Tourism in the Middle East : Continuity, Change and Transformation (Tourism and Cultural Change)

This edited volume on tourism in the Middle East embodies a multi-discursive approach to the study of tourism in the region offering not only different perspectives but qualifying local knowledge and realities. The book re-examines the discourse of tourism within geopolitical contemporary regional realities. The book re-conceptualizes tourism as a discourse linked to heritage and identity construction, national and global economies, and development of local communities. Alternatively, a new discursive approach to the understanding of tourism emerges out of invigorating and stimulating latent regional realities and the social histories of various towns, villages, and cultural landscapes within the contested and politically-charged region of the Middle East. The book investigates issues of national identity, authenticity, definition of heritage, representation of cultures and regions, community & tourism development, urban tourism, heritage conservation & tourism, and tourism related investments through a new vision for the region that transcends current geopolitics or national and formal historiographies.