Tourism research

Also the thematic area of tourism sociology represents a classical research field at the department of Sociology. During the last years a new journal of tourism science (TW) was founded, several book series were published and various international conferences (in close cooperation with the Department of Communication Science and the University of Applied Science, Innovation and Management in Tourism) were organized. The members of the department focus more on an actor-centered perspective, dealing with travel motives, travel experience and travel behavior. Empirical research projects address questions of travel motives also with regard to new areas of research, e.g. dark tourism (see research projects). Additionally the effects of tourism (travel socialization) are in the center of our approaches. We try to detect impacts of travel experience on identity formation with our analysis of intercultural encounters, of specific holiday preferences and of perceptions of space and time in tourism. We aim to further develop the interdisciplinary community of tourism researchers at the University of Salzburg (see   INIT) due to the retirement of well-known experts in the field of tourism research (e.g. Reinhard Bachleitner). Potential fields of research and interdisciplinary cooperation should be explored in collaborative meetings and planned workshops. Wolfgang Aschauer will overtake the role of the managing editor of the only Journal of Tourism Research in German Language (  Zeitschrift für Tourismuswissenschaft, TW) in the year 2017. Thus the editorial management of this journal, which was founded by Reinhard Bachleitner, will return to Salzburg. It is planned to cover principal topics as special issues in the journal and to give sociological topics a higher visibility.