Literary Tourism

This original, witty, illustrated study offers the first analytical history of the rise and development of literary tourism in nineteenth-century Britain, associated with authors from Shakespeare, Gray, Keats, Burns and Scott, the Brontë sisters, and Thomas Hardy. Invaluable for the student of travel and literature of the nineteenth century.

At the end of the 20th century, the traditional forms of tourism transformed; they expanded by the introduction of new postmodern tourist forms, bringing innovative offers to the marketplace. Two of these new fast-growing forms are literary tourism and film-induced tourism, both of which fall under the umbrella of cultural tourism. Both niches of cultural tourism share the need to create products and experiences that meet the tourists’ expectations. Global Perspectives on Literary Tourism and Film-Induced Tourism discusses literary tourism and film-induced tourism and documents the advances in research on the intersections of literature, film, and the act of traveling. Covering a wide range of topics from film tourism destinations to digital literary tourism, this book is ideal for travel agents, tourism agencies, tour operators, government officials, postgraduate students, researchers, academicians, cultural development councils and associations, and policymakers.

Literary tourism is a nascent field in tourism studies, yet tourists often travel in the footsteps of well-known authors and stories. Providing a wide-ranging cornucopia of literary tourism topics, this book fully explores the interconnections between the written word and travel. It includes tourism stories using guidebooks, films, television and electronic media, and recognises that stories, texts and narratives, even if they cannot be classified as traditional travel writing, can become journeys in themselves and take us on imaginary voyages. Appealing to a wide audience of different disciplines, it encompasses subjects such as business literary writing, historical journeys and the poetry of Dylan Thomas. The use of these different perspectives demonstrates how heavily and widely literature influences travel, tourists and tourism, making it an important read for researchers and students of tourism, social science and literature.

Plymouth University academic, Dr Charlie Mansfield approaches literary tourism in this book initially from an historical perspective in order to define the phenomenon through a review of the existing academic literature in the field. The forms of literary tourism are analysed to provide a typology and from this the value of literary tourism is explained both from the visitor's point of view and the destination manager's. Current theories underpinning the existing literature on literary tourism, including Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital are reviewed. To extend the current state of research and to answer the research questions a case study of successful urban literary tourism is identified, in Brittany, France. The uses of French literature in literary tourism are reviewed to provide a sound basis on which to examine French texts and tourist destinations. Novel methods of field research are developed to formalise and to make reproducible the methodology for this study and for future work drawing on, and seeking to combine both literary theory and ethnography. Following a pilot study on the French Riviera the full discovery instruments are designed and applied in fieldwork on the case destination, Concarneau, using the detective novel, The Yellow Dog, which is set in Concarneau. Analysis of the findings from this provide a new contribution to the field of literary theory, in the area of reader interpellation, and answer the research questions in the form of a new set of recommendations for DMOs and tourism stakeholders. From the empirical study that used Web 2.0 social media, only available since 2013, an analysis of which novels do stimulate literary tourism is presented for the first time. Out of the research process new methods have been evolved, and are presented in the conclusion, for the DMO to synthesise and leverage digital resources. This provides DMOs with interpretation processes for its managed heritage to use with its local stakeholders in hotels and in tourism businesses. Finally, an innovative conceptualisation of what constitutes tourism knowledge is proposed.

This book is an interdisciplinary exploration of literary tourism’s role in shaping how locations in the British and Irish Isles have been seen, narrated, and valued. It explores the consequences of fictional constructions for the history, economics, and cultural politics of place, and for the Britain internalized in the mind’s eye.

This book examines the main issues and concepts relating to heritage, screen and literary tourism (HSLT) and provides a comprehensive understanding and evaluation of these three forms of tourism in the context of global tourism development. It analyses the demand and supply of HSLT within the frameworks provided by service-dominant logic and value creation to enable a critical perspective on how HSLT tourist experiences are created, produced and shaped. The volume explores the challenges which relate to the role of the consumer in the co-creation of the tourist experience, and the implications this has for the development, marketing, interpretation, consumption, planning and management of HSLT. It will appeal to researchers and students of heritage tourism, film and literary tourism, media-driven tourism, tourism planning and destination development and management.

This book offers both an introduction to the vibrant field of literary tourism studies and a selection of cutting-edge cross-disciplinary research. Indispensable for students and scholars of nineteenth-century literature and culture, it provides fascinating insights into the reception of, amongst others, Shakespeare, Dickens, Byron and Wordsworth.

A century after Samuel Clemens’s death, Mark Twain thrives—his recently released autobiography topped bestseller lists. One way fans still celebrate the first true American writer and his work is by visiting any number of Mark Twain destinations. They believe they can learn something unique by visiting the places where he lived. Mark Twain’s Homes and Literary Tourism untangles the complicated ways that Clemens’s houses, now museums, have come to tell the stories that they do about Twain and, in the process, reminds us that the sites themselves are the products of multiple agendas and, in some cases, unpleasant histories. Hilary Iris Lowe leads us through four Twain homes, beginning at the beginning—Florida, Missouri, where Clemens was born. Today the site is simply a concrete pedestal missing its bust, a plaque, and an otherwise-empty field. Though the original cabin where he was born likely no longer exists, Lowe treats us to an overview of the history of the area and the state park challenged with somehow marking this site. Next, we travel with Lowe to Hannibal, Missouri, Clemens’s childhood home, which he saw become a tourist destination in his own lifetime. Today mannequins remind visitors of the man that the boy who lived there became and the literature that grew out of his experiences in the house and little town on the Mississippi. Hartford, Connecticut, boasts one of Clemens’s only surviving adulthood homes, the house where he spent his most productive years. Lowe describes the house’s construction, its sale when the high cost of living led the family to seek residence abroad, and its transformation into the museum. Lastly, we travel to Elmira, New York, where Clemens spent many summers with his family at Quarry Farm. His study is the only room at this destination open to the public, and yet, tourists follow in the footsteps of literary pilgrim Rudyard Kipling to see this small space. Literary historic sites pin their authority on the promise of exclusive insight into authors and texts through firsthand experience. As tempting as it is to accept the authenticity of Clemens’s homes, Mark Twain’s Homes and Literary Tourism argues that house museums are not reliable critical texts but are instead carefully constructed spaces designed to satisfy visitors. This volume shows us how these houses’ portrayals of Clemens change frequently to accommodate and shape our own expectations of the author and his work.