ARTICLE IN PRESS

doi:10.1016/j.to

Tourism Management 27 (2006) 1432–1433

www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Book review

B. Ritchie, P. Burns, C. Palmer (Eds.), Tourism research

methods: Integrating Theory with Practice, CABI Publish-

ing, Wallingford, ISBN 0-851999964, 2005 (232pp., (pbk)).

Tourism Research Methods: Integrating Theory with

Practice was written, according to its editors Brent Ritchie,Peter Burns and Catherine Palmer, with the explicit aim ofbridging a gap across what they see as a business/socialscience divide prevalent in tourism research textbooks.Traditionally, the editors argue in their preface, ‘‘researchtextbooks are often focused on tourism as a business andeither ignore alternative social science approaches to tourismresearch or provide them with little attention’’ (p. ix).Crossing another divide was also central to the impetus forthe book, with the editors wondering how we as tourismresearchers can overcome the struggle of integrating thetheory of research and methodology with the actual practiceof carrying out our methods and field studies. In addressingthese gaps, the editors hope that they have written a researchtextbook which will provide ‘‘a fresh perspective byintegrating theory with practice while considering a widerange of research issues, approaches and techniques’’ (p. ix).

In most ways, the editors have achieved their statedgoals. The book indeed offers a ‘fresh perspective’,particularly with regard to its deliberate inclusion of oftenoverlooked methodological discussions, such as thoserelated to ethics, gender and reflexivity. These issues shouldbe central to any discussion of research, rather thanperipheral as they often remain in traditional businessfocussed texts. Another refreshing aspect is the editors’commitment to asking contributors to consider thephilosophical contexts underlying the methods aboutwhich they write, and to allow for personal reflections onhow their research actually affected them as well as thepeople they research. Equally refreshing is the editors’ andpublisher’s acceptance of researchers using the word ‘I’ intheir accounts. Furthermore, the editors should becommended for including such a vast range of methodsand such a diversity of contributors (at 17 chapters, ordifferent ‘methods’, the book is definitely wide-ranging inscope!). The editors’ goal to include ‘expert’ senioracademics as well as newer researchers and postgraduatestudents also did not go unnoticed by this reviewer. Thepeople taking tourism research forward in new andinteresting methodological directions are often thoseengaged in postgraduate studies, so explicitly seeking suchcontributors was a wise choice.

urman.2005.12.003

Tourism Research Methods opens with an introductorychapter by the book’s three editors, titled ‘Reflections onthe Research Practice’. Rather than begin in the usualcliched manner, with some grand statement about tourismand its contribution to the global economy, this chapteropened with two relevant political incidents which revealthe value-laden and often misleading nature of research‘data’: the Iraq War and the search for Weapons of MassDestruction (WMD), and the controversial MMR, or‘triple jab’, immunisation programme in the UK whichinvolved a national campaign to prevent measles, mumpsand rubella. As the authors claim in their introductorychapter, ‘‘both of these incidents highlight the contestednature of research and the problems involved whensupposedly more objective ‘scientific’ research deliversresults that are highly controversial’’ (p. 2). As withmilitary and medical research, tourism academics must alsorecognise that whatever methodology is used (quantitativeor qualitative), ‘findings’ are never value-free, and any new‘knowledge’ created is mediated through the eye and themind of the researcher.A whole variety of methods and perspectives is discussed

from chapter 2 onwards, starting with a personal con-sideration of the role of ethics and responsibility in tourismresearch (Chris Ryan), and followed by a thorough andvery interesting chapter on feminist and gender approachesto tourism/leisure research by Cara Aitchison. Followingthis, a raft of specific tourism research methods andapproaches is offered: the case study method (Sue Beeton);visual/film analysis (Peter Burns and Jo-Anne Lester);action ethnography and participant observation (StromaCole); tourist caravanning and the role of space and placein research (David Crouch); the Delphi technique (BrianGarrod and Alan Fyall); qualitative interviewing (GayleJennings); mystery shopping (Graham Miller, SimonHudson and Rochelle Turner); longitudinal research (J.R. Brent Ritchie); framing analysis of the mediated natureof tourism texts (Carla Almeida Santos); GIS techniques inthe planning of wildlife tourism (Pascal Tremblay);qualitative focus group research (Clare Weeden); contentanalysis of newspaper articles (C. Michael Hall and AndreaValentin), and cluster analysis and ecotourism marketsegmentation (David Weaver and Laura Lawton). Thebook finishes with a chapter titled ‘The Future of TourismResearch’, also by C. Michael Hall.The apparent unstructured nature of the presentation of

these chapters is perhaps the book’s main weakness. This

ARTICLE IN PRESSBook review / Tourism Management 27 (2006) 1432–1433 1433

reviewer felt that some sort of grouping or categorisationof the disparate chapters would have been valuable for thereader. Such groupings might have been around similartypes of methods (e.g. content analysis of media/filmanalysis; ethnography/field research, etc.) or aroundparticular research paradigms and approaches (e.g. quali-tative or quantitative). Another useful structural approachwould have been to include an initial section focused onmethodological, paradigmatic, and philosophical issuesrelated to tourism research (ethics, ontology, epistemol-ogy), followed by sections grouped around similarlythemed types of methods. As it stands, besides the initialintroduction to the book, there is little in the way ofgrounding the separate chapters firmly in any kind ofparadigmatic discussion, nor does the final ‘futures’chapter summarise the book’s contributions or reflect onits key statements. In this way, the book seems to end quitesuddenly, without the reader being able to fully grasp theoverall message that the book is trying to make. As aresult, this reviewer wonders if Tourism Research Methods

really is a research ‘textbook’ in the true sense of the word(as it was referred to by the editors in the preface), ormerely a collection of interesting, albeit very useful,comments on different methods.

In the final chapter, Hall did make some very interestingpoints regarding the future of tourism research, particularlythat the most important issues for tourism studies ‘‘areinstitutional and structural ones rather than mere selectionof problem, although they are related’’ (p. 225). Further, hegoes on to state that ‘‘in a research environment that isincreasingly driven by government and industry funding and

directives as well as certain limited notions of quality,tourism does not escape’’ (p. 225). Such concerns are validindeed and may serve to dominate our future researchagendas much more than we realise at present. Hall’sreference to political and structural limitations on research‘quality’ and ‘output’ will no doubt have implications forwhat we research, the methods we choose, and even what wecan or cannot say in research publications. As a result,further discussion on this topic is much needed, and perhapsshould be made more central to a book such as this, ratherthan merely added on as an endpiece.In summary, Tourism Research Methods is a timely and

contemporary contribution to the discourse on tourismresearch, and will indeed be ‘essential reading for final yearundergraduates, Ph.D. students, academics and researchersin tourism’, as it is stated on the back-cover blurb. Asmentioned at the outset of this review, the book’s strengthsare its willingness to engage with philosophical andontological debates, its variety of contributions whichoffer a wide range of viewpoints and paradigms, and itsattempt to move beyond the focus on business andpositivist approaches to tourism research. This bookdeserves a place on the shelf of every tourism researcheror student who is keen to explore methods and methodol-ogies, and who is willing to ‘look beyond the obvious’ whenit comes to the study of tourism and the tourist experience.

Erica WilsonSouthern Cross University, Australia

E-mail address: erica.wilson@scu.edu.au