Tourism Studies

The relevance of tourism studies stems at least in part from the fact that tourism today is one of the leading industries in the world economy. Tourism studies can best be described as a thematic subject and in academic terms the field is seen as interdisciplinary. It covers historic, geographic, physical, economic, social and cultural aspects of tourism. Oftentimes tourism is depicted as a system containing tourists, geography and travel, tourism businesses and society. Tourism studies then deals with behaviour and the interplay between man and environment for which travel is a prerequisite. It comprises also the tourism industry and its entrepreneurs and finally it covers relevant aspects of political and judicial systems including social, economic and cultural structures.
Tourism studies can be described as a problem oriented discipline. Issues in tourism tends to be complex and thus solutions or answers to particular questions have to be addressed to several disciplines at the same time which are then brought together in order to produce the relevant knowledge.