The Role of Niche Tourism Products in Destination - Repository ...

issues of this topic and providing a critical context for analysis. The following section will examine the key work that has been
written in this area and how it has been developed. Specific niche markets, reflecting the author’s own work in this area (i.e. wine
and festival and events), will be explored in greater detail. Reference will also be made to other emergent niche markets (i.e.
yoga).
2.2 A Perspective on the Development of the Niche Tourism Concept
Lew examines how, for the past two decades, tourism researchers have been debating tourism in the context of globalisation and
rapid technological change. He states how this ‘new tourism’ can be seen in the context of ‘the emergence of niche marketing
tourism’ (Lew, 2008, p.411). Huh and Singh (2007) also discuss how the maturity of the tourism marketplace, coupled with fierce
competition and, a more engaged consumer has led to this desire to seek out new tourism markets or niches.
Although previous work has been conducted investigating the growth of special interest tourism (see 2.2.3), and specific niche
markets in tourism (Appendix 3), niche tourism as a disparate concept and theory was not examined in full until the new millennium.
In 2002 the Crichton Tourism Research Centre at the University of Glasgow held a one day conference. The theme was ‘Niche
Tourism in Question: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Problems and Possibilities.’ One of the outcomes of the conference was a
set of published proceedings (Macleod, 2003) which attempted to draw together for the first time academics from different tourism
related disciplines to debate this ‘new tourism.’ This provided some of the first collective thinking on niche tourism and its multiple
aspects.