Tourist Studies

Perceptions and representations of Arctic tourism that reify ‘pristine’ nature can obscure the livelihoods of Arctic Aboriginal inhabitants, thus impeding cooperation among all Arctic tourism stakeholders. The purpose of this article is to illuminate relational, value-based metaphors that may nurture cooperative spaces for just and sustainable Arctic tourism. It draws on case study research of the Thelon River in Arctic Canada and, specifically, the productive tensions and affiliations expressed through diverse practices of canoe tourists and Inuit residents of Baker Lake, Nunavut, documented using mobile ethnography. Empirical substance is interpreted against a backdrop of supporting literatures to flesh out emplacement, wayfaring and gathering as relational metaphors of becoming; that is, in their fluidity, hybridity and indeterminacy, they refuse absolute, universal or divisive expressions of value. These metaphors intend to disrupt the ‘nature’ of Arctic tourism and create opportunities to understand, debate and craft tourism’s intellectual terminology.

This article is about the practices of the gaze enacted in tourist sites. It draws on ethnographic research carried out in the Indian sacred city of Varanasi, on the bank of the ‘holy’ Ganges, to suggest alternative, non-Western ways of conceptualizing and performing sight and the visual. The case study focuses on the Ganga Aarti, a popular Hindu ceremony performed daily on the city’s riverfront. Celebrating the sacred vision of the Ganges, this ceremony can be considered as an expression of the ‘host’ gaze. At the same time, the Ganga Aarti and the quaint city’s riverscape constitute the focus of the tourist gaze, and draw together, in fact, diverse visual traditions and practices. Indeed, I argue that tourist places are to be understood as sites of multiple, situated gazes, where different gazing subjects negotiate different visions, meanings and practices and co-construct, both visually and physically, the tourist space.

Residential activity camps have been widely studied for their positive outcomes providing a broad multi-disciplinary analysis of the effects of camps in a range of contexts. However, there has been limited exploration of these camp experiences from the perspective of tourism studies. This article addresses this omission by exploring the potential offered by the concept of ‘liminality’ to explain the ways in which camps produce positive experiences for participants. This article discusses the idea of the camp environment as a liminal zone relating touristic aspects of the experience (such as being away from the familiar and placed into contact situations with a new social group) to the achievement of successful outcomes. The context for the investigation was residential camps organised by the Youth Hostel Association (England and Wales) and funded by a UK government pilot programme, which aimed to overcome issues of community cohesion within urban neighbourhoods in England, thus a form of ‘social tourism’. This article contributes to the understanding of the role played by novel environments in creating a context for liminal tourist experiences and outcomes for positive social interventions.

Tourism exploring indigenous cultures is supported by proponents as a way for historically marginalized indigenous people to use their culture as a revenue source, with the benefits of nurturing their culture while simultaneously generating income. Critics, however, charge that indigenous cultural tourism subjects indigenous people to non-indigenous demands and thus drives an exploitative process eroding indigenous culture. These arguments have a normative subtext involving both a descriptive issue in terms of identifying when a tourist–indigenous encounter is “appropriate” or “inappropriate” and a prescriptive issue in terms of what can be done to encourage tourist–indigenous encounters to be the former rather than the latter. This article is an attempt to address these normative issues using the theories of Michel Foucault to construct guidelines that help participants within tourist–indigenous encounters navigate the issues of indigenous cultural tourism.

Over 2.5 million tourists visit Bali, Indonesia, each year. Attracted by the warm climate, its sheer physical beauty and its reputation for affordability, friendliness and great food, Bali provides an exotic respite from the Western world.

This article presents ethnographic research into individual narratives of adventure in a small, undeveloped bay called Ton Sai in southern Thailand’s Krabi Province. Ton Sai is extremely popular with Western rock climbers and increasingly with other adventure seekers and backpackers questing for ‘authentic’ Thailand, yet is subject to almost no representation in the commercial sense. It is an example of a destination that is not on the corporate ‘radar’, yet, as will be seen, is famed, desired and produced by ‘niche’ tourists seeking very specifically valued tropical adventures. This research aims to interrogate how such a destination becomes, and remains, valued as adventurous by climbers and therefore shed some light on individual, subjective production of adventure in specific Developing World contexts. Drawing on original interview and other ethnographic data collected during winter 2012/2013, this article argues that even when third-party commercial mediators are absent, the powers of quest for authenticity and adventure are powerful enough to turn the wheels of mediation themselves. In the ‘elite circles’ in which this group manoeuvres, notions of ideal adventure space run deep and are reproduced discursively and through embodied performances in an exoticised environment that is valued for its ‘primitive timelessness’. The implications of this for locals are explored.