From the Geography of Tourism to a Geographical Approach to Tourism in France

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that despite an unfavorable disciplinary climate for new academic subjects in France, tourism found its place in the French geographical scene almost 40 years ago. The first part traces the history of tourism in French geography until the epistemological turn due to the research laboratory MIT in the mid-1990s. It also focuses on the absence of knowledge of the Anglo-American literature and of multidisciplinarity in French research on tourism. The second part focuses on the valorization of tourism geography research in France, emphasizing the development of multidisciplinarity since the early 2000s, including the creation of a multi-disciplinary tourism laboratory and two journals. The chapter concludes reflecting on the possibility of a science of tourism.

Citation

Fournier, C. and Knafou, R. (2013), "From the Geography of Tourism to a Geographical Approach to Tourism in France", Geographies of Tourism (Tourism Social Science Series, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 55-68. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1571-5043(2013)0000019004