Reconsidering the Geography of Tourism and Contemporary Mobility

Abstract Tourism is one of the world's largest legal industries. At the same time that tourism has grown so has its study, to the extent that there is debate as to whether it may constitute a discipline in its own right. Geographers have long contributed to the study of tourism. However, there is substantial concern over the development of the sub‐discipline and how tourism is conceptualised. A framework for understanding tourism in relation to contemporary human mobility over space and time is provided. This framework bears strong relationships to research on time geography as well as to work on diaspora and transnationalism. Some of the implications of incorporating tourism within the framework of mobility are outlined with respect to mobility as a form of capital, the relationships between different forms of mobility, and an improved understanding of tourism's impacts at all stages of the travel process rather than just at the destination.