A Virtual Special Issue of Tourism Geographies
Recentering Tourism Geographies in the 'Asian Century'
for the
Critical Tourism Studies - Asia Pacific Conference
17-19 Feb 2020, Wakayama, Japan
Special Virtual Issue Introduction
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First coined in 1988 by Deng Xiaoping during a meeting with the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, the term “Asian Century” has become a compelling characterization of the 21st century. Jeffrey Sachs warned that “China is likely to overtake and India to equal the U.S. economy in size by mid-century. And as the world's economic center of gravity shifts to Asia, U.S. pre-eminence will inevitably diminish” (2004). Former U.S. President Barack Obama regularly highlighted an American foreign policy geared towards restoring and enhancing engagement in Asia (Lieberthal, 2011), and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard emphasized that “[w]hatever else this century brings, it will bring Asia’s rise” (Australia in the Asia Century Implementation Task Force 2012: ii).
Apropos to a wider Asia-directed pivot, the link between global coloniality and the Asian century is emblematic of such developments that are intimately intertwined. Lee, Hongling and Mignolo (2015, 187) posit that Asia’s rise does not mean coloniality has ended, but rather that neocolonial power is increasingly shared with non-western states. The recenterings at play are not only about realignment of wide-ranging hegemonies, historical legacies, economic and geopolitical power shifts. They also encompass cultural repositionings away from dominant Western-centric invocations which have resulted in the extraordinary growth of international tourism to, from and within the Asia-Pacific region.
The chorus signaling that the axis of global influence is shifting eastward is getting discernibly louder and in the present, this is punctuated by China-US trade tensions and wider geopolitical tussles as seen in the South China Sea, and in the way China is forging stronger bilateral ties across the globe. Iwamoto (2020) exemplifies this shift outlining that in 2020, when asked whom they should align with, China or the US, citizens of 7 out of 10 Southeast Asian countries plumped for China. On the economic front, “in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, Asian economies will become larger than the rest of the world combined for the first time since the 19th century” (Wang, 2019). Huiyao also emphasises that “not only is Asia growing richer; as it becomes more integrated, it is also coalescing as a constructive force for global governance”. Moreover, economic forecasts over the next couple of decades suggest that “by 2040, it is likely to generate more than 50% of world GDP, and could account for nearly 40% of global consumption” (Woetzel & Seong, 2019).
While debate the actualities of the so-called Asian Century, what is clear is that the cultural and political-economic climate in which tourism operates has transitioned along with broader political-economic and geopolitical shifts. From the British Century of the 1800s to the American Century of the 1900s to the contemporary Asian Century, tourism geographies are deeply entangled in broader shifts in geopolitical and geoeconomic power (Luce, 1999; Scott, 2008; Shenkar, 2006). The dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region demands recurrent reappraisal (Davison, 2017), especially regarding the ways in which it is affected by and affects global flows of culture, finance and politics. Tourism geographies reflect these flows in a particularly visible way, where tourists and the tourism industry are dramatically swept up in the swirl of geopolitical repositioning. This special issue addresses shifts characterized by the “Asian Century” through critically engaged and empirically rich accounts of tourism in the Asia-Pacific region.
As one of the fastest growing regions in the world for both international and domestic tourism, the Asia-Pacific has radically altered the global tourism landscape. With 60 percent of the world population and a burgeoning domestic and intra-regional travel market, the Asia-Pacific is a region of mobile consumers that has taken center stage in the theatre of global tourism (Lew, 2000; Lew & Li, 2014; Winter et al., 2002; Winter, 2009, 4). Whether or not the Asian Century has arrived, the Asia-Pacific tourist certainly has – in 2016, 25.6% of international tourist arrivals originate from the Asia and Pacific (316.5 million)[1]. As new modes of tourism practice have proliferated, scholars have increasingly called into question continued Anglo-Western centrism in tourism theory. How, then, does tuning in to the emergence of an Asian Century shift tourism focused scholars’ epistemology and praxis?
In this Special Issue, we address these recenterings by pushing forward scholarship on the multiple modalities of critical tourism studies and tourism geographies in the Asia-Pacific. Recentering is akin to a reorienting and disrupting of dominant discourses from the margins back to the centre, and we envision a collection not so much about tourism in Asia-Pacific or tourists from Asia-Pacific, but instead about the ways in which addressing links between the long history of tourism research in the region and current scholarship can help us to reinvigorate critical tourism theory in the region and beyond. To recenter critical tourism scholarship requires a balancing act between a strict anti-essentialism and an openness to accommodate diverse ways of knowing. This act of conciliation and transformation is not straightforward and beset with hegemony and counter-hegemony. While scholars have long called for the incorporation of a range of culturally diverse conceptualizations, the field of tourism research continues to be dominated by English language voices. Yet, as new technologies and modes of cross-cultural translation and exchange take hold, and the momentum shifts away from the Anglo-centric axis toward more diverse standpoints, tourism scholarship is destined to take shape in unprecedented and perhaps unanticipated ways.
Apropos to a wider Asia-directed pivot, the link between global coloniality and the Asian century is emblematic of such developments that are intimately intertwined. Lee, Hongling and Mignolo (2015, 187) posit that Asia’s rise does not mean coloniality has ended, but rather that neocolonial power is increasingly shared with non-western states. The recenterings at play are not only about realignment of wide-ranging hegemonies, historical legacies, economic and geopolitical power shifts. They also encompass cultural repositionings away from dominant Western-centric invocations which have resulted in the extraordinary growth of international tourism to, from and within the Asia-Pacific region.
The chorus signaling that the axis of global influence is shifting eastward is getting discernibly louder and in the present, this is punctuated by China-US trade tensions and wider geopolitical tussles as seen in the South China Sea, and in the way China is forging stronger bilateral ties across the globe. Iwamoto (2020) exemplifies this shift outlining that in 2020, when asked whom they should align with, China or the US, citizens of 7 out of 10 Southeast Asian countries plumped for China. On the economic front, “in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, Asian economies will become larger than the rest of the world combined for the first time since the 19th century” (Wang, 2019). Huiyao also emphasises that “not only is Asia growing richer; as it becomes more integrated, it is also coalescing as a constructive force for global governance”. Moreover, economic forecasts over the next couple of decades suggest that “by 2040, it is likely to generate more than 50% of world GDP, and could account for nearly 40% of global consumption” (Woetzel & Seong, 2019).
While debate the actualities of the so-called Asian Century, what is clear is that the cultural and political-economic climate in which tourism operates has transitioned along with broader political-economic and geopolitical shifts. From the British Century of the 1800s to the American Century of the 1900s to the contemporary Asian Century, tourism geographies are deeply entangled in broader shifts in geopolitical and geoeconomic power (Luce, 1999; Scott, 2008; Shenkar, 2006). The dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region demands recurrent reappraisal (Davison, 2017), especially regarding the ways in which it is affected by and affects global flows of culture, finance and politics. Tourism geographies reflect these flows in a particularly visible way, where tourists and the tourism industry are dramatically swept up in the swirl of geopolitical repositioning. This special issue addresses shifts characterized by the “Asian Century” through critically engaged and empirically rich accounts of tourism in the Asia-Pacific region.
As one of the fastest growing regions in the world for both international and domestic tourism, the Asia-Pacific has radically altered the global tourism landscape. With 60 percent of the world population and a burgeoning domestic and intra-regional travel market, the Asia-Pacific is a region of mobile consumers that has taken center stage in the theatre of global tourism (Lew, 2000; Lew & Li, 2014; Winter et al., 2002; Winter, 2009, 4). Whether or not the Asian Century has arrived, the Asia-Pacific tourist certainly has – in 2016, 25.6% of international tourist arrivals originate from the Asia and Pacific (316.5 million)[1]. As new modes of tourism practice have proliferated, scholars have increasingly called into question continued Anglo-Western centrism in tourism theory. How, then, does tuning in to the emergence of an Asian Century shift tourism focused scholars’ epistemology and praxis?
In this Special Issue, we address these recenterings by pushing forward scholarship on the multiple modalities of critical tourism studies and tourism geographies in the Asia-Pacific. Recentering is akin to a reorienting and disrupting of dominant discourses from the margins back to the centre, and we envision a collection not so much about tourism in Asia-Pacific or tourists from Asia-Pacific, but instead about the ways in which addressing links between the long history of tourism research in the region and current scholarship can help us to reinvigorate critical tourism theory in the region and beyond. To recenter critical tourism scholarship requires a balancing act between a strict anti-essentialism and an openness to accommodate diverse ways of knowing. This act of conciliation and transformation is not straightforward and beset with hegemony and counter-hegemony. While scholars have long called for the incorporation of a range of culturally diverse conceptualizations, the field of tourism research continues to be dominated by English language voices. Yet, as new technologies and modes of cross-cultural translation and exchange take hold, and the momentum shifts away from the Anglo-centric axis toward more diverse standpoints, tourism scholarship is destined to take shape in unprecedented and perhaps unanticipated ways.
The papers in this virtual special issue (below) are from the
1st Critical Tourism Studies - Asia Pacific Conference
4-5 March 2018
Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia
1st Critical Tourism Studies - Asia Pacific Conference
4-5 March 2018
Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia
These papers are available for Free Access
during the Month of February 2020
during the Month of February 2020
- Decentring scholarship through learning with/from each ‘other’ - Hazel Tucker & Stuart Hayes
keywords: Western-centrism, tourism education, tourism pedagogy, international students, ‘other’ knowledges, 西方中心主义, 旅游教育, 旅游教学法, 国际学生, 他人的知识 - Critical tourism studies: new directions for volatile times - Chris Gibson
keywords: Anthropocene, climate change, capitalism, financialisation, mobility, embodiment, overtourism, 类世, 气候变化, 资本主义, 金融化, 移动性, 具身性, 过度旅游 - Food safety and tourism in Singapore: between microbial Russian roulette and Michelin stars - Nicole Tarulevicz & Can Seng Ooi
keywords: Singapore, food safety, food tourism, tourism history, Michelin stars, fine dining, hawkers, 新加坡, 食品安全, 美食旅游, 旅游历史, 米其林星级餐厅, 高端餐饮, 小贩 - Going on holiday only to come home: making happy families in Singapore - Yinn Shan Cheong & Harng Luh Sin
keywords: Family tourism, family ideology, everyday geographies, feminist ethics of care, familial relationships, Singapore, 家庭旅游, 家庭观念, 日常地理学, 女权关怀伦理, 家庭关系, 新加坡 - Tourism studies is a geopolitical instrument: Conferences, Confucius Institutes, and ‘the Chinese Dream’ - Ian Rowen
keywords: Tourism studies, geopolitics, China, Chinese Dream, Confucius Institute, Australia, China-Australia relations, tourism geopolitics, knowledge production, 旅游研究, 地缘政治, 中国, 中国梦, 孔子学院, 澳大利亚, 中澳关系, 旅游地缘政治, 知识生产 - ‘Asianizing the field’: questioning Critical Tourism Studies in Asia - T. C. Chang
keywords: Critical Tourism Studies (CTS), Critical Asian Tourism Studies (CATS), Asia, research, knowledge, epistemology, 批判性旅游研究, 批判性亚洲旅游研究, 亚洲, 研究, 知识, 认识论 - Linkages between tourist resorts, local food production and the sustainable development goals - Regina Scheyvens & Gabriel Laeis
keywords: food, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, SDGs, Fiji, SIDS, MNCs, tourist resorts, 食物, 农业, 渔业, 旅游业, 可持续发展目标, 斐济, 小型岛屿发展中国家, 多国公司, 旅游胜地 - Becoming Airbnbeings: on datafication and the quantified Self in tourism - Claudio Minca & Maartje Roelofsen
keywords: Airbnb, biopolitics, algorithms, digital tourism, datafication, surveillance capitalism, 爱彼迎, 生物政治, 算法, 数字旅游, 数据化, 监控资本主义
References:
Ateljevic, I., Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2012) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Creating an Academy of Hope. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Ateljevic, I., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2007) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Australia in the Asian Century Implementation Task Force (2012). Australia in the Asian century white paper. Canberra, Australia: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. http://www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper/2013/docs/australia_in_the_asian_century_white_paper.pdf.
Ayikoru, M., Tribe, J. and Airey, D. (2009) Reading tourism education: neoliberalism unveiled. Annals of Tourism Research, 36(2): 191–221.
Holmes, F. (2017, June 15) One easy way to invest in the ‘Asian Century’. Forbes. Retreived from https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/06/15/one-easy-way-to-invest-in-the-asian-century/ - 3c251f4e364b
Iwamoto, K. (2020, January 16). 7 of 10 ASEAN members favor China over US: survey. Nikkei Asian Review. Retreived from https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/7-of-10-ASEAN-members-favor-China-over-US-surveyLee, V. P., Hongling, L., & Mignolo, W. D. (2015). Global coloniality and the Asian century. Cultural Dynamics, 27(2), 185-190
Lew, A. A. (2000). China: A growth engine for Asian tourism. Tourism in south and southeast Asia, 268-285.
Lew, A. A., & Li, Z. (2016). A growth engine for world tourism. The Routledge handbook of tourism in Asia, (p. 308).
Lieberthal, K. (2011, December 21). The American pivot to Asia. Foreign policy.
Washington, DC, USA: Graham Holdings Company.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/21/the_american_pivot_to_asia.
Sachs, J. (2004, January 12) Welcome To The Asian Century. Fortune.
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/01/12/357912/index.htm
Wang, H. (2019, July 25). In 2020, Asian economies will become larger than the rest of the world combined - here's how. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/the-dawn-of-the-asian-century/Winter, T., Teo, P., & Chang, T. C. (Eds.). (2002). Asia on tour: Exploring the rise of Asian
tourism. New York: Routledge.
Winter, T. (2009) Asian tourism and the retreat of Anglo-western centrism in tourism
theory. Current Issues in Tourism Research, 12(1), 21-31.
Woetzel, J. & Seong, J. (2019, October 11) We’ve entered the Asian Century and there is no turning back. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/has-world-entered-asian-century-what-does-it-mean/
Ateljevic, I., Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2012) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Creating an Academy of Hope. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Ateljevic, I., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2007) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Australia in the Asian Century Implementation Task Force (2012). Australia in the Asian century white paper. Canberra, Australia: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. http://www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper/2013/docs/australia_in_the_asian_century_white_paper.pdf.
Ayikoru, M., Tribe, J. and Airey, D. (2009) Reading tourism education: neoliberalism unveiled. Annals of Tourism Research, 36(2): 191–221.
Holmes, F. (2017, June 15) One easy way to invest in the ‘Asian Century’. Forbes. Retreived from https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/06/15/one-easy-way-to-invest-in-the-asian-century/ - 3c251f4e364b
Iwamoto, K. (2020, January 16). 7 of 10 ASEAN members favor China over US: survey. Nikkei Asian Review. Retreived from https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/7-of-10-ASEAN-members-favor-China-over-US-surveyLee, V. P., Hongling, L., & Mignolo, W. D. (2015). Global coloniality and the Asian century. Cultural Dynamics, 27(2), 185-190
Lew, A. A. (2000). China: A growth engine for Asian tourism. Tourism in south and southeast Asia, 268-285.
Lew, A. A., & Li, Z. (2016). A growth engine for world tourism. The Routledge handbook of tourism in Asia, (p. 308).
Lieberthal, K. (2011, December 21). The American pivot to Asia. Foreign policy.
Washington, DC, USA: Graham Holdings Company.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/21/the_american_pivot_to_asia.
Sachs, J. (2004, January 12) Welcome To The Asian Century. Fortune.
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/01/12/357912/index.htm
Wang, H. (2019, July 25). In 2020, Asian economies will become larger than the rest of the world combined - here's how. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/the-dawn-of-the-asian-century/Winter, T., Teo, P., & Chang, T. C. (Eds.). (2002). Asia on tour: Exploring the rise of Asian
tourism. New York: Routledge.
Winter, T. (2009) Asian tourism and the retreat of Anglo-western centrism in tourism
theory. Current Issues in Tourism Research, 12(1), 21-31.
Woetzel, J. & Seong, J. (2019, October 11) We’ve entered the Asian Century and there is no turning back. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/has-world-entered-asian-century-what-does-it-mean/
Endnote
[1] In comparison, in 1990, only 13.5% or 58.7 million international tourist arrivals originate from the Asia and Pacific. The number of tourists from Asia and Pacific also increased 5.4 times in 26 years from 1990 to 2016. (Source: https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284419029)
[1] In comparison, in 1990, only 13.5% or 58.7 million international tourist arrivals originate from the Asia and Pacific. The number of tourists from Asia and Pacific also increased 5.4 times in 26 years from 1990 to 2016. (Source: https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284419029)
