Tourism And Psychology Essay

There are many disciplines within the world of academia and each plays an important role in the research community. Every discipline is important because each provides a unique perspective and approach to a single field of study. For this project I have chosen to study the topic of Tourism via the perspectives of the field of Economics and the field of Psychology. Economists focuses on understanding how societies and the world as a whole works to allocate resources to satisfy their needs and wants. On the other hand, Psychology focuses on the understanding of theories that explain and predict the behaviors of humans and other living creatures. I chose these two distinct fields because they each have unique goals when it comes to researching

Microeconomics focuses more on individual firms while macroeconomics focuses on the economy as a whole. Economists do research to analyse the consequences of economics trends either on a domestic or global scale. Regardless of the scale through which economists decide to study, their goals continue to be the same. In regards to the topic of Tourism, economists seek to understand the aspects of tourism demand and supply and the elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply. In order to understand these concepts, economists like Guido Candela and Paolo Figini, the authors of The Economics of Tourism and Destinations ask themselves the question, “What can we say about the economics of tourism in relation to economics as a whole?” In order begin their research, the authors begin by establishing their approach, “Our approach is then to consider Tourism Economics as an applied field of study in which assumptions of bounded rationality are largely used and where models of perfect competition are only marginally employed, since they are not particularly relevant for this sector” (Candela and Figini

As well, they support their claim that tourism contributes to our personal well-being by using the concept of flow. This theory was introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a hungarian psychologists, and his theory is defined as “ …an optimal experience that stems from people’s perceptions of challenges and skills in given situations”(Pearce and Filep 2013) The authors analyse this theory because they believe it 's crucial principle to the developing of well-being while engaging in tourist activities. “Flow occurs when the individual is completely engrossed in a challenging activity that does not necessarily provoke too much stress. The experience per se is highly rewarding, hence flow is a satisfying state” (Pearce and Filep