguese.