Tourists And Tourism

"The impact of global tourism research is evident throughout this meticulously edited collection." -- BOOK JACKET.

Like earlier editions, the Third Edition of Tourists and Tourism is organized for use in the classroom. While several classic and popular articles from the second edition have been retained, three-quarters are new and cover important areas in tourism studies such as dark tourism, medical tourism, nonvisual sensory experiences of tourism, and tourism as performance. Several address issues that directly relate to the student experience, including study abroad, service learning, social media, and the ethics of travel. Articles vary in length and style; some provide deeper context, while others are designed to spark debate in the classroom. Finally, an introduction to the use of film in teaching about tourism and a link to an important film resource are provided.

The fact that tourism is a major global industry forecast to continue its dramatic growth well into the twenty-first century is often cited as a rationale for its analysis. However, while the connection between individual locations and the world's global markets is an obvious product of tourism, the heart of the tourist experience is the construction of identity: the relation of the traveller to resident populations; the participants' views of themselves and others; tourists' search for authenticity and their testing of boundaries.This book significantly furthers current debates on tourism by asking important and vexing questions about the nature of the tourist experience: 'folk museums' that forget many of the 'folk' who live in the areas represented; the environments and events that are shaped to meet the 'imagined dreams' of tourist spectators; the categorization of visitors and returnees who take up residence and participate in the construction of 'local' identities; the evolving meanings associated with indigenous culture, tradition, heritage, representation, reality and authenticity. In renegotiating the definitions of tourism for the new millennium, this book represents a major contribution to an emerging and highly topical area of study.

Once content to sunbathe and follow guides and established itineraries, tourists are increasingly seeking authentic culture. This is taking them into the private areas and zones to which the locals retire in order to escape the tourist gaze, creating tensions between the two groups. Based on recent anthropological field studies, this book describes how European communities dependant on tourism have been affected by the commoditization of their culture and explores the ways they cope with the constant attention of outsiders. The collection demonstrates both varied and skillful ways in which individuals and communities react to and cope with the impact of decades of mass tourism on their lives and values, thus throwing new light onto questions of identity, boundary maintenance and cultural adjustment.

Tourism is arguably one of the largest self-initiated commercial interventions to create well-being and happiness on the entire planet. Yet there is a lack of specific attention to the ways in which we can better understand and evaluate the relationship between well-being and travel. The recent surge of scholarly work in positive psychology concerned with human well-being and flourishing represents a contemporary force with the potential to embellish and augment much current tourism study. This book maps out the field and then draws links between tourists, tourism and positive psychology. It discusses topics such as the issue of excess materialism and its fragile relationship with well-being, the value of positive psychology to lifestyle businesses, and the insights of the research field to spa and wellness tourism. This volume will interest those who study and practise tourism as well as scholars and graduate students in a range of disciplines such as psychology, sociology, business and leisure.

What feeds the impulse to explore new horizons? What makes travel meaningful? In Being a Tourist, Julia Harrison explores the motivations of a large group of middle-class travelers to find out why people invest their financial, emotional, psychological, and physical resources in this activity. She suggests that they are fueled by several desires: to find intimacy and connection, to express a personal aesthetic, to explore the idea of "home," and to make sense of a globalized world. Engagingly and thoughtfully written for readers of travel writing, tourism studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology, Being a Tourist goes beyond current debates about authenticity and consumption to analyze the nuanced moral and political complexity of privileged travel.

Book Review

While experiential staging is well documented in tourism studies, not enough has been written about the diverse types of experiences and expectations that visitors bring to the tourist space and how communities respond to, or indeed challenge, these expectations. This book brings together new ideas about cultural experiences and how communities, creative producers, and visitors can productively engage with competing interests and notions of experience and authenticity in the tourist environment. Part I considers the experiences of communities in meeting the needs of cultural tourists in an international context. Part II analyses the relationships between individualcultural tourists, the community, and digital technology. Finally, Part III responds to new methodologies in relation to interactions between government and regional policy and community development. Focusing on the way in which communities and visitors ‘perform’ new forms of cultural tourism, Performing Cultural Tourism is aimed at undergraduate students, researchers, academics, and a diverse range of professionals at both private and government levels that are seeking to develop policies and business plans that recognize and respond to new interests in contemporary tourism.