Tourist Bubble Research Articles

Magical South:An eight-bullet-point photoshoot of everyday life in the tourist city

Magical South is a major detour around my own island, taking a road between urban enclaves in which the popular dynamics of neighbourhoods rub up against and collide with the ‘tourist bubble’, the prototypal closed space for tourism removed from the local. This theoretical ‘photoshoot’ of sorts endeavours to disclose the unconsciousness in operation when we cross through the tourist city, imbued in a semiotics that recreates a time, repetitions and a chaotic visual mesh. It begins with Walter Benjamin’s appraisal of the mechanism that enables copies to continue facilitating motivation for tourist travel. This returns us to the detour without detracting from the critique of the bunkerization of the city through processes like gentrification, paying attention to how everyday violence also runs through ordinary affects and the mainstream banality created by tourism.

Valparaíso: Touristification and displacement in a UNESCO city

ABSTRACT Tourism has become a sector that is transforming historic areas of the current city. Its impact on the quality of life of communities, local economy, access to affordable housing, urban landscape, is being analyzed from studies on gentrification and touristification. This article analyzes the case of Valparaíso (Chile) and how the declaration of its historic area as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003, triggered a process of touristification. Through public programmes and private investment, houses were transformed into tourist shops and hotels, shaping a tourist bubble in these residential areas. How inhabitants felt and experienced the tourist transformation of their neighborhoods was analyzed through the use of interviews. The residents reports material and symbolic changes in their living conditions, which are experienced as pressure by displacement from their neighborhood. A pressure expressed in the loss of privacy, depopulation and loss of community networks, the displacement of neighborhood shops, the increase in property taxes, and the absence of public subsidies to rehabilitate their homes. The results place pressure by displacement as one of the main mechanisms of dispossession in historic areas of Latin American cities and suggest that in cities configured from neoliberal urban policies the UNESCO designation acts as a device that strengthens this dispossession.

Living museums in Namibia: between empowerment and exploitation

This article examines the recent rise of living museums in postcolonial Namibia, one of the most rapidly increasing forms of cultural tourism. Living museums are designed and executed by minority communities that seek to reach socio-economic emancipation by making use of what they consider their unique culture. The article examines six such living museums that have been instituted in cooperation with a Namibian–German non-governmental organisation. It approaches the living museum as a tourist bubble with an imagery that is built along the global–local nexus. The aim is to explore how the bubble is constructed and what meanings various stakeholders foster onto these cultural shows. The basic conceptual and methodological framework derives from the premises of a multi-sited ethnography. We argue that the tourist bubble constituting Namibia’s living museums enables the involved stakeholders to retain a myth of authentic Africa that is incommensurate with local performers’ everyday life. Yet a certain permeability of the bubble allows for the creative and diversified response of the local population.

Law and Business Ethics Education for Tourism and Hospitality “Knowledge Development and Awareness Dissemination”

A tourist experience has been found to be formulated out of the sequence of events and encounters lived over the experience duration. But rarely has the element of legal knowledge and awareness been considered as a formulating/shaping factor. There is no such thing as a tourist bubble in an authentic tourism experience. Actions and interactions between tourists and the host community sometimes would lead to frictions, in most cases these frictions are initiated by culture differences, communications problems, and at a distance not so far comes the legal perceptions differences and in many cases ignorance. Hence, stands out the role of tourism affiliates in protecting tourists, host community, and country’s assets and heritage. The study aims to develop the legal knowledge of tourism and hospitality students and industry affiliates. To achieve the study aim the following objectives were proposed: • To assess the current status of law/legislations courses offered to tourism and hospitality students • To develop the law/legislations course syllabus and teaching approach • To propose a means of law/legislations knowledge dissemination among industry affiliates Keywords: education, Egypt, ethics, hospitality, law, legislations, Oman, tourism

Chinese Visitors in the Tourist Bubble: Exploring the Seoul Destination Experience Using Q Method

With the acceleration of globalization, international tourism has developed rapidly, especially in Seoul. Tourist bubble phenomenon appears with the development of international tourism. The term “tourist bubble” was originally proposed by Cohen, which conceptualized as the “protective walls” to reduce strangeness when tourist encounter a new environment and create a psychological space. The tourist bubble comprises a concentrated geographic area of tourist-oriented facilities and attractions, which is separated from its surrounding environment by spatially or psychologically created boundaries. Many studies focus more on the classification and formation process of the tourist bubble, but rarely involve tourists’ perception of tourist bubbles and the destination experience of tourists in the tourist bubble. Therefore, in this paper, it used Chinese tourists traveling in the tourist bubble of Seoul as a case to analyze the perception of international tourists on the tourist bubble phenomenon and the destination experience of tourists. It classified 5 types of Chinese tourists to identify their experience in Seoul. By using Q methodology, a technique designed for the systematic study of subjectivity in terms of beliefs, opinions, and attitudes, to find the subjectivity of Chinese tourists in the tourist bubble. It aims to provide reasonable tourism planning suggestions that how to make use of the tourist bubble phenomenon to make better tourism marketing for the Korean international tourism market.

The seven sins of hunting tourism

In a review of situational pressures on tourists, we identify seven sins or risk zones that induce moral disengagement and allow for behaviour that would be considered unethical by the same people when not on holiday. The context of hunting tourism reveals the following sins act cumulatively on the hunting tourist: “The Pay Effect”, “The Tourist Bubble”, “Last Chance Tourism”, “The Bucket List”, “When in Rome”, “The False Display”, and “The Saviour”. Identifying these sins and the way hunting tourists draw from them to neutralize eco-guilt are argued to be a first step on the call to set standards and practices within consumptive wildlife tourism consistent with the Precautionary Principle in tourism planning.

(Un)Conventional Voyages?—Star Trek: The Cruise and the Themed Cruise Experience

(Un)Conventional Voyages?—<i>Star Trek: The Cruise</i> and the Themed Cruise Experience

‘In a rush’: Time-space compression and its impacts on cruise excursions

With the increase in large-scale cruise tourism worldwide, researchers have highlighted the inauthenticity of the cruise experience and the reconstruction of space. This research deals with new aspects: fast tourism through time-space compression, and the formation of enclosed, customized ‘tourist bubbles’ that confine the tourists and promote a constructed authenticity of the experience on-shore. The second aim is to advance applied research in slower cruise excursions, especially in emerging cruise destinations. The research is based on extensive field work conducted during nine cruise-excursions to the sand desert and an oasis in the Sultanate of Oman. Oman is in the early stages of developing mega-cruise tourism while having received little attention in tourism research. For this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with German-speaking cruise tourists, cruise employees as well as with local cultural brokers and the Minister of Tourism. Moreover, participant observation, travel ethnography and photography were applied. Results indicate while moving from one customized ‘tourist bubble’ to the next one, time is controlled and enhanced through fast modes of transportation and a tight schedule of the excursion. The tourists and their cultural brokers are ‘contained’ in time and space, while some are struggling for more authentic experiences. They are shielded off from the local environment, ‘grazing’ destinations within a short time.

Becoming centre: tourism placemaking and space production in two neighborhoods in Barcelona

Over the last decades Barcelona has experienced social and economic transformations brought by the conversion of peripheral urban neighborhoods into tourist attractions. In this sense urban tourism has been the latest chapter of spatial reorganization to sustain capitalism within the global neoliberal environment in the Catalan city. In addition, the urban commodification process has expanded into not only central and historical districts, but also more peripheral zones outside the tourist bubble. Those transformations signify a symbolic turn: they became part of the centre. Since the 1992 Olympic Games, Barcelona’s brand, both for the city and for tourism, has experienced an important promotion where the urban periphery has become both part of the centre, as well as part of its global city imagery through placemaking, public policy, and political decisions. In short, the steady inclusion of neighborhoods such as Vila de Gràcia and Poblenou into the tourist experience enhances the Barcelonan tourist imagery. The inclusion of new cultural icons and tourist attractions embody a slight spatial and symbolic turn to boost the city’s visitor activities. In order to facilitate an in-depth comprehension, the ethnographical approach has been taken.

Airbnb as an instigator of ‘tourism bubble’ expansion in Utrecht's Lombok neighbourhood

ABSTRACTThe Airbnb phenomenon as part of the broader growth of the so-called collaborative economy has grabbed the attention of a growing number of tourism researchers. Among the topics explored have been investigations as to the spatial tendencies of Airbnb in cities and discussions concerning its effects, inter alia, on gentrification, over-touristification and eventual resident displacement. Recognizing that the majority of extant studies have been conducted either in major cities, which in their own right attract large numbers of visitors or in tourism-intensive smaller communities we chose to investigate what Airbnb growth means for a mid-sized city with a highly diversified economy, which is not yet over-touristified. Our focus was on the Dutch city of Utrecht. Through a geospatial and statistical analysis of AirDNA data, we explored the growth of Airbnbs in the city overall, focusing specifically on the phenomenon's effects on the Lombok neighbourhood, a nascent ‘neo-bohemia’ neighbouring the city-centre tourist bubble. Our analysis reveals that although Airbnb activity in this neighbourhood is relatively recent there are signs suggesting that further touristification of parts of Lombok has ignited increased Airbnb activity. Moreover, there is a distance decay of Airbnb activity as one moves away from the city centre and from established tourism services including restaurants. These findings suggest that in an emerging neo-bohemian space such as Lombok, Airbnb takes on a role as instigator of urban tourism bubble expansion. The study ends with a call for further investigations to better understand the implications expanded Airbnb activity has, among others, on social justice within cities. For example, future investigations could examine the manner in which Airbnbs influence the everyday life of the residents of urban spaces and investigate the conflicts that might arise in Airbnb ghettoes between visitors and locals.

The cruise shorescape as contested tourism space: Evidence from the warm-water pleasure periphery

Ocean cruising is an increasingly influential form of tourism generating each year tens of millions of excursionist visits to ports-of-call. This inductive multi-methods research presents the ideal type mature “cruise shorescape” that emerges in ports-of-call within warm water pleasure periphery regions such as the Caribbean where the sector is concentrated. Amalgamating and building on foundational studies of the tourist bubble effect and Caribbean urban tourism space, the shorescape innovates further by recognizing the role of the non-urban hinterland in the cruise system, incorporating semi-core and semi-periphery gradations to the basic core and periphery components, and positioning this space as an arena of stakeholder contestation. Specialized cruise spaces and nomenclature are introduced accordingly. Toward maximizing the beneficial outcomes for local port communities, the cruise shorescape contributes to the literature by providing a framework for investigating more systematically the localized economic impacts and spatial dynamics of destination-based cruise activity.

Socio-cultural impacts of large-scale cruise tourism in Souq Mutrah, Sultanate of Oman

The following paper explores socio-cultural impacts of large-scale cruise liner tourism on the traditional bazaar (souq) in the district of Mutrah. The souq is located opposite the port in the Omani capital Muscat. Large-scale cruise tourism in Muscat started only in 2004 and has increased in scale and numbers in the past years. 24 cruise vessels with around 7600 passengers arrived in Muscat in 2005. Seven years later 135 cruise liners carrying 257,000 tourists docked in Muscat. Due to this dramatic rise of international cruise ships, the socio-cultural impacts have increased for local residents, shop vendors/owners and tourists alike. To capture those socio-cultural impacts on Souq Mutrah, a survey of cruise tourists was conducted by a questionnaire. In addition, the researcher used participatory observation, counting, and in-depth interviews with different stakeholders of the local community and different types of tourists during the cruise seasons 2012/13 and 2013/14. Moreover, content analysis of statistics and local media publications were used. Results indicate that the souq has become “the core of a tourist bubble”, where crowding is a major problem and local residents avoid the place. The social carrying capacity of the souq has been reached. Omani vendors are leaving their businesses and renting their shops out to expatriates. Since contemporary cruise tourists are low spenders, expatriate shop sellers have become more aggressive.

Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture by Angelique Nixon

Reviewed by: Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture by Angelique Nixon Nilak Datta (bio) Nixon, Angelique. Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2015. A short while ago, I was traveling to New Delhi from Goa. I had received Angelique Nixon’s Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture in the mail. As I was reading it on my return flight to Goa, where I live and work, I found myself seated next to a couple who were en route to India’s “beach paradise” for a short getaway. The monsoon was in full swing and Goa, the one state in the Indian union that relies almost exclusively on tourism for its state revenue, was in the “off-season” mode. Beaches are not the fun-filled spaces they are for most part of the year and the party scene is not too fetching. Goa makes do with monsoon trekking, a less economically profitable (but more eco-friendly) substitute for mainstream beach tourism. When I informed the couple what they were in for, they were unhappy. The husband, an investment banker, exhibited signs of anger and disappointment. The wife tried to console him. They had booked resort rooms (at throwaway prices) with the high hope of living it up and enjoying paradise, far away from the hurry of metropolitan life. The prospect of having to make do with monsoon trekking seemed a let-down. It would have been—and it was—difficult to let them know that Goa had a unique history of colonialism, having been sort of a Portuguese enclave surrounded by large British dominions. In that sense, Goa has a unique heritage of being a Portuguese enclave while the vast Indo-Pakistan subcontinent was under British occupation. I ventured to suggest they might enjoy the culture and the cuisine instead of being encased in a tourist bubble. The conversation did not go too well. Angelique Nixon deals with a similar phenomenon: the touristic construction of the Caribbean as “paradise” and its roots in the nexus between colonialism and slavery. The [End Page 942] colonial (white, male) gaze constructed the region as “Paradise”; the illusion continues to be sustained by the North American and Anglo European globalized tourist circuit through cruise ship tourism, sex tourism, tourist brochure rhetoric, the neocolonial Bahamian school education system, the neo-imperial travel genre, diaspora tourism, and heritage tourism. The book offers two arguments. First, if colonialism and slavery fashioned a way of looking at the Caribbean and its peoples as a consumable paradise filled with sun, sand, and desirable black bodies, the neocolonial governments in association with foreign investment banks and multinational corporations have sustained the image through different forms of tourism. Writers, artists, and intellectuals have been (since the 1950s) resisting this construction, the colonization of locals’ minds, and the way locals are forced to see themselves. Second, contemporary writers like Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat, Paule Marshall, Audre Lorde, Marion Bethel, Michelle Cliff, Oonya Kamala Kempadoo, Christian Campbell, and artist-activists like Arlene Nash-Ferguson, Dionne Benjamin-Smith, Erna Brodber, and Esther Figueroa expose the connections between colonialism and neocolonialism through their artistic work and question the dominant representations of paradise by showing the exploitative consumption of the Caribbean. These are the book’s chief arguments. As such, when one approaches the diverse materials in the book, one might easily misunderstand Nixon’s Resisting Paradise as performing a familiar cultural studies maneuver that is loosely based on Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s famed culture industry thesis. So, a hasty reading of the book produces the impression that Nixon represents the packaging of peoples, places, and cultures through commercialization of the Caribbean and against which, artists and intellectuals have been fighting—and continue to fight—a near-losing battle with global capitalism to salvage something authentic and worth preserving. However, a careful reading reveals that Nixon accomplishes two important objectives in this book. First, she analyzes the social and economic processes by which the Caribbean has been constituted as paradise. Second, and more importantly, she shows how the international tourist expectations reinforce established patterns of heteronormativity and class privilege during visits to...

Motives for Using Airbnb in Metropolitan Tourism—Why do People Sleep in the Bed of a Stranger?

“What’s Mine is Yours” has become the slogan of the boosting “share economy”. In tourism, this mainly affects the accommodation sector. In addition to offering free or affordable overnight stays, share websites such as couchsurfing.org and airbnb.com also claim that visitors to cities will enjoy an authentic experience. The article focuses at the motivations and expectations of the guests as driving forces, taking Berlin as a case study, and aiming at the meaning of collaborative consumption in tourism to “explorer tourists” in search of authentic experiences off the beaten track and outside the tourist bubble.

Analysing governance in tourism value chains to reshape the tourist bubble in developing countries: the case of cultural tourism in Uganda

Several studies found larger benefits for communities when local stakeholders could participate in the tourism value chain by ‘linking’ their labour, products and services to the sector. However, the establishment of local linkages is difficult because of the complexity of the tourism system that consists of multi-sectoral and multi-scalar relationships. Moreover, in developing countries, empowered stakeholders tend to organise the tourism value chain vertically in which tourists are led in a spatially and socially confined trajectory in the destination, the so-called tourist bubble. This paper analyses the effect of governance in the tourism value chain on the establishment of local linkages to reshape the social and spatial boundaries of the tourist bubble in Uganda. Specifically, the possibilities of cultural tourism are explored as one particular way to reshape the bubble, that is centred on nature-based and ecotourism focuses. Results show that cultural activities can reshape the social boundaries of the bubble, while the catalyst role of cultural tourism developments is less successful in reshaping the spatial bubble boundaries. The national scale is pivotal to ensure that (1) local stakeholders are empowered to overcome existing barriers to enter and (2) international stakeholders are given incentives to reshape the bubble.

Feeding the downtown monster: (Re)developing Baltimore’s “tourist bubble”

Baltimore has been long recognized as an innovator in downtown redevelopment, with the transformation of its Inner Harbor starting in the late 1960s, and including such visitor-oriented amenities as Harborplace, the National Aquarium, and the Camden Yards sports complex (Norris, 2003). These facilities anchor Baltimore’s ‘tourist bubble,’ through which the city rebuilt its onceindustrial core into a enchanted center of post-industrial urban consumption (Ritzer, 2010): an appealing site for visitor outlay and corporate investment (Harvey, 1989). However, such is the halflife of late capitalism’s enmeshed cultural and economic logics, that consumption sites almost unavoidably experience a diminution of their very uniqueness – hence, their ability to enchant – as their success becomes compromised by a combination of consumer fatigue and indifference, and competitor imitation and innovation. Cities such as Baltimore are compelled to engage in never-ending cycles of urban redevelopment and investment towards maintaining and enhancing their appeal to potential consumers. As outlined within this paper, Baltimore is clearly engaged in this process, through its hosting of a new Indy Car Race – the Baltimore Grand Prix (BGP) – and, the proposed development of a new downtown arena, convention center, and hotel complex, whose combined cost could exceed $900 million. In examining the BGP and new arena complex within the historical context of Baltimore’s visitor-oriented development strategies, this discussion locates these empirical sites as the corollaries of contemporary conditions of inter-urban or “inter-local” competition, and examines them as exemplars of entrepreneurial urban governance strategies (Kipfer & Keil, 2002).

Small-scale Tourism Development in Brazilian Amazonia: The Creation of a ‘Tourist Bubble’

ERLACS – European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies is an Open Access, scientific journal. It publishes peer-reviewed articles in English and Spanish. Contributions reflect substantial empirical research and/or are theoretically innovative with respect to major debates within social science research (understood in the broadest sense, including history and economics) on Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to research articles, ERLACS includes 'Explorations' (a section in which new themes are presented and new debates are stimulated), review essays, book reviews, and film reviews. Articles are published online soon after they have been accepted.Sign up for our newsletter and read our latest issue!Special Collections:Heritage, protests and coloniality in contemporary Latin AmericaViolent configurations of power in MexicoVenezuela's crisis from global perspectivesElite and popular responses to a left in crisisMega-projects, contentious action, and policy change in Latin America ERLACS – Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe es una revista científica de Acceso Abierto. Difunde artículos bajo la revisión de pares en inglés y español. Las contribuciones reflejan la investigación empírica sustancial y/o son teóricamente innovadoras con respecto a los grandes debates dentro de la investigación social (en el sentido más amplio, incluyendo la historia y la economía) en América Latina y el Caribe. Además de los artículos de investigación, ERLACS incluye 'Exploraciones' (una sección en la que se presentan los nuevos temas con el fin de estimular nuevos debates), ensayos de reseña, reseñas de libros, y críticas de cine. Los artículos se publican en línea poco después de haber sido aceptados.¡Suscríbase a nuestro boletín de noticias y lea nuestro último número!Números especiales: Heritage, protests and coloniality in contemporary Latin AmericaViolent configurations of power in MexicoVenezuela's crisis from global perspectivesElite and popular responses to a left in crisisMega-projects, contentious action, and policy change in Latin America

The Challenge and Response to Global Tourism in the Post-modern Era: The Commodification, Reconfiguration and Mutual Transformation of Habana Vieja, Cuba

There is a growing literature on the symbolic and cultural meanings of tourism and the ways in which cities are increasingly competing for tourists through the promotion of cultural assets and different forms of spectacle in the `tourist bubble'. To date, research on the role and impact of tourism in cities has largely been confined to those in Western, post-industrial economies. This paper examines the growth of cultural tourism in the central area of Havana, Cuba, and explores the range of unique, devolved, state-owned enterprises that are attempting to use tourism as a funding mechanism to achieve improvements in the social and cultural fabric of the city for the benefit of residents. The paper concludes with an assessment of the implications of this example for our understanding of how the pressures for restructuring and commodification can be moderated at the city level.

Come Downtown & Play

The newly anointed American cities of the late capitalist moment appear preoccupied with the reconstitution of urban space. More accurately, select parcels of urban America have been reconfigured into multifaceted sport, leisure and tourism environments designed for the purpose of encouraging consumption‐oriented capital accumulation. Within this paper, the focus is a critical exploration of the ways in which tangible and intangible forms of heritage have been employed, utilized and exploited within these urban transformations. Through focus on a city emblematic of the processes that have molded downtown cores under US capitalism – Memphis – the paper points to the role of heritage in the reconfiguration of the Memphian ‘tourist bubble’. In particular, discussion centers on the often problematic selection of histories and historical elements, forms and practices within the interests of capital space and thus raises a host of localized questions about whose collective memory is being performed in the present, whose aesthetics really count and who benefits. Conclusions address how such urban space is imbued with power relations, that is, how increasingly leisure‐oriented spaces can be seen as important sites of social struggle in which dominant power relations can be constructed, contested and reproduced.

BURSTING THE BUBBLE: THE SOCIO‐CULTURAL CONTEXT OF ECOTOURISM

Ecotourism is a form of tourism that is highly visible and growing rapidly. It is commonly presented and understood as very different from conventional mass tourism because it is especially responsible, and even beneficial, environmentally and socio‐culturally. However, such a view may be inaccurate. The favourable image of ecotourism is a consequence of viewing it in an ecotourist bubble, analogous to the idea of the tourist bubble. Within this ecotourist bubble, the destinations and experiences sold to tourists are abstracted from their contexts, thus inducing a distorted image of them and of ecotourism itself. Aspects of what the bubble excludes are illustrated through a consideration of two destinations in the Caribbean.