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How Is Tourism Geography Situated in Taiwan? Geography versus Tourism and Recreation
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07 August 2024
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Abstract
Tourism Geographers in Anglo-American geographical departments migrate to teach and research tourism in applied schools and departments such as business, resource and environment, and even cultural and creative industry. Under national research assessment and funding pressures, tourism geographers are not encouraged to keep on undertaking serious theoretical researches related to their mother discipline and transferred to research applied researches and publish in hybrid journals. Such changes in tourism geographers` research behavior have not been tested and reported in Asian academic contexts, especially Taiwan while frequently being discussed internationally. This research aims to investigate the differences in the research behavior of tourism geographers between those who are staffed in geography departments and those who migrate to applies departments such as tourism and recreation, resource and environment, and others in terms of publishing journals, paradigmatic approaches, research types(qualitative, quantitative, and mixed), research methods and geographical scales conducted based on content analysis of articles published by tourism geographers in geography and tourism and recreation departments. This study revealed that there are significant differences in the research behavior of tourism geographers between different department. Finally, this paper explains the differences in terms of Taiwan changing social and economic conditions, academic traditions and politics of geography and applied departments, research habits and preferences of tourism geographers among departments and other aspects. This study can help international tourism geography academic circles to understand the complexity and diversity of tourism geography academic landscape of the Chinese language.
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Subject: Social Sciences - Tourism, Leisure, Sport and Hospitality
1. Introduction
Tourism Geography (TG) is the study of human travel and the social, ecological, and economic impacts they make to these locations by being there. Studies on the relationship between geography and the associated sociologies and cultures of the communities within geographic areas as they relate to tourism are few. Given the globalization of higher education and research, it is still even possible to talk of national or regional schools or approaches to tourism geography [1]. Language and institutional differences remain, although there is arguably a more global research community of tourism geography than ever [2]. Tourism geography in Asian countries and regions, especially Taiwan remains nearly uncharted in the global academic map of tourism geography while there are emerging researches on the tourism geography education in Taiwan [3] and retrospective review of tourism geography in Taiwan wholly [4]. However, they are weak and limited responding to the focus issues in international tourism geography circle such as the exodus of tourism geographers from geography departments to other outlets [5]. Han et al. (2020) provides an elegant summary of the evolution of TG in Taiwan since 1946 [4]. In academia, the transition from a propaganda-like (1940s to 1960s) to quantitative science-based programs in the 1960s and 1970s to the humanistic approaches that emerged during the Diversification Period illustrate two important points. First is the dichotomy in academic community that stayed in academia versus the academics that took positions in other Business School focused on tourism. Second, despite academia’s reputation of being liberal and open-minded, this sector is relatively slow to respond to emerging issues. The conservative nature of faculty, departments, and universities illustrate the point where research on TG research fell behind that being performed in the tourism industry and what the tourists and tourism stakeholders wanted [5]. The processes, procedures, knowledge, and cultures of diverse communities and stakeholder groups, including the academic community intersect at many points in space and time and to advance the discipline and solve problems [2], these interactions need to be synchronous. As such, understanding the sociology and culture of the academic community focused on TG itself and the process of generating knowledge associated with tourism and geography are crucial [1]. The academic community focused on TG plays specific roles through an academic actor network, which includes the production, circulation, and reception of knowledge [2]. Knowledge is dynamic and scholars need to be remaindered that they too should be.
A topic that is often discussed in the TG literature or anywhere TG scholars and professionals gather is that of employment [6]. Tourism Geography scholars usually find positions in Geography Departments, Business school, and other applied teaching units that teach tourism as part of their curricula after earning their Ph.D. degree [1,2]. Their acquired knowledge is likely to be socially, culturally, and philosophically a reflection of the culture of the university, laboratory, community within which they live, which is obviously tied to the school’s location [2]. As is the case with any organization on the planet, the politics, evaluation systems, and funding opportunities of academic departments versus those in Business and vocational Schools differ substantially [2]. Although these elements may be over-looked or not considered important, they often play a crucial underlying role for determining the importance of the information generated and subsequently, the research direction and processes used to assess the existing knowledge, and provide the next level of questions that push the discipline into the future.
It’s been suggested that the migration of TG scholars from academia to Business and applies teaching units will impact the future growth and development of the TG discipline, the talent in academic Geography Departments, and the entirety of the TG discipline [7]. Few studies have investigated the influence or impact of the exodus of TG scholars from academia to other outlets. This also includes the influence of where articles are published, the topics or questions being studied, and the methods used to collect, analyze, and interpret the data. Tourism geography in Taiwan represents a unique case periphery to the core Anglo-American international discipline [4] and therefore it is worthwhile investigating how tourism geographers adapted to unique academic circumstances through altering their research behavior on tourism geography.
In this study, international TG in academic settings in Taiwan were examined and compared against TG literature from Anglo-American universities. The TG scholars of Taiwan, who are active in geography academia, were used as empirical objects. The objective of this study aims to examine the variation in the research behaviors of TG scholars and their research preferences following their movement out of academia. Specifically this study aims to:
Identify the state of the tourism geography in Taiwan against the backdrop of the international tourism geography;
Compare tourism geography research across the geography, tourism and recreation and other applies teaching units in international tourism geography literature;
Situate empirically tourism geography research across geography, tourism and recreation, resource and environment and other applied cultural disciplines based on content analysis of articles by tourism geographers respectively staffed in the above disciplines; and
Offer the explanations underlying the difference of the research behavior and preferences revealed by tourism geographers in the above disciplines and new questions that further expand the study of TG need to be posed.
2. Tourism Geography and Geographers in Multi-and Inter-Disciplinary Spaces
2.1. Tourism Geographers Move away from Geographical Departments to Multi-and Inter-Disciplines
The study of TG differs between countries or areas [8]. In North American universities, tourism is an emerging discipline and many tourism departments are being included as fields of study in newer, rather than at older universities [9]. In the US, the tourism and front-desk reception professions are common fields of study in the community colleges, although there are many colleges with good tourism reception professions with a long-term contact with parks and recreation or reception and gambling professions [1]. However, job opportunities for scholars with TG degrees at university geography departments that offer TG globally, are few [9]. Generally, students obtaining a Ph.D. in TG move to business schools to research and teach tourism [8]. The mainstream geography communities at US universities indicate recreational tourism is not of major interest and therefore not worthy of serious academic study. Hence, many TG scholars work in interdisciplinary tourism and recreational departments. Owing to the conservative nature of mainstream geography, the trend is expected to continue into the future [9].
In Canada, many TG scholars work in Business and Management Schools, while some find employment in outdoor recreation, park and tourism departments. There are some "lonely wolves" dispersed in the interdisciplinary tourism departments. Not only do newly minted TG scholars transfer to interdisciplinary tourism and recreation departments for work, renowned leaders in the TG field are uprooting and leaving academia to work in multi- and interdisciplinary tourism departments [10]. In Europe, many geography departments view tourism as a professional area, especially with obtaining joint degrees of Eastern Europe, which focus on economic transition, which can be used to promote their contributions to society [9]. In British, the tourism unit of the geography department of the University of Exeter has transferred their program to the Business School. In Australia and New Zealand, many TG scholars work in business schools as tourism professionals [3]. Some tourism geographers have even worried that tourism geography may move out from human geography all together [6]. Therefore, the migration of TG scholars leaving geography departments may weaken TG in the long term [3]. However, there is no discussion how the diversity of teaching styles and methodology will affect TG scholar study behavior. We provide an in-depth discussion of this topic in this paper.
2.2. Tourism Geographies in Multi-and Inter-Disciplinary Spaces
Tourism geographies not only mean more than one approach to study tourism geography but also that there may exist multiple styles of tourism geography research in multi-, inter- and even trans-disciplinary spaces [2]. And even there are different style of research behavior and preference. Depending on the roles that they play (jobs) in the business sector, TG scholars may not be encouraged to remain current and/or publish in their area of expertise [10]. However, it’s believed that following the migration of TG scholars to the tourism departments and institutes of the business schools, the areas of study will undergo change with an obvious focus on issues that are relevant to the business school tourism department, but also the tourism industry [2].
The relationship between TG and the disciplinary spaces are determined by local politics, the relationship between universities and communities and industries in those communities, and autonomy opportunities, especially the influence of academics publishing through the academic evaluation system [2]. As to where to publish, tourism geographers staffed in geographical departments are encouraged in publish in the mainstream geographical journals, rather than tourism and hospitality journals because professional geographers are not acquainted with good tourism and hospitality journals [11]. Therefore, it is not easy for them to get tenure position and get acceptance in geography departments and academic circles. Conversely, Wesley Roehl, who works in tourism and recreation departments and institutes, believes that TG scholars should publish their papers in tourism and hospitality journals because this is a topic worthy of study and may result in abundant articles [12].
Whether to publish in geography or tourism journals is related to the department/school and the stage of a person’s career [12]. Gill believes that if TG scholars working in Geography Departments and pursuing tenure should aim their research and publications for geography journals because few scholars in Geography Departments are familiar with good studies published in tourism journal in addition to the emerging issues [12]. The research assessment system in which TG scholars are actually involved obviously affects the academic publishing channel of TG scholars [10]. For example, some TG scholars believe that in their departments, papers are fine if judged by peers. However, TG scholars working in Australian and Canadian business schools find it difficult to publish in geography journals because their departments, which passed journal rankings, obviously do not support publishing papers in business school journals, while TG scholars who work in geography departments in England only receive credit for publications in geography journals and not recreational tourism journals [10]. The conservative nature of academia and continued belief that solutions can be developed without stakeholder consultation, input, and contributions, especially the non-professionals may help explain why some departments are decades behind their contemporaries in the Applied sector.
As to how and where to research tourism geography, tourism geographers staffed in mother discipline can track and synchronize with the fronters in current paradigmatic development in geography. Although there are common languages used in mainstream geography, TG differs not only in its area of study, but also in its paradigmatic approaches, research methods, geographical scale and funding agencies and opportunities [10,11]. The evolution of TG began at the end of WWII and from then until the 1970s the positivism of TG in England and American empiricism geography mainly verified the models of human geography and applied them to the study of tourism recreation [3]. After the 1970s, behavioral geography, humanistic geography, and late cultural geography penetrated TG. At the end of the 20th century, cultural turn in geography and so-called new cultural geography originated by the department of sociology of the University of Birmingham began to penetrate, transfer, and even redefine the concerns of TG studies [13]. This trend was reflecting the role that culture played in the development of economic development strategies and subsequent development of post-modern geography studies [14]. These included: gender studies, ethnic networks, post-colonialism, gender recognition, performativity, and virtual space [2,4].
While tourism geographers in tourism and hospitality, or resource and environmental departments tend to do some applied geographical research encourages or accepted by new disciplines. Similarly, tourism geographers kept in geographical departments keep close pace with current issues in critical reflections in post human geography [6,4], while those employed in applied business school or resource and environment are not encouraged to keep on such issues and transferred to applied operation and management issues in tourism and hospitality. It stands up to reason that different philosophies and paradigmatic approaches impacted the choice of how, where, and why of what we do or do not study [1], which involve an investigation of the sociology of a research community, of its debates, deliberations and decisions as well as its findings [1,2,6]. This is because the academic life is not a closed system but rather is open to the influences of the wider society it encompasses it [1,2]. Therefore, the study of TG in Taiwan is situated and contextualized and it is crucial to make an understanding of the research behavior and preferences to reveal the production and circulation of the knowledge of TG in multi- and inter-disciplinary spaces.
The results of this study suggest that after the transfer of TG scholars to Tourism Recreation Departments and Institutes, they become engaged in applied multi- and interdisciplinary studies. Critical social theories are seldom merged into the teaching and study of TG [1,2,12]. Many Business Schools where TG scholars work, rarely have the opportunity to integrate social theory into TG, an area of geographic study that is based largely on the sociology of a population [1,2,12]. Additionally, the results of studies have shown that the differences among different departments are related to the development of tourism knowledge [15]. For example, Business school and departments that regard industry production as a study pinpoint are full of strong application points, while social science departments view tourism phenomena as social cultural phenomena that develop strong critical tourism studies [15]. It would be expected that the study behaviors of TG students from different Departments are different. however, to our knowledge there are no studies where the behavior of tourism geographers from different geography departments, recreational tourism departments, resource and environment and such humane and art sciences as culture, history and creative art study have been performed. The understanding of the differences in the research behavior and preferences of TG scholars from different departments are examined, which will help deepen our understanding of the variations and diversity in the research behaviors of TG scholars after they move out of geography.
3. Methodology
Scholarly work in Taiwan occurs in many forms such as publications, conferences, public seminars, and workshops. Journals undoubtedly play a substantial and significant role in disseminating the research results of research projects/programs, syntheses of existing data, and the proposition of new ideas that could ultimately direct and shape the discipline. Hence, the recreational TG papers in Taiwan’s mainstream journals were used as our study sample. For the trade-offs of TG papers, we use the operational definition of authority literature on tourism recreational geography. Tourism geography is the study of tourism within the concepts, frames, and theory of TG and Geography that are currently accepted by the experts in these respective communities [1,2]. To be specific, following the academic definition of TG in Taiwan, papers that have "tourism", “recreation”, or "leisure" in their titles, abstracts, or keywords comprised the data that were analyzed in this study. We obtain a sample of 225 valid articles meeting to the above criteria spanning from 1964-2024 from airitilibrary(华艺学术文献数据库),the largest database of traditional Chinese academic literature .
We encoded the author of every paper’s school, departments and institutes and the authors’ personal information (gender, position, and study degree), the method of collecting and analyzing empirical data, sampling methods, and geographical scale of case sites conducting empirical researches.The yearly span of article published(decade),journal type(geography,tourism and recreation and other),typology of research conducted(quantitative,qualitative,and mixed),approaches to TG(specific items see in Table 4),geographical scale of case site(specific items see in Table 5) was used as the dependent variables and disciplines(geography,tourism and recreation,resource and environment,and other) as independent variable. Using cross contingency table analysis, a chi-square test was used to examine the variations and differences of research behavior and preference situated in difference disciplines.
4. Situated Research Behavior in Multiple Disciplinary Spaces
4.1. Differences in TG Publications by Disciplinary Spaces
The number and publication trends of the TG groups differ based on the area of study through time (Table 1). Up until the 1990s most of the TG papers were from Geography Departments. The slow rise in the number of papers starting in the 1950s and dominating the number of publications in subsequent years. Tourism studies in geography departments started as early as 1960s and produces most tourism articles, ranked as the first in every decade in Taiwan. As the first doctorate in tourism geography was accredited by the department of geography of the University of Chinese Culture in 1989,professional tourism geographers with doctorate multiplied steadily in the 1990s,which provided continuous faculties to brand-new tourism departments in rapidly germinating private university. So the number of articles published by tourism geographers increased substantially, ranked as the second largest in all kinds of departments.
In term of resource and environment field, the number of papers that address TG research issues has been increasing since 2000 and increased steadily in subsequent decades. This may in part be tied to environmental awareness and emerging government policies that were being targeted to the stakeholder groups [4]. Since the 1980s, accompanied by the rapid development of Taiwan’s economy during the 1960s and 1970s, the, problems related to the environment have gradually increased, such departments and institutes as urban planning, regional development, resource management and environmental science, developed rapidly. In particular, tourism and recreation became the main industries involved in the advancement of traditional Taiwanese industry in the 1990s. Due to the great demand for talented people for tourism and recreation in society, these departments and institutes view tourism and recreation as the main fields of study [3]. On the one hand, environmental planning-related students transferred to tourism and recreation areas; on the other hand, they also drew TG scholars to join departments and institutes [7]. Hence, such departments and institutes will increase the number of publications on TG.
To be noted, the numbers of tourism geography articles increased dramatically and even caught up with that in tourism and recreation departments. It is due to that tourism geographers transferred to other discipline such as cultural studies, creative art and design since 2000. As the creative cultural industry was initiated by cultural and aboriginal departments in Taiwan, the aboriginal and local culture departments also prove some employment opportunities for TG doctors. In particular, the cultural turn in Taiwanese geography since 2000 has made tourism and recreation the subjects of new cultural geography, and sociocultural theory has received increased attention [1,14], which enhanced the number of TG articles related to cultural and aboriginal studies.
4.2. Generational Change of Prolific TG Scholars in Disciplinary Spaces
Tourism geography is a small academic community in Taiwan, so the articles published even by those prolific tourism geographers is also few. To inspect the generational change of TG scholars in different disciplinary spaces, we identified prolific Taiwanese authors who published more than two papers as first or second authors (Table 2). Such geographers as HONG-WEN, WANG, QIU-YUAN, WANG in the department of geography of National Taiwan University were the first to use "tourism", in its geography study area. However, their papers did not consider tourism to be the main issue. At that time, the number of papers was very small. The 1970s and 1980s were the times of development for Taiwan’s tourism geography. During this period, young geographers from England, the United States, and Japan started to involve tourism issues in geography studies under the support of the National Council of Scientific Development. In that period, although the number of tourism papers continued to increase, there were no geography scholars who viewed tourism as their main research interest. In the 1990s, many tourism geography scholars, such as Yuewen, Huang, Jincehng, Ni regarded tourism as their main study interests and soon became the main body of scholars in tourism geography in the 1990s.
In the 1990s, the policies of developing universities in Taiwan were encouraged, and the original teacher colleges and vocational and technology colleges all transformed to comprehensive universities and technical universities. Tourism and recreation had become one of the most popular departments. Geography scholars like Yuewen, Huang and Yuqiang Lin, transferred to tourism and recreation to perform thematic studies, and they started to cooperate with graduates to publish papers. Since 2010, the number of tutors who participated in guiding tourism direction graduates has been increasing, which might be affected by many geography professors undertaking tourism consultancies.
The transformation of tradition agriculture and forestry to recreation and tourism spurred more consultancies, which absorbed more applies departments such as resource and environment, landscape and park, and even creative economy and cultural studies to involve in tourism studies, which also provided some positions to the minted tourism geographers. They also published regular tourism studies. Although this is rare, we still can see that the academic space of tourism geography is closely related to local industry practices, employment opportunities and funding opportunities.
4.3. Differences in the Academic TG Publication Journals of Papers from Disciplinary Spaces
We divided journals publishing Taiwan’s tourism geography papers into geography, tourism and recreation and other (which neither belong to the geography subject nor the tourism recreation subject). Table 3 shows that there is an significant differences in the choice of academic publication journals for tourism geography scholars in different disciplinary spaces. Tourism geographers kept in geography departments usually publish in geography journals, tourism geographers in tourism and recreation departments usually publish in tourism and recreation journals, and tourism geographers from resource and environment departments often publish in geography journals; Those from other departments mainly publish in geography and other journals. This reflects that it is obvious that tourism geographers from different disciplines have different academic publication channels. However,in contrast to international journals, in which the publication channels of Taiwan’s tourism geography mainly focus on geography journals.
4.4. Differences in the Approaches to TG from Different Disciplinary Spaces
There are different approaches to tourism geography. However, they have significant differences of application in tourism geographical studies in different disciplines. As shown in the Table 4, nearly all geographical approaches can enlighten the study of tourism geography in geography departments and most tourism geographers there prefer applied spatial analysis and behavioral research; tourism geographers of tourism and recreation departments and resources and environments departments both prefer applied behavioral and spatial analysis. Tourism geographers from other departments prefer the new culture geography and critical geography studies except popular applied geographical research. This study also demonstrates that with the introduction of critical theory after the new cultural turn, the production and consumption of tourism and recreation may again become the objects of geography studies. There is a close relationship between the approaches to tourism geography and disciplinary preference. After tourism geography scholars transfer to these applied departments , they are not encouraged to engage in macro-scalar regional and environment studies, so they transfer to the micro-tourism behaviour researched on consumers and enterprises in tourism and hospitality, resource management and marketing of tourism destinations. As a whole, Taiwan’s tourism geography places more emphasis on the study of applied geography, and even behavioral geography and positivism and spatial science have applied geography’s features of solving practical problems. This is also related to Taiwan’s geography academic tradition, which prefers applied, practical but ignores theoretical inquiry [4,7].
4.5. Differences in the Research Methods of TG in Disciplinary Spaces
We divided the types of tourism geographical research into qualitative , quantitative , and mixed research. In this section we studied the preferences of research typology in different different disciplines. Table 5. shows that there are significant differences in the types of tourism geography studies conducted in different disciplines. Tourism studies from geography departments and other humanity departments prefer qualitative research and mixed research. Qualitative tourism geography studies usually use second-hand information and fieldwork as the main methods for gathering qualitative information. In terms of presentation techniques for qualitative information, tourism studies from the different disciplines share more consensus on descriptive methods, scenario analysis (contextual analysis), illustration laws, comparative analysis, matrix analysis, and graphic methods(details shown in additional materials), which not only reflects that these methods are more common in the qualitative study of tourism geography in different disciplines but also explains that tourism geography scholars have reached a consensus in fundamental qualitative data analysis strategies.
The preference for qualitative research and mixed research in geography departments is related to the academic tradition of Taiwan geography [7]. In particular, small-scale regional research was promoted by Taiwanese geography elites in the 1960s. The academic tradition put more emphasis on qualitative research, even under the impetus of positivism geography in the 1970s and 1980s; that style did not languish. In the 1990s, the study of critical radical geography and cultural turn revitalized qualitative research [4]. The research preferences of tourism and recreation departments and of resource and environment departments are related to behavioral geography, positivism geography, and spatial science. Under the domination of these approaches, the tourism studies from both departments emphasized quantitative research. The phenomenon that other departments prefer qualitative research is related to the fact that geography scholars transfer to general education, aboriginal and local cultural departments. These departments also prefer qualitative research under the influence of cultural turn and new cultural geography.
Those from tourism and recreation departments and resource and environment departments prefer quantitative research. Most quantitative researches often use questionnaires and second-hand information to collect data. The quantitative tourism geographical studies from geography departments mainly use descriptive studies and design evaluation indicator measurements. The quantitative tourism geography studies from tourism and recreation departments mainly include descriptive studies, factor analysis methods, reliability analysis, one-way ANOVA, regression analysis, structural equation modeling and evaluation indicator systems. While those from resource and environment departments mainly use descriptive analysis, regression analysis, and evaluation indicator systems. Other departments mainly use descriptive study analysis, correlation analysis, reliability analysis, chi-square tests, t tests, evaluation indicators, and structural equation modeling.
4.6. The Difference of Geographical Scales of Tourism Geographical Research in Disciplinary Spaces
We divided the geographical scale into global, national, regional, local, and free-scale. Free-scale studies mainly refer to papers on literature reviews and conceptual papers. Table 6 shows that there is a significant difference in the tourism geographical scale in different departments (Pearson chi-square=27.897, Asymp. Sig. =.006). It shows that the tourism geography of geography departments has been conducted on the regional scale, the tourism geography of tourism and recreation departments have been carried out mainly on the local scale, while those of resources and environment departments have been conducted mainly on the regional and local scales, while those of other departments have been conducted mainly on the local scale.
The reason why different departments differ is not only related to the research tradition of Taiwan geography and the geographic scale of Taiwan itself but also related closely to diverse objects of different departments. The region is the innate research object of geography, especially Taiwan geography, which was affected by China’s regional research tradition; hence, these geographers highly praised small regional studies in the 1950s and 1960s [7]. This gradually nourished the small region style of the Taiwan Tourism Geography. Owing to the restriction of the geographic scale of Taiwan, small regional studies, including tourism studies of counties, villages, towns, mountains, national parks, and scenic spots, are more common. The tourism geography studies of tourism and recreation departments are mainly local-scale researches, which is not only related to Taiwan geography space but also related to the objects of tourism and recreation. Tourism and recreation enterprises, scenic spots, and communities are all distributed on the local scale. Therefore, their researches are correspondingly local.
5. Discussion
Anglo-American tourism geography reviews dominate international mainstream journals [8,9] while tourism geography in Asian countries and regions especially is scare. Even though there is a small handle of tourism geography review in Taiwan but limited responding to the main topic in international tourism geography discussed. This study may be the first to involve in the dialogue about the move of tourism geographers away from geography departments to tourism and recreation and other applied disciplines and its influences on tourism geographers’ research behavior and preference in new disciplines based on an empirical content analysis on articles published by multiple disciplinary spaces. This study not only confirmed that more tourism geographers are moving out of geography mother discipline but also revealed a more diversity into multiple disciplines such as cultural studies, aboriginal studies and creative economy.
As to its influences on tourism geographers’ research behavior and preference in new disciplines, this study showed hybrid influences. AS to publishing journals, most tourism geographers from multiple disciplines keep on publishing in geographical journals, which is slightly different from their international colleagues. One explanation is that tourism geographers keep close academic relationship with their mentors so that it might be easier for them to publish in geographical journals. Another explanation is that one Taiwan tourism geographers talked of the phenomenon that the editorial boards of tourism, hospitality and recreational journals in Taiwan are controlled by some academic elites from park and landscape, hospitality and business, and forestry. Tourism geography manuscripts are not easy to be accepted in those journals.
In terms of research behavior and preferences, this study showed mixed influences. Some tourism geographers retained their research approaches similar to those in geography, such as applied spatial analysis on macro-scale research sites and meanwhile they also altered their researches to specific operational management in tourism and hospitality demanded by their new departments. This study confirmed that tourism geography researches are situated knowledge adapting to complex social, economic, political and cultural circumstances.
6. Conclusions
The international tourism geography literature revealed that tourism geographers transfer from geology departments to business, tourism and recreation, environment and landscape departments. Although some studies indirectly mention that there may be some variations in the publication channels and research behavior and preference for tourism geographers in different departments, no study has empirically verified this issue. This paper combines the Taiwanese tourism geography literature systematically to test the differences in academic publication channels, paradigmatic approaches, research typology, research methods, and geographical scales of tourism geographical studies from different departments. In addition, this paper combines the academic traditions of local geography and the academic politics of different disciplines to explain their differences. In comparison to Anglo-American tourism geography practices, this study revealed the unique academic landscape of the Chinese-speaking region. The main findings are below:
Most tourism geographers are nurtured by the first generation of geographers in Taiwan. Since these senior geographers have gradually retired and that tourism geographers have not remained in geography departments, the education of Taiwan’s future tourism geographical education and the nurturing of talented tourism geography PhD. students will be affected because future tourism geographers are always mentored by uninitiated tourism geographers, which is not instrumental in knowledge succession and innovation.
The tourism geographers` research behavior and preferences in multiple disciplines of Taiwan differ in terms of their academic journals, paradigmatic approaches, research typology, research methods and geographical scales of case sites in tourism geography. Unlike their colleagues in Anglo-American researches, Taiwan tourism geographers publish mainly in geography journals.
This study also reveals that after tourism geography scholars transfer to tourism and recreation departments, they are not encouraged to address macro issues such as resources and environments but rather to study more specific issues such as tourism behaviors, destination marketing and management. Furthermore, tourism geography studies are more descriptive. In terms of approaches, behavioral geography and applied geography are dominant, which is related to the fact that the preferences of academic elites in behavioral geography may affect the overall academic style [16] but also because Taiwanese geography academics continue to focuses on practice and application but ignores theoretical inquiry.
This study contributes to understanding the complexity and diversity in tourism geography behavior and preferences among different regions, different academia, and different departments. This study also reveals the influences of the academic traditions, research assessment systems, and research culture and practices on the knowledge production and communication in tourism geography [2]. This study also proves that related scholars in urban planning, horticulture, forestry, resources and environment and local and aboriginal departments are shaping the knowledge landscape in tourism geography. At the same time, space, place, and environments are no longer the patents of geography, and all the impossibilities are accepted into these future tourism geography issues.
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Table 1.
Number and Percent of TG Publications over Time Based on Area of Study.
 |
* The Pearson chi-square value was 45.516, and Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) is .000, and the df value is 18.
Table 2.
Tourism Geography Scholars and Number of Publications by Decade.
| Disciplines | Decade | Total | ||||||||
| 1960-1969 | 1970-1979 | 1980-1989 | 1990-1999 | 2000-2009 | 2010-2019 | 2020-2024 | ||||
| Geography | Deng Jingheng | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | |
| Wang Hongwen | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||
| Wang Qiuyuan | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||
| Shi Zaitian | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||
| Liu Hongxi | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||
| Jiang Lanhong | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||
| Li Suxin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 | ||
| Zhang Changyi | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||
| Tourism and Recreation | Huang Yuewen＊ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 7 | |
| Lin Yuqiang＊ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Resources and environment | Liang Bingkun＊ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | |
| Qiu Lirong | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | ||
＊ Tourism geography scholars earning PhD degrees in Geography Departments.
Table 3.
Differences in the journals published by tourism geographers in different disciplines.
| Disciplines | Journal Category | Total | |
| Geography | Tourism & recreation | ||
| Geography | 120 | 5 | 125 |
| Tourism & recreation | 28 | 12 | 40 |
| Resources & environment | 12 | 1 | 13 |
| Others | 39 | 8 | 47 |
| Total | 199 | 26 | 225 |
* Pearson Chi-Square Value 21.860, Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) is .000, and the df value is 3.
Table 4.
Differences in the Approaches to TG by departments.
| Disciplines | Approaches to TG | Total | ||||||||
| Regional | Spatial | Behavioral | Humanistic | Cultural | Radical | Applied | ||||
| Geography | 15 | 21 | 21 | 1 | 13 | 15 | 39 | 125 | ||
| Tourism and recreation | 0 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 18 | 40 | ||
| Resources and environments | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 13 | ||
| Other | 0 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 19 | 47 | ||
| Total | 15 | 28 | 39 | 6 | 26 | 31 | 80 | 225 | ||
* The Pearson chi-square value was 37.141, and Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) is .000, and the df value is 18.
Table 5.
Different types of TG Study.
| Disciplines | Qualitative | Quantitative | Mixed | Total |
| Geography Tourism and recreation Resources and environment |
67 | 40 | 18 | 125 |
| 16 | 10 | 14 | 40 | |
| 6 | 5 | 2 | 13 | |
| Others | 31 | 6 | 10 | 47 |
| Total | 120 | 61 | 44 | 225 |
Table 9.
Differences in TG Scale.
| Disciplines | Global | National | Regional | Local | Free-scale | ||
| Geography | 0 | 12 | 60 | 32 | 21 | 125 | |
| Tourism and recreation | 3 | 4 | 15 | 11 | 7 | 40 | |
| Resources and environments | 0 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 13 | |
| Other | 2 | 1 | 19 | 19 | 6 | 47 | |
| Total | 5 | 18 | 65 | 65 | 35 | 225 | |
* Pearson chi-square=27.897, Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)=.006, df=12.
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