1st Edition

Neoliberalism and the Political Economy of Tourism

By Jan Mosedale Copyright 2016
    182 Pages
    by Routledge

    182 Pages
    by Routledge

    Tourism has become increasingly shaped by neoliberal policies, yet the consequences of this neoliberalisation are relatively under-explored. This book provides a wide-ranging inquiry into the particular manifestations of different variants of neoliberalism, highlighting its uneven geographical development and the changing dynamics of neoliberal policies in order to explain and evaluate the effects of neoliberal processes on tourism. Covering a variety of different aspects of neoliberalism and tourism, the chapters investigate how different types of tourism are used as part of more general neoliberalisation agendas, how neoliberalism differs according to the geographic context, the importance of discourse in shaping neoliberal practices and the different approaches of putting the neoliberal ideology into practice. Aiming to initiate debates about the connections between neoliberalism and tourism and advance further research avenues, this book makes a timely contribution which discusses the relationships between markets, nation-states and societies from a social science perspective. Neoliberalism is considered as a political-economic ideology, as variants of the global neoliberal project, as discourse and practices through which neoliberalism is enacted.

    1. Introduction: Neoliberalism and the Political Economy of Tourism: Projects, Discourses and Practices

    Jan Mosedale

    2. Contingent Neoliberalism and Urban Tourism in the United States

    Dimitri Ioannides and Evangelia Petridou

    3. Mega-events as Neoliberal Projects: ‘realistic if we want Dunedin to prosper’ or ‘the biggest civic disgrace … in living memory’?

    C. Michael Hall and Sandra Wilson

    4. The Changing Role of the State: Neoliberalism and Regional Tourism Development in New Zealand

    Michael C. Shone

    5. Developing Markets – the Neoliberalization of Tourism Structures in Jordan: The Example of Aqaba Special Economic Zone

    Nicolai Scherle and Markus Pillmayer

    6. Ecotourism as the Focus of the Neoliberal Tourism Project in India

    Kevin Hannam and Maharaj Vijay Reddy

    7. The Changing Nature of National Parks under Neoliberalisation

    Dzingai K. Nyahunzvi

    8. Social tourism: From redistribution to neoliberal aspiration development

    Lynn Minnaert

    9. Enacting Neoliberal Discourses through Heritage Tourism in Ghana

    Francis Offeh and Kevin Hannam

    10: Decommodifying Grass Roots Struggle Against a Neoliberal Tourism Agenda: Imagining a Local, Just and Sustainable Eco-tourism.

    Stephen Wearing and Michael Wearing

    11: Conclusion: Tourism and Neoliberalism: States, the Economy and Society

    Biography

    Jan Mosedale is Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Tourism and Leisure of the University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur, Switzerland.