An evolutionary perspective on tourism area development

Authors:

• Mulan Ma,
• Robert Hassink

Abstract

To further develop our existing knowledge on the evolution of tourism areas, a more systematic and theoretical analysis is required. In the paper, we argue that the ongoing 'evolutionary turn' in economic geography could offer a powerful thrust to the theoretical discussion on tourism area evolution. In particular, two interlinked concepts derived from evolutionary economic geography, namely path dependence and coevolution are argued to bring the debate around the literature of tourism area life cycle substantially forward. We reinterpret the case of the Gold Coast, Australia with the explanation of two theoretical frameworks in the empirical context. The paper concludes by arguing for a combination of both a path dependence and coevolution perspective to analyze tourism area development. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.