Tourists and Tourism: Identifying with People and Places

Description

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.

Simone Abram Lecturer,University of Sheffield Jackie D. Waldren University of Oxford Don Macleod Independent Scholar

'The contributors to this volume are all pressing for more profound and textured understandings of the interaction between tourists and the places and people visited than is the ordinary fare found in the growing body of literature on responsible tourism.' World Views 'This volume can be recommended in helping to both broaden and deepen our understanding of the social and cultural terms of engagement of the tourism process.' Journal of Sustainable Tourism 'Provides a valuable contribution to the development of a qualitative tradition in tourism studies. [...]It breaks down many of the stereotypes that continue to dog the subdiscipline, and empirically it provides an excellent variety of case studies.' The Sociological Review 'The authors of this book each challenge conventional notions of what identity is, revealing the multitude of identities that are shaped by and shape tourism encounters. They raise new questions about relationships in tourism and help to further our conceptual understanding of this extraordinarily complex social phenomenon.' International Journal of Heritage Studies 'This volume presents a thought-provoking inquiry into the international phenomenon of tourism and its analysis by the social sciences.' Cambridge Anthology