Understanding How Tourism Shapes Economies, Communities, and Destinations Worldwide

In Episode 22 of the High-Yield Tourism Podcast, host Gary Bowerman sits down with Joao Romao, associate professor at Yasuda Women’s University in Japan, to discuss Romao’s new book The Economic Geography of Tourism. The episode explores how tourism intersects with economics, geography, policy, and society, and why these intersections are particularly relevant to destinations in 2025. Romao begins by sharing his personal and professional journey. Originally from Portugal, he began his career as a journalist and later served as a policy advisor in local government, specializing in investment promotion in a tourism-driven region. He also produced documentaries for Portuguese television before transitioning into consultancy roles advising regional and national institutions. Eventually, he pursued a PhD in tourism, motivated by a desire to strengthen the theoretical basis of his consultancy work, and later moved to Japan, where he committed more fully to academic teaching and research. His background in both practical policy advising and academic theory shaped his unique perspective on tourism as a driver of spatial, social, and economic transformation.

Bowerman and Romao then turn to the central themes of The Economic Geography of Tourism. Romao explains that the book is designed to bring together fragmented concepts from economic geography and demonstrate how they can be applied systematically to tourism. He stresses that economic geography offers powerful tools for understanding why economic activity, including tourism, clusters in certain areas, how tourism connects with innovation and other industries, and how it alters the daily lives of local communities. The book also explores the dynamic life cycle of tourism destinations, drawing on Richard Butler’s influential model. Destinations typically evolve from being small, unknown locations attracting curious visitors, to building local businesses, to receiving government support and infrastructure investment, and ultimately to attracting multinational corporations. Each stage reshapes local economies, jobs, infrastructure, and even cultural identity. Romao emphasizes that these impacts are not static: tourism affects destinations differently over time, influencing everything from housing and transport to sociological composition and cultural exchange. Cities such as Kyoto, Lisbon, and Venice exemplify how tourism can transform familiar urban spaces for locals, sometimes to the point where residents feel excluded from their own cultural landmarks.

Sustainability and governance are also central themes in the discussion. Romao critiques the binary thinking common in tourism policy: governments often oscillate between aggressively promoting growth to attract as many tourists as possible and reacting to the crises of overtourism once problems emerge. What is missing, he argues, is careful management of the “in-between”—a deliberate process of setting capacity limits, aligning products with target markets, and ensuring benefits remain in local communities. He notes that individuals and entrepreneurs cannot realistically assess the long-term sustainability impacts of their decisions, such as choosing between a local hotel and an international chain, because sustainability requires understanding complex and long-term effects beyond individual decision-making capacity. Thus, policy-level interventions are essential to balance growth and community well-being. The episode further explores how governments and destinations face increasing complexity as they respond not only to overtourism but also to broader issues such as climate change, environmental degradation, and the global-local dynamics of the tourism economy.

The role of technology and data is another important topic. Romao acknowledges that the rise of big data and AI tools has dramatically improved the ability of destinations to make evidence-based decisions. However, he warns that the benefits are unevenly distributed: while global corporations and platforms can invest heavily in data analysis and apply insights across their networks, small operators in Southeast Asia or South America often lack access to such tools. This concentration of technological power at the distribution level (for example, digital booking platforms) rather than at the destination level risks reinforcing existing inequalities. Romao stresses that future challenges will involve helping local destinations and small businesses harness technology to their advantage.

Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, Romao offers a counterintuitive perspective. While many analysts predicted that travel would be permanently reshaped by the crisis, he argues that the underlying systems of tourism remained unchanged. Travelers were eager to return, companies were eager to reopen, and most patterns quickly resumed once restrictions lifted. The most significant shift, he observes, was the sharp increase in travel costs, something few analysts had predicted. For him, the pandemic was less a transformative event than a temporary disruption, though he admits it could have been an opportunity to rethink broader economic systems. Bowerman contrasts this with his own view that the pandemic has had lasting impacts, hinting at differing perspectives that highlight the ongoing debate within the tourism field.

The conversation then focuses on Japan, where Romao has lived and worked for many years. He explains that Japan’s rapid tourism rebound is closely tied to the depreciation of the yen, which has made the country significantly cheaper for visitors from Europe and the US. Beyond currency, Japan’s unique combination of high-tech modernity, ancient traditions, temples, and cultural exports such as anime makes it especially attractive to international tourists. However, most visitors concentrate on the “big three” destinations—Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto—mirroring a pattern seen globally where a small number of cities dominate tourism flows. Romao sees major opportunities in diversifying tourism to less-visited regions, particularly through wellness tourism and creative industries. He highlights Japan’s underutilized hot spring (onsen) culture and ryokan hospitality traditions as assets that could both attract wellness-focused travelers and spread tourism beyond major urban centers. Wellness experiences, he suggests, combine immersive cultural traditions with rising global demand for health and lifestyle-oriented tourism. Similarly, the creative industries hold potential for linking tourism with cultural production and regional development, fostering decentralization and resilience in Japan’s tourism economy.

Looking forward, Romao outlines his research plans for the coming years. After focusing conceptually on organizing theories for his book, he intends to return to empirical work using spatial econometrics to analyze the relationship between tourism and creative industries. His aim is to explore how tourism and creative sectors can support decentralization and create new opportunities for regions that are not currently central to tourism flows. He also sees potential in exploring how wellness tourism can be leveraged more effectively in Japan and beyond. Ultimately, he stresses that the biggest challenge for destinations will be balancing growth and innovation with sustainable practices, equitable distribution of benefits, and resilience against global uncertainties.

The episode closes with Bowerman praising Romao’s insights, noting how relevant his book is to contemporary debates about tourism management. Both agree that the intersection of economics, geography, and tourism offers a critical lens for understanding the profound transformations tourism brings to destinations worldwide, and that more research and dialogue will be needed as destinations grapple with sustainability, technology, and community impacts in the years ahead.