Title: Tourism policy research: avenues for the future

Authors: Linda Ambrosie

Addresses: Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, Calgary, AB Canada

Abstract: Combining an understanding of past achievements with a more critical review of the meta-theoretical assumptions on which each research endeavour is based, helps to highlight gaps and contradictions suggesting bridges to future research. Similar to other areas of business research, tourism research cohorts generally coalesce into one of three perspectives within funtionalism: economics, systems or political economy. Each perspective arrives at correlative conclusions. Few tourism policy researchers have employed phenomenology and such research has been conceptual. Future research would benefit from a triangulation of perspectives combining qualitative with quantitative methods to explicate and generalise the values and processes driving policy outcomes.

Keywords: tourism policy; tourism research; ontology; epistemology; methodology; literature review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTP.2010.031601

International Journal of Tourism Policy, 2010 Vol.3 No.1, pp.33 - 50

Received: 14 Nov 2008
Accepted: 29 Sep 2009
Published online: 15 Feb 2010 *

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