Over the last two decades, tourism has become firmly established as a recognized field of study and the focus of extensive academic research. There has been continual expansion in the provision of taught programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, dramatic developments in the tourism literature and a growing community of tourism academics. Despite this explosion in the study of tourism, however, it is still struggling to achieve wider academic legitimacy, it remains to some extent divorced from the industry upon which it is focuses and, even within its academic ranks, there remains