The Destination as a Concept: A Discussion of the Business-related Perspective versus the Socio-cultural Approach in Tourism Theory

Abstract

This article investigates the use of the concept destination in selected economically and socio-culturally-oriented tourism textbooks, monographs and anthologies. It proposes that there are different understandings of the concept destination. Destinations are seen as units at several geographical levels, but without distinct geographical boundaries, and as images resulting from social practice. The content of the destination is seen on the one hand as an agglomeration of attractions and services, and on the other as a dynamic agglomeration of attractions, culture, events, landscapes and services. Economic writers have an implicit understanding of the need for cooperation among the actors at a destination, while socio-cultural authors emphasize unspecified connections and social practice. Finally, the tourist is characterized either as an economic consumer or as an experience-seeking social actor and consumer.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 238 citations exist upstream.