Tourism Geographies

🎙️ In this week's episode of the Tourism Geographies Podcast, we feature the work of Henry Johnson, University of Otago, New Zealand.

💥 Okinawa prefecture is an archipelago in southwestern Japan. This article examines the urban musical soundscape of Kokusai Street in Naha City, Okinawa’s capital, where tourism, identity and sonic performance intersect to create a dynamic acoustic space of local cultural representation. Drawing on the fields of sound studies, tourism, cultural geography, and ethnomusicology, this article investigates acoustic design through three representative musical sound worlds within Kokusai Street’s sonic touristic milieu. The first explores sound in motion, examining how the city’s various monorail’s chimes serve as auditory markers of Okinawa’s identity; the second considers the mediated and performed sounds of the commercial streetscape, where traditional music, contemporary consumer culture and urban sound converge for tourism consumption; and the third focuses on the vibrant live house entertainment scene, where performances of traditional and neo-traditional Okinawan music engage audiences in an interactive sonic experience that firmly positions Okinawa within the touristic gaze. The article highlights how this particular micro sound world in Okinawa’s urban soundscape functions as a performative space that constructs and communicates local musical identity within the broader framework of island tourism.

🛜 The paper can be downloaded at the link below, if you have library access. Otherwise, you can email Prof. Johnson directly and request a copy of the paper.

⛓️Johnson, H. (2025). Cultural performance in the Okinawan urban soundscape: music, sound, tourism. Tourism Geographies, 1–18.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2578620

The paper features in the upcoming special issue, "The Tourism Geographies of Soundscapes: Theory, Methods, and Praxis", edited by:

❇️ Daniel Laven, European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR), Mid Sweden University
❇️ Rose Keller, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research

🎧 Listen to the podcast here from Friday, 17 April:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4O0M23Ub1jGgqWIelpTQ01

☑️ Podcast Producer: Joseph M. Cheer
☑️ Podcast Executive Producer: Stephen Pratt

🎙️ In this week's episode of the Tourism Geographies Podcast, we revisit another classic Tourism Geographies Podcast episode featuring the esteemed Professor Richard Butler, University of Strathclyde.

💥 The tourist area life cycle has been in existence for over four decades since its publication in The Canadian Geographer and was described as ‘one of the most cited and contentious areas of tourism knowledge….(and) has gone on to become one of the best known theories of destination growth and change within the field of tourism studies’ It was noted as one ‘Of the most influential conceptual models for explaining tourist, development’. The model was developed primarily from the Product Life Cycle model used in business and management studies and modified to explain the process of development and change that took place in tourist destinations throughout the world. The model has received considerable attention over its life span, but has often been cited from second hand sources or misquoted on many occasions. Its appearance in a non-tourist journal has resulted in it often not appearing in various early literature surveys based on tourism-focused sources and for its first decade access to the original article was limited and difficult, as demonstrated by many requests to the author for copies of the article. Electronic access to journals and libraries have resolved this problem, but its considerable visibility (in excess of 56,000 reads on Research Gate) and use (close to 5000 citations) mean that it has possibly entered the realm of tourism myths and become part of accepted dogma in the field of tourism development. This could present problems to those challenging the original concept and introducing alternative or contradictory ideas and propositions, and it is perhaps appropriate to briefly review the history of the concept.

🆓 The paper is available Open Access and free to download.
Butler, R. (2025). Tourism destination development: the tourism area life cycle model. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 599–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2325932

🎧 Listen to the podcast here:
https://shows.acast.com/tourism-geographiess-podcast/episodes/tourism-destination-development-the-tourism-area-life-cycle-Podcast

Producer: Afiya Holder
Podcast Executive Producer: Stephen Pratt

🚩 Please be advised that the Call for Papers deadline for the conference Tourism and Global Change: Resilience, Transformation and Sustainable Futures, July 2–3, 2026, in Wuhan, China, has been extended to 30 April 2026.

✅ This is organised by the IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change and the Geographical Society of China-Commission on Tourism Geography. The host for this event is the School of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University.

✅ This conference is a major international academic event of the IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change, and the annual international symposium of the Geographical Society of China-Commission on Tourism Geography. It brings together scholars from geography, tourism studies, sustainability science, and related disciplines to critically examine tourism as both a driver and outcome of global change.

✅ The conference will provide a high-level forum for researchers, practitioners, journal editors, and policy-oriented scholars to exchange ideas, present cutting-edge research, and develop new conceptual and methodological perspectives on tourism and allied topics, including climate change, digital transformation, geopolitical uncertainty, and socio-environmental restructuring, among other pertinent and pressing matters.

Publication Opportunities
Submitted abstracts and papers will undergo a rigorous double-blind review process. In addition, selected high-quality full papers will be encouraged to submit to leading international journals and associated initiatives to be announced, potentially including (but not limited to):

Regional Studies, Regional Sciences - https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rsrs20
Tourist Studies - https://journals.sagepub.com/home/tou
Discover Sustainability - https://link.springer.com/journal/43621
Sustainability in Tourism and Hospitality - https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/sth
Journal of Responsible Tourism Management - https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jrtm

(Final publication decisions remain subject to journal editorial policies and confirmed initiatives)

Conference Programme
Day 1 – July 2, 2026Opening Ceremony International Keynote Speeches Parallel Academic Sessions Two Special Workshops - Publishing in International Tourism and Geography Journals + AI and Digital Methods in Tourism Geography Research

Day 2 – July 3, 2026 Field Excursion: Digital Culture, Smart Tourism, and Regional Development in Hubei Province

Conference Topics
The Organising Committee welcomes conceptual, empirical, methodological, and comparative studies on the following topics (but not limited to):
Tourism and climate change adaptation
Destination resilience and crisis recovery
Tourism and sustainable development transitions
Tourism labour, migration, and precarity
Digital platforms, AI, and smart tourism geographies
Tourism mobilities, borders, and geopolitical change
Cultural heritage, identity, and tourism globalisation
Urban tourism, overtourism, and spatial inequality
Rural tourism, community resilience, and place-based development
Tourism governance and policy under global change
Comparative tourism geographies and Global South perspectives

Important Dates and Deadlines
Extended deadline for abstract submission (500 words) April 30, 2026
Notification of abstract acceptance: May 20, 2026
Deadline for early registration: April 30, 2026
Conference dates: July 2–3, 2026

Registration Fees
On-site Registration: CNY ¥1500 (approximately $USD220)
On-site Graduate Student Registration: CNY ¥800 (approximately $USD120)

Registration fees include conference materials, proceedings, meals during conference days, and access to all academic sessions. Accommodation is not included.

Submission Guidelines
Abstracts of up to 500 words should be submitted through email ([email protected]) and should clearly indicate:
Research objectives
Theoretical framework
Data and methods
Key findings and contributions
Guiding reference list of 3-4 key sources
Conference Secretariat

For all enquiries regarding submissions, registration, or institutional cooperation, please contact: Honglei Zhang ([email protected]); Yajuan Li ([email protected]).