Tourism, big data, and a crisis of analysis

Adam Weaver

Annals of Tourism Research, 2021, vol. 88, issue C

Abstract: Efforts to aggregate data comprehensively have prompted a crisis of analysis. Such a crisis presents itself when big data use within the tourism industry increasingly treats individuals and their subjective practices as mere objects. Heightened recognition of tourism as a series of distinctive and creative human actions is counterbalanced by an exuberance for impersonal mass quantification. A crisis of analysis is identified through a qualitative study of tourism-focused trade journal articles that address big data. This type of crisis reflects the rise of a positivistic, business-driven way of knowing that creates tensions within the tourism industry. The position and power of individuals – tourists and practitioners – is steadily undermined and capital accumulation becomes threatened due to big data use.

Keywords: Big data; Statistics; Crisis; Capitalism; Objectification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:anture:v:88:y:2021:i:c:s0160738321000207

DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2021.103158

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