Abstract Interpretation is a very important concept in tourism research. Although the tradition of and need for interpretation may be as long as human life, the research on interpretation began only at fifty years ago. From its beginnings in the 1960s, interpretive research has experienced the "Formative Years", the "Search for the Best Medium" stage, the "Quest for Legitimacy" stage and "Early Maturation". The theory of interpretation study has begun to be well-developed since the 1990s. Nowadays, international interpretive research borrows more from social and psychological theory, and the applied social sciences. Recent published articles have explored interpretation through the theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior, norm focus theory, the Elaboration Likelihood Model, schema theory, protection motivation theory, and a wide range of other cognition and social cognition theoretical frameworks, which indicates that research on interpretation is maturing and developing into a legitimate applied social science in its own right. However, the interpretive research in main land China hasn't gained enough attention that it deserves. Based on the review of all the literatures that the authors could have access to, this paper introduces the latest progress in interpretive research, discusses the origin, concepts, research contents and methods of interpretation, analyzes the present situation of domestic interpretive research, and tries to present the prospects of interpretation development in China. It's found that the study of interpretation are most from Taiwan, the study cases focus on the similar type and there lacks quantitative evaluation for the interpretation effect.
2009, Vol. 24 
