How do we re-theorize tourism? By drawing less on the Foucauldian notion of 'tourism as gazing' and instead focusing on the social construction of meaning in the landscape, this insightful book provides an innovative and compelling new approach to tourist studies. Arguing that in any view of the landscape and in tourism generally there is a multiplicity of insider and outsider meanings, the book grounds tourism studies within the framework of social theory, and particularly in the social theoretic approaches to landscape. Bringing together specialists in tourism and landscape studies to discuss the relationships between the two, it finds that issues of identity are a common thread and are raised with regard to the social construction of landscape and its portrayal through tourism. The international studies range in scale from regional to national, personal to political, and from local residents to international tourists, highlighting the multiplicity of interpretations and meanings between these scales.

How do we re-theorize tourism? By drawing less on the Foucauldian notion of 'tourism as gazing' and instead focusing on the social construction of meaning in the landscape, this insightful book provides an innovative and compelling new approach to tourist studies. Arguing that in any view of the landscape and in tourism generally there is a multiplicity of insider and outsider meanings, the book grounds tourism studies within the framework of social theory, and particularly in the social theoretic approaches to landscape. Bringing together specialists in tourism and landscape studies to discuss the relationships between the two, it finds that issues of identity are a common thread and are raised with regard to the social construction of landscape and its portrayal through tourism. The international studies range in scale from regional to national, personal to political, and from local residents to international tourists, highlighting the multiplicity of interpretations and meanings between these scales.

Increasingly significant as mediators of spatial identity and meaning, leisure, tourism, culture and heritage are only now beginning to be located within the rapidly evolving discourses of poststructuralist geographies. Exploring the influence of leisure and tourism on the production, representation and consumption of landscape, the first half of this important book focuses on different ways of ‘seeing’ or representing landscape, whereas the second half examines different forms of productive consumption in leisure and tourism. Both symbolic and material spaces of leisure and tourism are also examined in relation to urban and rural landscapes, heritage landscapes, gendered landscapes, and landscapes of sexuality and desire. With a multidisciplinary approach and a strong theoretical content which builds on poststructuralist theories, this is undoubtedly an important addition to literature in the field.

This book presents new directions both for tourism and cultural landscape studies in geography, crossing the traditional boundaries between the research of geographers and scholars of the tourism industry. Drawing on selected research from Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and North America, the contributors combine perspectives in human geography and tourism to present cultural landscapes of tourist destinations as socially constructed places, examining the extent and manner by which tourism both establishes and falsifies local reality. The book addresses many critical themes which recent critiques in tourism studies focusing on the attitudes and behaviour of the tourist and on the industry as agents of social change have ignored, including the marginalization of the 'host' community, the privatization and commodification of local culture, and how tourism acts as both agent and process in the structure, identity and meaning of local places.

Cartier and Lew's interesting and informative book explores contemporary issues in travel and tourism and human geography, and the complex cultural, political, and economic activities at stake in touristed landscapes as a result of globalization.

Drawing upon the literature of landscape geography, tourism studies, cultural studies, visual studies and philosophy, this book offers a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the interaction between urban environments and tourists. This is a necessary prerequisite for cities as they make themselves into enticing destinations and compete for tourists' attention. It argues that tourists make sense of, and draw meaningful conclusions about, the places in which they tour based upon the interpretation of the signs or elements encountered within the built environment, elements such as graffiti and lamp posts. The writings of the American pragmatist Charles S. Peirce on interpretation provide the theoretical model for explaining the way in which mind and world, or thoughts and objects, result in tourists interacting with place. This theoretical framework elucidates three applied studies undertaken with foreign visitors to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Based upon extensive ethnographic field work, these studies focus on tourists' interpretation of the urban landscape, with particular attention paid to the encounters with national culture, the role of architecture and the importance of the prosaic in urban tourism.

Compiling nine authoritative essays spanning an extensive academic career, author Kenneth R. Olwig presents explorations in landscape geography and architecture from an environmental humanities perspective. With influences from art, literature, theatre staging, architecture, and garden design, landscape has come to be viewed as a form of spatial scenery, but this reading captures only a narrow representation of landscape meaning today. This book positions landscape as a concept shaped through the centuries, evolving from place to place to provide nuanced interpretations of landscape meaning. The essays are woven together to gather an international approach to understanding the past and present importance of landscape as place and polity, as designed space, as nature, and as an influential factor in the shaping of ideas in a just social and physical environment. Aimed at students, scholars, and researchers in landscape and beyond, this illustrated volume traces the idea of landscape from the ancient polis and theatre through to the present day.