The Cultural Moment in Tourism

This book is a response to the burgeoning interest in cultural tourism and the associated need for a coherently theorized approach for understanding the practices that such an interest creates. Cultural tourism has become an important and popular aspect of contemporary tourism studies, as well as providing a rich seam of upscale product development opportunities in the industry as a whole. Much of the related literature, however, focuses upon describing and categorizing cultural tourism from a supply-side perspective. This has prompted the taxonomizing of cultural tourists on the basis of their level of involvement and interest in cultural tourism products and/or their economic worth as a sought after market segment. There have been few recent attempts at a rigorous re-theorization of the issues beyond conventional representational theories; this book aims to fill that void.

Introduction: Moments, Instances, Experiences Part 1: The Moment in Theory 1. Meaning, Encounter and Performativity: Threads and Moments of Spacetimes in Doing Tourism 2. The Somatic and the Aesthetic: Embodied Heritage Experiences of Luang Prabang, Laos Part 2: The Moment Performed 3. Finding Dracula in Transylvania 4. Touring Heritage, Performing Home: Cultural Encounters in Singapore 5. The Commemoration of Slavery Heritage: Performance, Tourism and Resistance 6. Engagement and Performance: Created Identities in Steampunk, Cosplay and Re-Enactment 7. Publics Versus Professionals: Agency and Engagement with 'Robin Hood' and the 'Pilgrim Fathers' in Nottinghamshire Part 3: Moments and Others 8. Shades of the Caliphate: The Cultural Moment in Southern Spain 9. 'You No Longer Need to Imagine': Bus Touring Through South Central Los Angeles Gangland 10. The Cultural 'Work' of Tourism 11. The Numen Impulse in Heritage Tourism Part 4: The Moment Transformed 12. The Truth of the Crowds: Social Media and the Heritage Experience 13. The Lingering Moment