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and carnivals. The contribution of the Disney
organisation to the tourism industry has been
described as sanitising the amusement park for the
middle classes with scrupulous attention to cleanliness,
visitor comfort and quality services. For the
open air museums and historic theme parks,
imaginative interpretive programmes have reduced
the boring museum image of such attractions,
and the commercial viability of parks of this style
has improved.
Much of the research done on theme parks has
concentrated on visitor satisfaction with facilities
as well as understanding the market segments and
drawing power of individual sites. The construction
and subsequent difficulties of the Paris Disneyland
park has received considerable research attention.
The need to adapt the American theme park
concept to local cultural styles, particularly in
areas such as eating behaviours and perceived
attractiveness of themes, has been noted in the
research literature. With large-scale investments by
brewing companies, publishing houses, film companies
and hotel groups, the future of theme parks
in the landscape of tourism seems assured.
theory
PHILIP L. PEARCE, AUSTRALIA
A theory is a set of connected statements used in
the process of explanation. The nature and status
of theories in tourism will vary from one philosophy
of social science to another. Every theory and
philosophy of the social sciences presupposes an
ontology which is the set of things to which a
theory ascribes existence. Therefore, ontology is
described as a `meta-theory' which seeks to answer
the question of what must the world be like for
knowledge to be possible.
Three broad ontological positions can be
distinguished within the philosophy of the social
sciences: classical empiricism/positivism, transcendental
idealism and transcendental realism. Under
positivism, a theory comprises a set of hypotheses
and constraining conditions which, if validated
empirically, assume the status of universal laws.
These coherent linked statements provide the basis
for further research from the known �theory and
law) to the unknown �hypotheses). In the philosophy
of idealism, there are no universal theories;
each individual has sets of individual theories
which serve as the basis for human action. In the
philosophy of realism, a theory is a means of
conceptualising a framework within which reality is
apprehended. The test of a theory to someone
using it is thus its coherency and adequacy, rather
than its empirical adequacy under positivism.
The construction of tourism research philosophies
and theories has not been extensively studied.
The majority of research and journals in tourism
implicitly adopt an empiricist/positivistic philosophy,
particularly in economics, management,
marketing and psychology, although theory
construction is poorly formulated. The philosophy
of idealism has been expressed most strongly in
historical analyses, and has also been influential in
cultural studies which attempt to place tourism
within a postmodern perspective. The philosophy
of realism underlies much theory generation in
geographical, planning and policy studies, and
has been extremely influential in recent accounts of
tourism public policy and planning being founded
on craft notions of the adequacy of planning and
policy arguments. Such examinations of the
production of knowledge have stressed that the
ideas, theories and structure of the study of tourism
have developed in response to complex social,
economic, ideological, political and intellectual
stimuli. Therefore, the case for understanding the
changing nature of tourism studies contextually
parallels the case made by realists for appreciating
all human activity; the operation of human agency
must be analysed within the constraining and
enabling conditions provided by its environment.
Further reading
Ellis, J. �1989) Against Deconstruction, Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Third World
Third World 579
C. MICHAEL HALL, NEW ZEALAND
Third World is a loosely defined pejorative term
used to denote developing countries, or those