Handbook on Tourism and Rural Community Development

This Handbook brings together experts from around the world to reflect critically on the relationship between tourism and rural community development. It first orients the reader in the important conceptual and epistemological foundations of the topic, before moving to consider key concepts and the most significant and salient theoretical and methodological developments in the field.

Chapters written by a range of well-established, leading and emerging scholars in the field consider crucial issues facing tourism development in rural communities across different geographical settings. The Handbook represents a variety of traditional and emerging forms of scholarly writing, including theoretically driven chapters, empirical case studies and first-person narratives, to offer a detailed study of the topic. With a forward-looking angle, it studies tourism development in rural areas, including working with rural communities, tourism governance and ethical considerations. Chapters also consider new directions in the field, examining food and tourism, degrowth, landscapes, animals, social impacts and women social entrepreneurs.

This comprehensive and innovative Handbook offers a wealth of empirical and theoretical knowledge on tourism and rural community development, and as such will be a critical resource for tourism, development studies and human geography scholars and students.

Edited by Heather Mair, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada