Abstract

Tourism has emerged as a pivotal economic, social, cultural and environmental phenomenon in the contemporary globalized world. Despite its growing practical significance, tourism science has struggled to establish itself as an independent academic discipline, often perceived as an applied field borrowing theories from geography, sociology, anthropology, economics, and environmental studies. This article argues for the necessity of constructing distinct philosophical underpinnings for tourism science, based on principles of interdisciplinarity, systemic thinking, dynamism, pragmatism, and critical reflexivity. By analyzing the ontological, epistemological, and methodological underpinnings of tourism studies, the article delineates the major thematic domains of contemporary tourism studies, including social tourism studies, humanistic tourism studies, cultural tourism studies, environmental tourism studies, managerial-economic tourism studies, posthumanist tourism studies, and critical tourism studies. Furthermore, it systematically examines the coexistence and tensions among key theoretical schools in tourism research such as positivism, interpretivism, critical theory, and postmodernism. Through this comprehensive exploration, the article asserts that tourism science must be recognized as an independent and mature field of knowledge, capable of critically engaging with global challenges and contributing to sustainable social transformation in the twenty-first century. The article also proposes a theoretical framework for tourism studies and application orientations in research.