The Geopolitics of Tourism in the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

This introduction to the special section focuses on the geopolitical relevance of tourism in the Indo-Pacific region. We first review the literature on everyday geopolitics, or Popular Geopolitics 2.0, elaborating the trend of attention to tourism activities in political geography. We then turn to tourism studies and find the divergence and convergence between these literatures. Finally, we argue that a focus on the Indo-Pacific offers new points of purchase for critical scholars reassessing the geopolitics of tourism. This introduction sets a scene for the other articles in this special section, calling for a re-thinking of the links between tourism and geopolitics from a more inclusive perspective that goes beyond Euro(American)centrism.