Introduction: Embracing the Local Turn in Tourism to Empower Communities

Conventional wisdom defines the tourism phenomenon by the tourists’ demand for tourism experiences and the supply of products and services by the tourism industry to meet this demand. We argue in this book that an essential component is made invisible in this formula, the local community. At best, they are one stakeholder to be managed and at worst, they present problems to the smooth running of this global industry. We ask a provocative question in this work: what would result if we defined tourism by the local community? In this introduction to the book, we plan to explain what localising tourism could mean, distinguish it from related phenomena such as community-based tourism and neolocalism, provide some examples that illustrate its possibilities and then overview the contents of the edited volume.