This collection of papers from Tourism Geographies emphasizes new and emerging research paradigms in the geographic study of tourism. The papers included in this collection follow one of two threads: explicitly supporting specific research frameworks, or implicitly presenting new and emerging theoretical perspectives through empirical research on the geographical topics. These begin with three overview papers from themes that emerged from recent annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers, including evolutionary economic geography (EEG), political ecology and community resilience. Each of these theoretical and conceptual frameworks is leading to new explorations and insights in a wide variety of geographical and social science research, including tourism studies. These are followed by a series of papers that extend our knowledge and thinking on a range of key geographical topics, including development and underdevelopment (by Saarinen & Rogerson), sustainable tourism planning (by Torres-Delgado & Saarinen), encounters with the natural environment (by Hill), and the geography of place names (by Light), as well as economic geography and new technologies and their applications to spatial behavior research. The papers in this special issue are especially relevant to tourism scholars, and very much represent the types of perspectives that Tourism Geographies seek to promote.

This book was published as a special issue of Tourism Geographies.