The Critical Tourism Studies (CTS) community is an international network of scholars who share a vision of producing and promoting social change in and through tourism practice, research and education.

​

CTS has done this so far by seeking to legitimise the critical school of thought in tourism studies and by providing an inclusive environment for new and alternative voices in the academy. Adopting a broad definition of ‘criticality’, CTS seeks to find novel ways of understanding and changing tourism by locating the phenomenon in its wider political, economic, cultural and social contexts.

​

The Critical Tourism Studies conference series was launched in 2005 by Irena Ateljevic (Institute for Tourism Zagreb), Candice Harris (Auckland University of Technology), Nigel Morgan (University of Surrey) and Annette Pritchard (Cardiff Metropolitan University).

​

The conferences of 2015 and 2013 of these series were made possible thanks to the creative engagement and effort of Lynn Minnaert (New York University) and Senija Causevic (SOAS, University of London). The latest conference in 2017 took place in Palma de Mallorca and was co-chaired by Kellee Caton (Thompson Rivers University) and Ana María Munar (Copenhagen Business School).

​

These past years the CTS network has expanded and now has a series of regional chapters. The chapter conferences such as the latest CTS North America and CTS Asia-Pacific which took place in 2018 contribute to making critical tourism scholarship more accessible.