Tourism & Global Change

In an increasingly globalizing world, transnational movements of people, materials, capital and information are on the rise and linking up different parts of the world in novel, intense and complex ways. Understanding the characteristics of these flows, their relations and their impacts, are an innovative way of understanding and more effectively regulating processes of globalisation.

Goal of the trajectory

  1. To understand how tourism is one of, and intersects with, many flows of people, materials, capital and information;
  2. To critically analyse how mobilities are both impacting and impacted by regulations and processes of social, cultural, economic, technological and environmental change;

Consider how international tourists, migrants, cargo and even ‘fake news’ travel and both transform and get transformed by the places and people they encounter on their journeys. Such mobilities and the dynamic interconnections they forge are both embedded in and catalysts of social, cultural, political, economic, technological and environmental change. Global tourist flows, for example, are increasingly guided by social media, facilitated by relaxed restrictions on foreign direct investment, enabled by cheap oil prices and heavily reliant on low-wage migrant labour.

In this trajectory, students explore how various global mobilities are constituted, how the complex ways in which they intertwine with one another result in societal, technological and environmental implications, and how they can be effectively governed. Travel and tourism mobilities will be considered alongside questions of immobility and exclusion, migration, transportation, mobility rights, crises and risks as well as virtual connectivity.

Courses

Students need to choose two courses out of the following four:

Thesis examples

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