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

author, the researchers dipped in and out of Denzin and Lincoln’s (1998) five moments of qualitative research 6 to fit into their
current research focus. This hybrid research approach is also reflective of the interdisciplinary nature of tourism studies. Phillimore
and Goodson (2004) comment on how this has contributed to the dynamism of tourism research with the introduction of
multidisciplinary ideas and practices. However, this has also led to fragmentation and debate within the field and disputes in
research objectives between those who adopt a practitioner and economic approach and those focusing on a more theoretical or
socio-cultural stance.
Tribe (2007) highlights the development of critical theory in tourism and questions the existence of a ‘business of tourism’ paradigm
that could be hostile to other interpretivistic approaches. Veal (1997) also notes how tourism research has been driven by the
demands of business to a much greater extent than other disciplines. There are promising signs for criticality when introducing the
idea of the Foucauldian notion of discourse 7 , using the tourist gaze (Urry, 1990) and showing how it acts in tourism research to
direct how we perceive reality. Such studies focus on tourism’s involvement with travel to different places to ‘see things’ in contrast
to the mass of tourism which is domestic. This has been expanded with the current research tendency to move away from the
concentration on mass tourism to an examination of the behaviour and motivation of smaller, more specialised groups, engaged in
‘special interest’ or ‘niche’ tourism, as evidenced by this critical appraisal (Veal, 1997). Hollinshead identifies ten commonplace
ontological issues in tourism studies. Issue two is pertinent to the research presented here as its focus is: ‘the varied and often
6 Denzin and Lincolns (1998) five ‘moments’ include the traditional period emphasising positivist research; the modernist period attempting to formalise
qualitative research; blurred genres moment where researchers begin to choose from different theoretical models; the crisis in representation moment where
the role of researcher as all-knowing creator of knowledge was challenged and the final stage – the fifth moment which sees the end of the grand narrative
and the focus on specific, delineated, local research.
7 ‘a group of statements which provide a language for talking about….a particular topic at a particular historical moment’ (Hall, 1997, p.44)