Tourism Destinations - From Geographical Areas to Dynamic Movements

The term " destination " is a commonly used term by both authors and tourism professionals alike, however, it is deemed to be ill defined. Previous attempts to create a widely accepted definition of the term have proved to be rather difficult. Hence, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to challenge the conventional understandings of the term tourism destinations, by creating a new theoretical understanding of said term. Rather than defining tourism destinations as geographical areas this paper focuses on the dynamic movements and spending patterns of tourists. It is the intention that this way of defining the tourism destination should challenge the traditional/conventional ways of understanding destinations, which is set by local municipalities and other public organisations depending on country. This fact calls for a discussion on new ways of evaluating tourism performance, where evaluation criteria should include a wider perspective than just focusing on the tourist spending within one political geographical defined area