Merchants, Smugglers, and Wanglers:

Abstract

Research on the role of borders in tourism has revealed that it plays a key role in maintaining and exploiting the economic, social, and cultural differences along state borders. It can be concluded that most trade- and commerce-oriented cross-border activities can be considered as a special manifestation of tourism, since travellers leave their home environments, cross an international border, and frequently use tourism services (e.g., petrol stations, hotels, and restaurants). In addition to legal commercial and tourism services, taking advantage of these differences, borderlands are venues for various forms of non-conventional tourism as well as a host of informal or illegal economic activities. The authors focus on a relatively under-researched area: unusual trade activities, smuggling, and commerce-related endeavours as a form of cross-border “tourism”. Through a systematic review of the international literature the goal of the study is to provide a comprehensive picture of these unique forms of tourism and to better understand their social, economic, and environmental causes and effects. Despite their various forms, all cross-border activities covered in this chapter have some common features: they all take place in a transnational context, they exploit cross-border differences, they contribute to the local transborder economy, and they are usually informal.