Operationalization of Leiper's (1979) Tourism System Conceptualization: Global Insights of a Mega System

Tourism as a complex adaptive system has a rich literature, both theoretically and empirically. There is a so-called ‘natural match’ between systems and network science, with network science offering the most comprehensive toolset to study [complex] systems. Leiper's (1979) conceptualization of tourism systems acknowledges the complexities of tourism and is the only model that can be modified and scaled up to portray global tourism as a networked system. However, the results of studies employing Leiper's (1979) model lack internal validity as there is no information on the operationalization of these studies. The systematic operationalization of Leiper's (1979) tourism systems conceptualization for comprehensive reliability analysis has not been undertaken by any researcher to date. In the current study, first, a generalized operationalization of Leiper's (1979) tourism systems conceptualization is provided, and then, the model is evaluated using the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s outbound tourism data over 24 years.