Resort Morphology Research: History and Future Perspectives

This paper adopts a geographical perspective to understand the conceptual and theoretical issues of resort morphology. Resort morphology refers to "the forms and associated functions of a destination area and their development". Resort towns are differentiated from other urban areas in terms of morphology because of their functional emphasis on tourism. The literature reflects the significant interest of European geographers in the morphological study of coastal resort towns. However, limited attention has been given to resort morphology in developing countries, including those in Asia. It is argued that the complex of contextual factors that influence the morphological character of resorts needs to be considered and, furthermore, there is a great need to develop a systematic approach for investigating resort morphology. Although the morphological approach to the study of resorts is transferable, it is likely that Asian morphologies will differ from their western counterparts because of their time, scale and pace of development.