Evolving Paradigms in Tourism and Hospitality in Developing Countries

This new volume highlights of a broad selection of valuable research work by renowned professionals and scientists from the academia and travel industry. It provides a wide-ranging vision of a multitude of trends in the global travel and tourism industry today and in the future.

Adopting an integrated and interdisciplinary approach, the volume looks at the evolving paradigms in tourism and hospitality segment. This volume will prove indispensable in portraying the current global tourism and travel trends and is divided into three parts:

• Tourism and Destination Management
• Operational and Managerial Perspectives in the Service Sector
• Emerging Areas in Tourism

The contributors examine a diverse selection of topics and share their conducted exploratory investigations to frame their implications and outcomes. In addition, this compilation also synthesizes the experiential aspects contributed by travel professionals and practitioners as well as academia. The volume reflects upon the wide-ranging conceptual approaches to the subject of tourism. There is a great effort taken to include varying paradigms and perspectives on the core elements of the tourism sector and to the very recent and emerging themes and issues. The chapters seek to bridge academic perspectives and research with practical applications. The overall thrust of the book is to provide a required critical depth to tourism studies and to guide the reader through the fundamental themes of tourism, destination marketing, branding, and management.

The first section provides a rich exploration of theoretical frameworks and their application to hospitality services and tourism and destination management. It covers an array of themes, including the theory of the destination management; the historical development of culture and art forms; the failure of literature adequately to test out the success with safety concerns etc. Part Two then moves to focus on some of the fundamental issues associated with the structuring and outlaying of operational and managerial perspectives in the service sector. Part Three addresses the emerging areas of tourism, and the chapters serve to elucidate and consolidate the range of key issues that have emerged.

The volume covers a multitude of aspects involved in the travel business and will be of interest to practitioners, scholars, academicians, and students in the field of tourism and hospitality.

Bindi Varghese, PhD, is currently an Associate Professor affiliated with Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. She has a doctorate in commerce, specializing in tourism. As an academician and tourism professional, she has over 15 years of academic and industrial experience. She has served at many educational institutions in South India and has served as a national and international expert for a decade at several educational institutions of India. Currently, she is actively associated with the Indian Tourism Congress (ITC) and the Kerala Development Society (KDS), New Delhi.

With a passion for research, she has guided MPhil and PhD scholars. The active research that has been undertaken under her direction include: Impact Assessment Studies, Medical Tourism, and Destination Management Organization and Ecological Studies. Dr. Bindi also completed a major research project on "Strategic Intervention of Destination Management Organizations to Enhance Competitiveness of Tourism Destinations: A Model for Karnataka, India," funded by Christ University.

Along with her academic expertise, she is also an issue editor for ATNA: Journal of Tourism Studies, published by Christ University, Bengaluru. She has extensively written for national and international peer-reviewed journals and is very well recognized in the academic circle in India. She has authored a book on medical tourism in India and has also contributed chapters to edited books and has published several articles in areas of destination management, governance, medical tourism, e-tourism, etc. Dr. Varghese is a frequent invited lecturer to students from other institutions and at various industry summits. In additional to academic writing, Dr. Bindi also writes for leading newspapers and travel magazines in tourism and hospitality.