tourist gaze geography

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Tourism Review

ISSN : 1660-5373

Article publication date: 31 December 2020

Issue publication date: 25 March 2021

The tourist gaze remains a key concept in tourism research. The purpose of this paper is to comprehend the theoretical and empirical development of the tourist gaze notion and its contributions to tourism knowledge, identifying potential research directions by reviewing and analyzing articles that have defined, refined and applied the concept of the tourist gaze.

Design/methodology/approach

The study identified 109 relevant research papers primarily through the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Google Scholar, ResearchGate.net and Academia.edu were used to capturing additional work not indexed in the key databases. Qualitative content analysis was used to map the evolution of the concept, distinguish between different perspectives and identify gaps in the tourist gaze literature.

This “state of the art” paper on tourist gaze outlines Foucault’s original work on gaze and power, which underpins subsequent theorization within tourism. The study identifies how the tourist gaze operates in different contexts and circumstances allowing the development of gaze theory. Importantly, the evolution of the gaze theory is presented after analyzing the knowledge gaps, the contexts in which it was used, the methodologies with which it was applied. Based on the findings, the study proposes future works of gaze with the use of technology, science, nature and social media.

Originality/value

This paper is among one of the first states of the art papers in tourism literature that comprehensively analyzes the works on the tourist gaze, tracing its evolution and identifying future research directions to address gaps in existing knowledge.

旅游凝视仍然是当今旅游研究中的关键概念之一。本文的主要目的是理解旅游凝视的理论与实践及其对旅游知识的的贡献, 通过回顾性分析识别其潜在的研究方向。

该研究主要通过Web of Science和Scopus数据库检索确定的109篇相关研究论文进行分析。为了保证研究的完整性分析, 本文也使用了Google Scholar, ResearchGate.net和Academia.edu检索了有关旅游凝视的研究成果并补充到分析数据库中。本文采用了定性的内容分析法用于分析旅游凝视概念的演化、区别不同的观点, 并识别旅游凝视文献的不足之处。

研究总结了福柯关于凝视与权力的原创性研究, 强调他的相关工作为随后的旅游研究的理论化奠定了基础。本文识别了该理论在不同的旅游情景和环境下所产生的影响。特别是基于知识的鸿沟与不足, 分析了旅游凝视理论的演化过程、研究内容针对性以及所涉及方法论的应用。基于本文的结论, 本文提出了未来旅游凝视理论在技术、科学、自然与社会媒体方面的研究方向。

本文是全面分析旅游凝视学术成果、追溯其演变、确定其未来研究方向, 并弥补现有相关知识不足的一篇重要的综述性论文。

la mirada del turista sigue siendo un concepto clave en la investigación sobre el turismo. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es comprender el desarrollo teórico y empírico de la noción de mirada turística y sus aportes al conocimiento del turismo, identificando posibles direcciones de investigación a través de la revisión y análisis de artículos que han definido, afinado y aplicado el concepto de mirada turística.

Diseño/metodología/enfoque

El estudio identificó 109 artículos de investigación relevantes principalmente a través de las bases de datos Web of Science y Scopus. Se utilizaron Google Scholar, ResearchGate.net y Academia.edu para capturar trabajo adicional no indexado en las bases de datos. El análisis de contenido cualitativo se utilizó para mapear la evolución del concepto, distinguir entre diferentes perspectivas e identificar brechas en la literatura sobre la mirada turística.

El estudio del "estado del arte" sobre la mirada de los turistas, describe el trabajo original de Foucault sobre la mirada y el poder, que sustenta la teorización posterior en el turismo. El estudio identifica cómo opera la mirada del turista en diferentes contextos y circunstancias, permitiendo el desarrollo de la teoría de “la mirada”. Es importante destacar que la evolución del concepto de mirada se presenta luego de analizar las brechas de conocimiento, los contextos en los que se utilizó, las metodologías con las que se aplicó. Con base en los hallazgos encontrados, el estudio propone futuros trabajos “de mirada” con el uso de la tecnología, la ciencia, la naturaleza y las redes sociales.

Originalidad/valor

Este artículo es uno de los primeros trabajos de revisión de la literatura sobre el turismo que analiza de manera integral los trabajos sobre la mirada del turista, rastreando su evolución e identificando futuras direcciones de investigación para abordar las brechas en el conocimiento existente.

• Content analysis
• Literature review
• Tourist gaze
• Tourism and power
• Mutual gaze
• Análisis de contenido mirada del anfitrión mirada mutua mirada del turista turismo y poder Foucault revisión de la literatura

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Peter Lugosi and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (No. 40971297), National Social Science Fund of China (18FGL015), Innovation Spark Project of Sichuan University (2018hhf-65, 2018hhs-57), Sichuan University Cluster for Regional History and Frontier Studies (2018-0332), Major Projects of the National Social Science Foundation (17ZDA044) and Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation Project of Sichuan University (XKQKXK04). The study was also supported by the Department of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Faculty of Management Studies, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka.

Samarathunga, W.H.M.S. and Cheng, L. (2021), "Tourist gaze and beyond: state of the art", Tourism Review , Vol. 76 No. 2, pp. 344-357. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-06-2020-0248

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The Tourist Gaze 3.0

• John Urry - Lancaster University, UK
• Jonas Larsen - University of Roskilde, Denmark
• Description

All chapters have been significantly revised to include up-to-date empirical data, many new case studies and fresh concepts. Three new chapters have been added which explore:

• photography and digitization
• embodied performances
• risks and alternative futures

This book is essential reading for all involved in contemporary tourism, leisure, cultural policy, design, economic regeneration, heritage and the arts.

The original Tourist Gaze was a classic, marking out a new land to study and appreciate. This new edition extends into fresh areas with the same passion and insight of the object. Even more essential reading! Nigel Thrift Vice-Chancellor, Warwick University

The first edition of Tourist Gaze was a landmark in the theoretical development of tourism studies, and it inspired waves of research and often fierce debates that have reverberated over the following two decades. This new edition of the book is not only thoroughly revised but has also been given renewed cutting edge, particularly by the addition of chapters on risk and on digital photography. At the same time, our understanding of the tourist gaze has been reframed and broadened by the infusion of ideas about mobility and embodiment, making this book an essential read for every tourism scholar Allan Williams Professor of Tourism Management, University of Surrey

Don't leave home without the 3rd edition! With new chapters and rigorous restructuring, this classic guide to critical tourism studies becomes even more useful to scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities. The Tourist Gaze 3.0 takes us on a detailed tour of the major concepts and approaches to one of the world's largest culture industries. With fresh insights and new materials, this collaboratively written revision will immediately become required reading for those who pay attention to the world of travel, mobility, and visual culture Caren Kaplan Professor of Cultural Studies, Science and Technology, UC Davis

A great classic remade to capture the lives of tourists in the 21st century. For two decades The Tourist Gaze has been one of the most influential books in tourist research. This new and thoroughly reworked version meets the challenges of a changing world of tourism and engages the lively contemporary debates in the field Orvar Löfgren Professor of European Ethnology, University of Lund

This thoroughly updated edition of John Urry's seminal contribution to tourist studies will engage a whole new generation of scholars. The extensive addition of new material absorbs and expands upon new insights from within this shifting field of study to develop an enhanced understanding of the tourist gaze. The fresh input of Jonas Larsen adds a renewed vibrancy to the debates which are, as ever, communicated in a brisk, inclusive and lucid fashion, and will ensure that The Tourist Gaze book retains its relevance for students and academics across the world Tim Edenso r Reader in Cultural Geography, Manchester Metropolitan University

The Tourist Gaze has been the most influential book on tourism in the last twenty years. This extensively revised edition serves to remind us both why the original was so important and engages with the massive developments in the literature it helped to spawn. The impressive updating in response to theoretical debates is matched only by the response to the profound shifts in tourism itself, its markets, technologies and organisation, which indicates how much value still lies in the arguments made Mike Crang Reader in Geography, Durham University

Few scholarly books manage to be deeply serious and highly entertaining, but The Tourist Gaze has been absorbing its readers for more than two decades. This newly expanded third edition of Urry's classic is a landmark in its own right; deepening and broadening its approach to the study of tourism in the era of the internet, global warming and peak oil. This book's rich blend of cultural history, political economy and social enquiry takes us to the heart of some of the most urgent issues of our time Meaghan Morris Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney

The book covers a wide range of tourist-gaze interwoven topics such as theories; mass tourism; economies; working under the gaze; changing tourist cultures; places, buildings and design; vision and photography; performances; risks and futures which function as distinctive chapters within the book, along with an extremely generous bibliography and an index list...With an analytical discourse and the power of exemplification, the tacking of up-to-date emerging trends in tourist behavior and the authors’ genuine ability to read it, the book invites to a critical observation and meditation on today’s “society of spectacle” towards which tourism is heading to, meanwhile bringing a great contribution to tourism research and theoretical development GeoJournal of Tourism and Geosites

Very relevant reading for our PG students...this subject matters crosses so many courses and units. This is Urry updated...what could be better?!

A classic work is back in its third edition. Urey and Larsen provide once again a deep insight in the psychological perspective of traveling and explain in a very appealing way the concept of the tourist gaze. Highly recommended to everyone that deals with these issues!!!

This book covers many topics from mass tourism to vision and photography. Highly recommended from tourism academics or tourism students doing research projects.

Recommended book for the course Tourism development and social and cultural impacts. This courses addresses Tourism theory in its first part. And this book is a classic on the field. Furthermore, this new and updated edition with Jonas Larsen incorporates new debates in a fast-paced changing issue such as tourism and mobility.

The book has become a classic text in travel and tourism studies and this new edition is yet another useful reference for academic, professionals and students in this multidisciplinary field!

The book is a good read in formulating an alternative and modern view of modern tourism but not suitable as a textbook for students' needs.

A classic text book which every Tourism student should have read, providing a good snapshot of tourist behaviour and society. This edition benefits from interesting and timely updates to the changing and dynamic tourism industry and how tourists are changing.

My students would find this book useful when they prepare a coursework.

A useful updated version of the tourism classic.

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Emediating the tourist gaze: memory, emotion and choreography of the digital photograph

• Original Research
• Published: 15 July 2014
• Volume 14 , pages 177–196, ( 2014 )

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• Peter Robinson 1  

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Robinson (Current Issues Tour Res 15(4):353–367, 2012 , Mediating the tourist experience from brochures to virtual encounters. Farnham, Ashgate, 2013 ) explored the notion of an e-mediated tourist gaze. This paper builds on this idea, in order to evaluate the context within which images are recorded, manipulated and distributed. Google Earth is selected as the medium for this because its geo-spatial format links tourist photographs to the site where the image was captured. The research adopts a primarily qualitative inductive study to identify sociological perspectives on the collection, publication and sharing of images online, using members of Google Earth forums as the sample, and asking further questions around travel planning to tie the research back to the relationship between online image and travel from a production perspective. The research identifies strong links with memory, emotion and choreography and proposes that digital images have created new areas for research into electronic visual media. Whilst Urry and Larsen (The tourist gaze 3.0. Sage, London, 2011 ) note that these images potentially lead an unprotected and uncontrolled afterlife, it is argued that they also serve a purpose for a future-self as a mediator of nostalgia. The research develops hypotheses for future research around the emotional relationships bound up in the creation and collection of tourism images and the role of the e-mediated gaze.

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Robinson, P. Emediating the tourist gaze: memory, emotion and choreography of the digital photograph. Inf Technol Tourism 14 , 177–196 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-014-0008-6

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A short definition of Travel & Tourism

A term to cover travel to places away from one’s home environment undertaken principally for leisure but also for business. Tourist activities generally involve spending money in a new location and do not involve remuneration from within the place or country visited. Definitions of tourism by international organizations such as the World Tourist Organization recognize anyone who spends at least one night but no longer than one year somewhere other than their country of residence as a tourist. Tourism is often distinguished from recreation because it takes place further from the home and is more commercialized. It overlaps with leisure , but includes business travel. In The Tourist Gaze (1991) John Urry argued persuasively that the core feature of tourism was the desire to gaze upon what was different or unusual. Much of tourism can be understood in terms of the arrangements of places and landscapes to be viewed, and the cultivation of techniques of viewing and circulating images, e.g. photography, video, postcards, etc. But tourist activities do more than please the sense of sight, and often involve multiple embodied experiences, e.g. kayaking, dining, and sunbathing. Tourism is a form of and has its origins in travel, but a distinction is often made between the two; travel is described as a more specialized, niche, or selective activity, while tourism is associated with organized popular or mass activities. In part, the difference is one of marketing or discourse.

Although tourism now includes an increasingly diverse range of activities, perhaps too many for convenient classification, it is often described as the world’s largest industry. The World Travel and Tourist Council estimates that tourism accounts for 11 per cent of world GDP and 8 per cent of all waged work (200 million employees). But tourism as it is now understood is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most historical accounts trace its origins to the Grand Tour, undertaken by elite young European men between the 17th and 19th centuries. They would travel within Europe to see and learn about cultural matters, notably the fruits of the Renaissance and Greek and Roman classical civilizations. Health spas, seaside towns, and mountain resorts also became fixtures for the wealthy traveller. The 19th century saw the development of journeys to wild places inspired by romantic ideas or picturesque or sublime landscapes: England’s Lake District was a leading attraction ( see wilderness ). The spread of road and rail travel in the 19th century allowed the urban working classes to enjoy annual trips to seaside resorts such as Long Island, New York, ushering in the first organized tourist industry. But it was not until the combination of greater affluence, more leisure time, and air travel after the Second World War that modern mass tourism took off. Until the late 20th century, however, it remained open largely to Westerners, and Europe itself accounted for the majority of international tourist journeys. The globalization of tourism in the past two or so decades has involved almost every country becoming both an origin and destination of tourist travel to some degree. Close to a billion international tourist visits are now made annually, with China established in the top five for destinations and origins, alongside the USA and European countries. Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai also count among the top tourist urban destinations.

The geographical interest in tourism has developed strongly since the 1980s, although there are studies dating back to the 1930s. It draws upon the same range of methods and perspectives as the rest of human geography , although there are important overlaps with environmental geography (for example, in coastal and marine environment management) and a strong element of applied geography . Given that tourism hinges precisely on the differences between one place and another, it is intrinsically geographical. The main areas of research are on factors of supply and demand, but also on social, economic, and environmental impact ( see resort life-cycle model ). There are separate studies of urban and rural tourism, as well as a concern for regional differences (Hudman and Jackson 2003). The different forms of tourism and their related bodily and sensuous experiences—heritage visits, ecotourism , package holidays, adventure travel, and backpacking among them—are also well studied. In unpacking the experiences of tours, however, it becomes apparent how many of its core characteristics—difference, exoticism, cosmopolitanism , leisureliness—are increasingly found more widely and even close to home. The interests of tourist studies in mobility , pleasure, and difference are, in this regard, central to much of current human geography.

Rogers, A., Castree, N., & Kitchin, R. (2013). " Tourism ." In  A Dictionary of Human Geography . Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 Feb. 2022

In the Library's Collections

Tourism as a subject search brings up many results. Below are a few of the narrower, more specific subject headings.

     General books on Travel and Tourism are located in the call number range G 149 through G 180 on Baker Level A . Books on specific tourism spots or tourist trade in specific countries are located with books about that country. The online catalog is your best guide for finding these items.

• heritage tourism
• sex tourism
• culture and tourism
• agritourism
• [insert name of country] description and travel To find travelogues or other travel writings, do a subject search for the country name followed by "description and travel."
• jamaica description and travel An example for the subject heading described above.
• maine description and travel Another example.
• anthropology AND tourism This is a keyword search on the online catalog.

Introductory reading(s)

Selected book titles

Other library resource(s)

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