Tourism Enclaves

The aim of the research is to deepen the understanding of how these distinct exclusive tourism spaces are structured and transformed and what impact and implications they have for research, tourism and local development, governance and regional economies, well-being and sustainability.

Enclaves in tourism: producing and governing exclusive spaces for tourism

In general, tourism enclaves can be understood as exclusively planned spaces that contain the facilities and services needed for visitors who have limited opportunities and/or desire to leave the enclave tourism space. Exclusively planned tourism destinations, such as all-inclusive resorts, gated resort communities, private cruise liner-owned islands and privatized beaches, have increased over the last few decades. Researchers have analyzed these kinds of tourism environments as enclaves, which are typically driven by external forces and actors, strongly supported by globalization and the current neoliberal market economy.

This research is carried out together with Jarkko Saarinen, University of Oulu, Finland, and resulted in several publications and conference presentations.

All-inclusive tourism

Another significant parameter of enclave tourism is its standardized scope. In Wall-Reinius, Ioannides, and Zampoukos (2019), we use the idea of placelessness when we investigate the marketing of all-inclusive tourism. We conclude that all-inclusive holiday resorts purposefully separate themselves from their immediate surroundings, and there seems to be a genuine lack of interest by tour operators to encourage visitors to visit areas and/or attractions outside the holiday resort. All-inclusive resorts represent decontextualized and interchangeable spaces.

This research is carried out together with Dimitri Ioannides and Kristina Zampoukos at Mid Sweden University. We have published one article called “Does Geography Matter in All-Inclusive Resort Tourism? An investigation of the marketing approach of major Scandinavian tour operators” in Tourism Geographies, and presented at conferences.