This book asks the question; why is it that tourism matters? It looks at how it is we do tourism and learn to be tourists when we are on holiday. Tourism is a dynamic way of being that may facilitate or hinder intercultural exchange. The ways in which we do tourism and the places in which we are tourists raise practical, material and emotional questions about tourist life. This book draws on both empirical work and a range of theoretical frameworks, arguing that tourism matters precisely because of the lessons it can teach us about living everyday life with others.
Gavin Jack is Lecturer in Critical Marketing at the University of Leicester Management Centre, UK.Alison Phipps is senior lecturer and Director of the Graduate School for Arts and Humanities at the University of Glasgow, where she teaches anthropology and languages. Her books include Acting Identities (2000), and Contemporary German Cultural Studies (2002). She is associate editor of the journal Tourism and Cultural Change.
Section One – Living the Tourist Life 1. Why Tourism Matters2. The Give and the Take3. Doing Being Tourists Section Two - Packing the Travel Bag 4. Packing5. Packers of Culture6. Bag-sized Stories Section Three - Unpacking the Travel Bag 7: New Habits8: Exchanging Stories9: Changing Spaces Section Four – After Tourism 10: The Return to Routine11: Conclusions
With brilliant theoretical acuity, rich ethnographic data and critical insight, Gavin Jack and Alison Phipps illuminate the dynamics of the material and affective dimensions of tourist experience and how they play out in intercultural encounters. Their work not only synthesizes and critiques the current perspectives in tourism research but goes significantly beyond to help us think outside the box. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complex nature of tourism and how it is inextricably linked to intercultural communication.