Mapping tourism, sustainability, and development in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia represents a diverse region with different historical, political and socioeconomic developments and a broad range of natural and cultural tourist attractions. These assets, along with favourable tourism policies, have meant that over the last three decades, international tourist arrivals in the region skyrocketed from 21.2 million in 1990 to 129 million in 2018. While Southeast Asian countries feature diverse socioeconomic and political developments, all have – to different extents – embraced tourism as a vehicle for income generation and job creation. Simultaneously, however, different forms of (mass) tourism development have led to unequal distribution of economic benefits, overexploitation of resources, and uncontrolled tourism development. This chapter provides an overview of the nature and development of tourism in Southeast Asia, followed by an outline of the status quo on tourism and development research in Southeast Asia through a systematic quantitative literature review which draws on the Scopus research journal article database, covering the years 2000-2019. The chapter focuses specifically on the Southeast Asian context and briefly introduces the structure and single contributions of this edited volume.