Tourist Experiences and Academic Junctures

Abstract

This paper argues for the need to further develop an understanding of tourist experiences that more aggressively transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, and that simultaneously re‐centers tourists experiences as integral aspests of daily life. In order to do this, the text begins by problematizing the concept of the tourist. Whose experiences are we talking about, and in what ways do issues of race and gender affect the manner in which we construct our subjects of study? Following this discussion, the paper moves on to more specifically focus upon “tourist experiences”, and disscusses the strengths and weaknesses of competing theoretical approaches that have been employed by scholars in their attempts to study the realm of experience in connection with “tourists”. The paper closes by arguing for a need to understand the “tourist experience” in a much broader sense than is generally reflected in the tourism literature. Empirical examples are used here to illustrate some of the directions in which this work might proceed.