The ‘mobilities turn’ and the geography of tourism

Abstract

Increasingly tourism is seen as constitutive of everyday life (Edensor, 2007; Franklin, 2003; Hannam, 2008). However, tourism has not yet escaped from its past and it has been argued that some geographers have still to take tourism seriously (Hall, 2005c; Gibson, 2008). Yet, this dismissive, and outdated, approach to tourism geographies only highlights outdated notions of exoticism within and through tourism. Whilst the history of tourism, and some (much?) of the tourism industry, may still rely on ideas of the exotic to entice tourists to their destinations, the notion that tourism, or rather travel, is an exotic act, that it is somehow different from our everyday life, has become foreign to many. Rather, this distinction of travel and tourism as the antithesis of the everyday (Graburn, 1989; MacCannell, 1999) illustrates why many tourism geographers have taken note of what could be classed the ‘mobilities turn’ or the New Mobilities Paradigm (NMP) (Cresswell, 2006; Hannam et al. , 2006; see also Gale, 2008; Wilson, 2009; and Gale in Chapter 4 of this volume). In adopting the ‘mobilities turn’ as an approach with which to study, research (and practise) tourism, we can begin to recognise that being and knowing a mobile lifestyle is now our everyday (Edensor, 2007; Franklin, 2003; Hannam, 2008). As Franklin and Crang (2001: 3) suggest, tourism has become ‘a signifi cant modality through which transnational modern life is organised’. So, as mobility becomes part of more people’s everyday lives (albeit still dominated by those in developed countries and elites from developing countries (Hall, 2005c), tourism geographers need to continue to stretch the boundaries around what is seen as tourism research within and beyond geography.