How Is Tourism Geography Situated in Taiwan? Geography Versus Tourism and Recreation

Quanyue Jiang, Weita Fang, Ben LePage and Guosheng Han ()
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Quanyue Jiang: School of Business, Shandong University, Weihai 264209, China
Weita Fang: Graduate Institute of Sustainability Management and Environmental Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 11677, Taiwan
Ben LePage: Graduate Institute of Sustainability Management and Environmental Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 11677, Taiwan
Guosheng Han: School of Business, Shandong University, Weihai 264209, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 17, 1-13

Abstract: Tourism geographers in Anglo-American geographical departments are transitioning into teaching and research tourism in applied schools and departments, such as business, resource and environment, and even cultural and creative industries. Because of pressure related to national research assessment and funding, tourism geographers are not encouraged to continue undertaking serious theoretical research related to their mother discipline, instead transitioning to conducting applied research and publishing in hybrid journals. Although such changes in tourism geographers’ research behavior are frequently discussed internationally, they have not been assessed and reported in academic contexts within Asia, particularly Taiwan. This study aimed to investigate the research behavior of tourism geographers regarding the differences between those who are staffed in geography departments and those who transition to applied departments such as tourism and recreation, resource and environment, and others. Their research behavior is examined in terms of publishing journals, paradigmatic approaches, research types, research methods, and geographical scales based on content analysis of articles published by tourism geographers in geography and tourism and recreation departments. The results revealed that there are significant differences in the research behavior of tourism geographers between different departments. Finally, this paper explains the differences in terms of Taiwan’s changing social and economic conditions, the academic traditions and politics of the geography and applied departments, the research habits and preferences of tourism geographers among departments, and other aspects. The findings can help international tourism geography academic circles understand the complexity and diversity of the tourism geography academic landscape of China.

Keywords: tourism; geography; tourism research; methodology; scale; Taiwan; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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