The Herculean task of making a contribution to the scholarship of tourism

Academics are expected to make novel and valuable contributions to tourism’s existing body of knowledge through their scholarly work. Exactly what is required to accomplish this can be difficult to ascertain, however. This chapter argues that the diverse and multifaceted nature of tourism studies makes this challenge easier to meet. These qualities arise from the complexity of the tourism knowledge system and the diversity of other disciplines which informs tourism studies. One recent analysis has suggested that strategies for making disciplinary contribution claims fall into one of five categories: incremental, differentiated-context, revelatory, replicatory and consolidatory. In addition to this, this chapter briefly explores newer developments, including: critical tourism scholarship; decolonial, Indigenous and Global South studies; and various “turns” in tourism studies. It closes with a small number of recommendations that point to other strategies that may assist one in identifying how to make a contribution to tourism scholarship.