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The strength of the tourism academic field is arguably its capacity to facilitate investigations that span business as well as the physical and social sciences. While this does not mean that disciplines are irrelevant in tourism, it has been argued that an inter-disciplinary scholarship could lead to post-disciplinary contributions—perspectives that are more problem-focused, based on more flexible modes of knowledge production, plurality, synthesis and greater synergy (Coles, Hall, & Duval, 2006, p. 293). We situate this note within this fluid, inter-disciplinary context, with the intent to critically review the recent conceptual development of hopeful tourism, and citizen science—a scientific field in which ordinary citizens collect data for scientific purposes and greater public good (Dickinson & Bonney, 2012). We suggest there are conceptual similarities between the social science of hopeful tourism and citizen science and argue that the similarities between the two fields could lead to common research agendas.

Hopeful tourism has emerged as a transformative perspective for tourism knowledge production (Pritchard, Morgan, & Ateljevic, 2011). Its advocates claim that hopeful tourism is characterised by humanist, value-led scholarship, ethics and respect for human dignity. It is based on a transactional, subjectivist, value-mediated epistemology where the nature of knowledge is characterised by co-transformative learnings (Pritchard et al., 2011). The hopeful tourism research agenda currently focuses on topics such as: public good, harmony and balance, aesthetics and beauty, mindful development, values and ethics, neglected ways of knowing, under …