El turismo como disciplina científica The Scientification of Tourism

The purpose of this paper is to provide retrospective and prospective views on tourisms scientific journey. More specifically, the aim is to identify some of the past conditions that have helped tourism to assume its present scholarly dimensions and depth; to sketch the formation of this landscape of knowledge, to selecti- vely extract from this context emerging central socioeconomic issues; to suggest research crossroads for advancing to new frontiers; to sample the richness of the state of knowledge —along with challenges and opportunities ahead— that, in turn, can guide present and future planning and operation of this diverse megaindustry.