ABSTRACT What are the origins of niche tourism? The making of a form of niche tourism is explained by more than the economic forces of supply and demand and socio-demographic factors. An integrated web of classificatory practices, people, institutions, knowledge, experts, and place-based factors is involved. This web, derived from the ideas of philosopher Ian Hacking, constitutes a field of niche tourism production. Geotourism and geotourists appear as subjects of interest that become economically useful, thus inviting business-related interventions. Through the field of niche tourism production, geotourism in the Niagara Region becomes an analysable phenomenon; it is created and cultivated as opposed to being purely a consequence of economic forces and socio-demographic factors. The continued emergence of different forms of niche tourism warrants research that explores the origins of specific niches, including those currently taking shape. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that articulates previously unacknowledged dimensions of the creation of niche tourism. A range of practices and phenomena as well as human and institutional actors, as components of an interwoven field of production, play an underappreciated role constituting a form of niche tourism.
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