Author Identifier (ORCID)
Noel Scott: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8770-2563
Abstract
The study of tourism transformation is evolving with five different research streams identifiable, studying personal transformation, social transformation, transformative service design, and transformation related to destinations or tourism as a whole. This paper examines the evolution of these five approaches and contrasts their disciplines, theory and assumptions through a review of 310 journal articles. Each of these five approaches views the ‘self’ as the object that is transformed with variations within them as to what aspects of the self change. The key issue then is how the self is interrelated with the ‘triggers’ of transformation. In this review, three triggers commonly identified (meaning, emotion, and reflection) are examined in detail. Understanding how personal transformation occurs is vital as topics, such as experience design, transformative tourism services and societal transformation are based on this.
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2025
Publication Title
Current Issues in Tourism
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Business and Law
Funders
Foundation for Science and Technology (UIDB/04020/2020) / The Project of Cultivation for Young topnotch Talents of Beijing Municipal Institutions (BPHR202203221) / Beijing Social Science Foundation Planning Project (21GLC052)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Zhang, X., Scott, N., & Campos, A. C. (2025). Approaches to personal transformation in tourism research. Current Issues in Tourism. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2025.2514182