Introduction

The recent tourism literature shows a narrow, but important, strand. This considers tourism, and a tourism system, as a complex (sometimes chaotic) adaptive system. The importance of this approach is, according to some scholars, due to the possibility of overcoming the difficulties highlighted in the debate on the disciplinary status of tourism studies. A systemic approach is considered a feasible one to 'reconceptualise' the whole field and to attempt to provide more rigorous theoretical foundations (Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004; Faulkner & Russell, 1997; McKercher, 1999).

In his seminal paper 'More is different', Phil Anderson states:

These ideas have contributed to set a new perspective in our view of natural phenomena, a new view which today is known as 'science of complexity' (Waldrop, 1992). Complex systems ideas are amongst the most promising interdisciplinary research themes to have emerged in the last few decades.

This chapter sketches these ideas and briefly presents the tools with which a complex system can be described and analysed. Among these tools, techniques of network analysis techniques are promising for the results that have been achieved so far. An example of the application of these techniques to the tourism field will be given, discussing an investigation of a tourism destination.