Tourism Geographies

08/29/2026

What's new in Tourism Geographies?
Check out Volume 28(4), 2026

Papers include:

Nitasha Sharma
Touring decay: geographies of instability and material transformation.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2709783

Hideki Endo.
Algorithmic mobilities and tourism geographies: movement, agency and power in hyper-late modernity.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2694590
OPEN ACCESS

Karina Poli Lima da Cunha
Platformed imaginaries and uneven visibility: generative AI, tourism space, and Rio de Janeiro.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2697263

Xiaofei Hao, Mengchun Wu & Linghan Zhang
Utopia on your doorstep? Proximity tourism and therapeutic landscape in urban park camping.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2594715
OPEN ACCESS

Pathipol Yodsurang
Transforming water overflow into sustainable tourism: Community resilience in Ayutthaya’s Sena trough.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2687072

Jovana Janinović, Magdalena Banaszkiewicz, Sabine, Stach, & Kinga Anna Gajda
Curated darkness: Cold War bunkers and affective geographies of nuclear tourism.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2690255
OPEN ACCESS

Vi Thi Tuong Tran
Non-extractive mobility and tourism-like encounters: the case of the walk for peace.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2693523

Isabel Torres
EU tourism funding: governance and implementation dynamics in Spain’s Tourism Sustainability Plans.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2697215

Michael Palkowski & Henrik Linden
Uneasy bedfellows: overtourism and right-wing populism.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2702460
OPEN ACCESS

Yixing Li, Jia Xu, Kaidong Yu, Ruixuan Jiang & Mathew Liu
Breaking points on the move: dissonance domains and trajectories in digital nomadism.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2705915

08/09/2026

🇹🇷 In under a week, the International Geographical Union (IGU) International Regional Congress - IRC 2026 takes place from 17-21 August at Istanbul University, Türkiye.

🏝️ In the days preceding IRC2026, the joint Pre-Meeting of the IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change and the IGU Commission on Islands kicks off on 15 & 16 August at Büyükada, Princes' Islands, Istanbul.

✴️ Other activities include:
1. 17 August - Business Meeting of the IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change

2. 18 August - IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change NETWORKING PICNIC

3. Keynote by Prof. Dallen Timothy

🌏 The IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change will be hosting 35 sessions at IRC 2026.
https://www.irc2026.org/en/SCIENTIFIC-PROGRAM.html

✴️ IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change will host 35 sessions. See the full scientific program here:
https://www.irc2026.org/en/SCIENTIFIC-PROGRAM.html

08/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BxxtsLK3X/

MEETING NOTICE & INVITATION

Business Meeting
IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change
IRC2026, Istanbul University

Date/Time:
Monday 17 August 2026 / 14:00 to 15:30

Location:
Faculty Board Meeting Room, Istanbul University, Main Campus (Beyazit)
Istanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi (Istanbul University Faculty of Literature)
https://irc2026.org/en/CONFERENCE-VENUE.html

❇️ This will be convened just before the Official Opening of the IRC 2026 Regional Conference.

✴️ All welcome.

07/31/2026

🚀 In just over two weeks, the INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL UNION's (IGU) IRC2026 Regional Conference takes place at Istanbul University, Türkiye.

🌏 The IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change will be hosting 35 sessions comprising around 130 papers.

✅ Whether you are attending or not, the handy reference gives you a good grasp of the cutting-edge research emerging at the intersection of geography and tourism.

🌟 Kudos to the session moderators, authors and steering committee members of the IGU Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change who have rallied superbly.

🇹🇷 Looking forward to seeing you all in Istanbul.

06/26/2026

What's riding the waves in Tourism Geographies?
Citations are a hallmark of an article's traction and suggest that it makes a pressing contribution to knowledge. It also hints that the work is at the forefront of research and practice.

The papers listed are the most-cited articles published in the last 3 years.

Bellato, L. & Po***ck, A. (2025). Regenerative tourism: a state-of-the-art review. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 558–567.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2294366

Milano, C., Novelli, M & Russo, A.P. (2024). Anti-tourism activism and the inconvenient truths about mass tourism, touristification and overtourism. Tourism Geographies, 26(8), 1313–1337.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2391388

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

Hannonen, O. (2025). Emergent geographies of digital nomadism: conceptual framing, insights and implications for tourism. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 568–578. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2299845

Niewiadomski, P., & Brouder, P. (2024). From ‘sustainable tourism’ to ‘sustainability transitions in tourism’? Tourism Geographies, 26(2), 141–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2299832

Gössling, S., & Scott, D. (2025). Climate change and tourism geographies. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 642–652. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2332359

Choe, J. (2025). Religious tourism. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 830–839.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2423168

Murray, I., Fletcher, R., Blázquez-Salom, M., Blanco-Romero, A., Cañada, E., & Sekulova, F. (2025). Tourism and degrowth. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 547–557.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2293956

Chen, J., Shoval, N., & Stantic, B. (2024). Tracking tourist mobility in the big data era: insights from data, theory, and future directions. Tourism Geographies, 26(8), 1381–1411.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2341249

Cheng, M. (2025). Social media and tourism geographies: mapping future research agenda. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 579–588.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2304782

Pearson, R. E., Bardsley, D. K., & Pütz, M. (2024). Regenerative tourism in Australian wine regions. Tourism Geographies, 1–23.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2328615

Paddison, B., & Hall, J. (2024). Regenerative tourism development as a response to crisis: harnessing practise-led approaches. Tourism Geographies, 1–18.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2381071

Nieuwland, S. (2024). Urban tourism transitions: doughnut economics applied to sustainable tourism development. Tourism Geographies, 26(2), 255–273.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2290009

Magnusson, T., Karabag, S. F., Wi**er, K., & Andersson, G. (2024). Sustainability transitions in tourism: on the transformation of a fragmented sector. Tourism Geographies, 26(2), 157–172.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2291700

06/23/2026

🚨 What’s trending in Tourism Geographies?

🔭 Check out the top 10 most-read articles in the past 12 months.
🆓 All Open ACCESS and FREE to download!
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=rtxg20

❇️ Lauren Siegel, PhD, Tussyadiah, I., & Scarles, C.
(2025). Commodification of photogenic sites and rise of ‘selfie parks’ as tourist enclaves. Tourism Geographies, 27(6), 1184–1209.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2532582

❇️ Roosa Ridanpää (2025). Framework for regenerative
entrepreneurship in tourism: fostering reciprocal relationships within place.
Tourism Geographies, 1–18.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2535690

❇️ Chloe King, Hunt, C., Barragán-Paladines, M. J.,
Muñoz-Barriga, A., Santa Maria, V., Cárdenas Díaz, S., … Sandbrook, C. (2025).
Navigating the Galápagos paradox: tourism growth management discourses in protected areas. Tourism Geographies, 1–26.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.258266

❇️ Anna Dunn, A., & Barry Judd (2025).
Indigenous-settler relations at work in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park’s tourism industry. Tourism Geographies, 1–16.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2562976

❇️ Donna James, Kurniasari, K. K., & Condie, J.
(2025). Tinder and tourist intimacy: women’s digital encounters with tourists in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Tourism Geographies, 27(8), 1680–1699.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2582657

❇️ Lisa Majewski, Bittlingmaier, S., Frieser, A.,
Woltering, M., & Job, H. (2025). Evaluating the economic impact of tourism in Germany’s Biosphere Reserves. Tourism Geographies, 1–21.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2536120

❇️ Yoonhee Jung, (2025). Reshaping landscapes and
human–environment relationships through geotourism.
Tourism Geographies, 27(8),
1580–1599.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2575314

❇️ Lovisa Ulrica Molin, Selvaag, S. K., & Aas, Ø.
(2025). How Instagram shapes visitors’ relation to wild places. Tourism Geographies, 27(8), 1664–1679.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2582644

❇️ Dr. Emily Siqi Lu, Elaine C. L. Yang, Brent D. Moyle, & Reid, S. (2025). Inclusive research in tourism: are we enabling or disabling people with disability?
Tourism Geographies, 27(7), 1399–1423.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2546533

❇️ Olga Hannonen & Kati Pitkänen (2026). Digital nomadism: transforming places, contesting spaces. Tourism Geographies, 28(1), 1–14.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2628539

❇️ El Alam, N., Stoffelen, A., Wijburg, G., &
Bolderman, L. (2025). Tourism, creative destruction, and the political economy of urban transformation in Beirut. Tourism Geographies, 27(8), 1557–1579.
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2580393

06/19/2026

🚩 Tourism Geographies Volume 28, No. 3, 2026 is now out and features a bumper collection of 20 Research Articles - some are OPEN ACCESS.
🔗 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtxg20/28/3

🔸Interactive gentrification in rural tourism in China: multi-actor dynamics and rural transformation
Mengzhen Zhang, Menghan Wang, Ming Ming Su, Hangyu D**g, and Zhenhua Liu
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2545266

🔸Non-place making: Chinese tourists’ production of tourist spaces through social media
Yan Tan
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2606129

🔸Intersecting injustices in the tourist city: redistribution, recognition, and resistance in Málaga
Fátima Santos-Izquierdo, Yolanda Romero-Padilla, Enrique Navarro-Jurado, and Dimitri Ioannides
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2618804

🔸 Attachment agency: community exclusion and resolution pathways in rural tourism in China
Linan Li
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2619886

🔸 Participation, empowerment and self-organization in community-based tourism
🔗 Hui Wu and Chaozhi Zhang
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2635581

🔸 Cultural familiarity and novelty in female Muslim tourism
Farisha Nisha and Catherine Cheung
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2638924

🔸Snipped, Sectioned, Siloed: Arts of Unequal Development in Tourist Goa
Prakruti Ramesh
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2641042

🔸 How tourists cycle around Qinghai Lake: a perspective from tourist mobility justice
Meng Yuan and Honggang Xu
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2644992

🔸Rural touristification and short-term rentals reshaping tourism geographies: Algarve’s spatial transformations
Ana Rita Cruz and Maria Assunção Gato
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2659062
OPEN ACCESS

🔸 Governance agency in a contested cruise destination: a legitimacy-evolutionary approach
James Edward Powell, Robert W. Orttung, Salvador Anton Clavé, and Seleni Matus
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2661058

🔸 Towards an inclusive trajectory of touristification? A longitudinal case study of Heshun, China
Zengxian Liang, Weixun Wu, Chuanlong Wu, Caoyinying Wu, and Yujie Sun
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2663934

🔸 Antagonistic coexistence: unpacking spatial dynamics in tourism-transformed living ethnic community-based heritage sites
Yang Yang, Xuelian Li, Guofeng Fang, Yinger Xu, Xingtao Hu, and Yi Cai
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2664759

🔸Homestay resilience mechanisms across amenity-based scenes in rural tourism destinations
Man Wei and Tai Huang
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2664762

🔸Where conflicts emerge: spatializing resident–tourist value tensions in Macau street vendor governance
Yu Yan, Peiqing Wu, Mingxuan Li, and Kaiyuan Jiang
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2666861

🔸 Climate-resilient actor-networks for island tourism
Michelle Allen
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2668544

🔸 Growing tea and welcoming tourists? Community legitimacy and change at a World Heritage landscape
Xue (Claudia) Sun and Narcís Bassols i Gardella
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2668549
OPEN ACCESS

🔸Parallel Hong Kong: atmospheric politics of wanghong tourism between city and platform
Shizheng Liang
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2668550
OPEN ACCESS

🔸Constructivist perspective and museum experiences: the rise of co-creative authenticity in Gen-Z tourists
Yu Zeng and Chin-Ee Ong
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2670505

🔸 Enhancing monitoring in protected areas: evaluating mobile apps as a tourism proxy
Jorge Costa, Alberto Gomes, Martin Stokes, and Miguel Saraiva
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2671422
OPEN ACCESS

🔸From seascape to memoryscape: tourism and the reframing of living heritage
Yelim Kim
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2026.2673533

05/18/2026

The IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change & the IGU Commission on Islands cordially invite you to submit an abstract for consideration for the 2026 Joint Pre-Meeting, 14 - 16 August 2026, Büyükada, Princes' Islands, Istanbul, Türkiye.

The Pre-Meeting usually serves dual purposes: as a test lab for nascent ideas in progress or as a rehearsal for the wider congress that follows.

Arrival, 14 August - Delegates arrive in Büyükada
Day 1, 15 August - Pre-Meeting Symposium, Anadolu Kulübü Hotel
Day 2, 16 August - Büyükada Fieldtrip.

The 2026 Joint Pre-Meeting is dedicated to two of our staunchest supporters and long-serving members, the late Prof. Dieter K. Müller and the late Prof. Theano Terkenli.Dieter and Theano have made considerable contributions to the sub-field, tourism geographies, and their seminal works have guided particular areas of research on topics including polar tourism geographies, second home tourism, Sámi tourism, Arctification and regional change and labour geographies (Dieter), and cultural geography and landscape studies, critical tourism geographies, island studies, sustainable tourism and development, and everyday life and mobilities (Theano).

Accordingly, the overarching theme of the 2026 IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change & IGU Commission on Islands 2026 Joint Pre-Meeting, draws from the title of the book, Tourism, Mobility and Second-homes: Between Elite Landscape and Common Ground, (Hall & Müller, 2004) that presages the economic, social and environmental impacts of second homes, as well as their planning implications, placing discussions within the context of contemporary human mobility.

The Pre-Meeting usually serves dual purposes: as a test lab for nascent ideas in progress or as a rehearsal for the wider congress that follows.

Pre-Meeting Location:
In 2026, the IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change and the IGU Commission on Islands are jointly organising the 2026 Pre-Meeting to be held on the island Büyükada, situated in the Princes' Islands, Sea of Marmara, Istanbul.

Büyükada, is the largest of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara, with an area of about 5 square kilometres. It comprises the Maden and Nizam neighbourhoods in the Adalar District of Istanbul Province, Türkiye.

Call for Abstracts Deadline
The CFA will open from 18 May and close on 10 June 2026, and abstracts should be submitted to an online repository – see submission instructions below.

To submit an abstract, complete the online form or scan QR code:

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=-aZLWjH1Mk-UZzmPGead5L_pR1DVy0JJpcq-kVQxi7dURDRSSUtSQURRVlNZQ1IzWTJDUUNYWjVTWC4u&route=shorturl

05/12/2026

SAVE THE DATE

PRE-MEETING of the IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change in partnership with the IGU Commission on Islands, Büyükada, Princes’ Islands, Istanbul, Türkiye, August 14-16, 2026.

In 2026, the IGU Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change and the IGU Commission on Islands are jointly organising the 2026 Pre-Meeting to be held on the island Büyükada, situated in the Princes' Islands, Istanbul.

The venue for the Pre-Meeting will be the Anadolu Kulubü Hotel on Büyükada https://www.anadolukulubu.com/en/.

Arrival, 14 August Delegates arrive in Büyükada
Day 1, 15 August Pre-Meeting Symposium, Anadolu Kulübü Hotel
Day 2, 16 August Büyükada Fieldtrip

Call for Abstracts to be released on 18 May 2026.

Please stand by for the Call for Abstracts announcement.

05/07/2026

🎙️ In this week's episode of the Tourism Geographies Podcast, we feature the work of Tara Ruttenberg, Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Development, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

🌊 Critical localisms and commons governance in occupied surfscapes

🏄‍♂️ The niche field of critical surf studies examines localism as a ubiquitous phenomenon wherein experiences of place and belonging are negotiated through surfers’ differentiated positioning relative to surfing’s cultural imaginaries and geographical territories, or ‘surfscapes’. Beyond conventional explorations of localism as a response to common pool resource dilemmas provoked by overcrowding of wave resources, critical perspectives account for power dynamics related to race, class, and gender in contested surfing space produced through Global North/South relationships within the colonial-patriarchal foundations of global surf tourism. This body of critical surf tourism literature acknowledges diverse localisms as enacting entitlement and/or resistance in occupied surfscapes built on historical legacies of structural violence and settler colonialism. Engaging with novel frameworks of communal governmentality, commoning and translocalism in Global South surf tourism communities, critical surf tourism scholarship suggests that certain localisms represent subversive modes of commons governance and/or emancipatory politics in occupied surfscapes. The state-of-the-art narrative review of critical surf studies concepts offered here centers localism in surf tourism contexts as a lens for recognizing critical surf tourism studies as its own nascent subfield of inquiry in sport tourism geographies.

🆓 The paper can be downloaded at the link below, if you have library access, or you can email the author directly. Ruttenberg, T., & Brosius, J. P. (2025). Critical localisms and commons governance in occupied surfscapes. Tourism Geographies, 27(8), 1509–1533. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2025.2594716

🎧 Listen to the podcast here from Friday, 1 May
https://lnkd.in/g3XBfitP

☑️ Podcast Producer: Maartje Roelofsen
☑️ Podcast Executive Producer: Stephen Pratt