This book examines the role of cars and the space connected with their production and presentation in tourism development. It describes the role played by experiences and experience societies formed in the 20th c. in the development of contemporary tourism, including tourism related to cars. The book explores the influence of experiencing unusual events, such as car races, car fairs, visits to car industry museums or multifunctional spaces connected with producing and exhibiting cars (e.g. Autostadt or Audi Forum) on the development of a new type of tourism, i.e. car tourism. This kind of tourism is novel in two ways: firstly, it is a new phenomenon in science, as so far it has not been thoroughly studied or described, apart from various short articles. Secondly, this type of tourism has developed on a large scale only in recent years, mainly due to the huge investments made by powerful European car manufacturers (e.g. Autostadt, Audi Forums, Porsche Museum, Lamborghini Museum etc.). The book presents cars and the spaces related to them as tourist assets (sites, events) and as tourist products that satisfy tourists’ needs. Moreover, it connects the issue of car tourism to the marketing strategies of large car manufacturers and discusses the theory of tourism space, highlighting the main tourism spaces in which car tourism develops. It presents multifunctional spaces (factories, adventure centres – Autostadt in Wolfsburg), museums, car exhibitions, and race tracks. In the next chapter, following an introduction to the problem of events, the author describes events related to car tourism, including races, rallies, driving schools and car fairs. The book ends with a summarizing chapter, which includes a model of the function of car tourism as a separate type of tourism, as well as a discussion presenting the main features, advantages and disadvantages of car tourism in the context of the tourism space theory.

Excerpt from The Automobile Tourist: Motor Car Journeys From Philadelphia With Historical and Descriptive Notes Automobilists have long deplored the fact that there is no guide book published that fully meets their needs. Roads between cities and towns are frequently given, with distances and hotel accommodations and rates set forth in some publications, but there the information ends. There is no data for the automobilist who owns a road car for purposes of healthful recreation, for the business man or the busy professional who must confine his motoring largely to day or half-day trips, who wants his outing to include the additional qualities of pleasure and instruction. There are, of course, a few well-worn routes that are known to all. Occasionally a motorist makes a trip striking out for himself. Sometimes he is fortunate in finding good roads and pleasant scenery. More often he is unfortunate. He tells his friends, but the news of a good route travels slowly. Even with correct data regarding roads, distances and hotels, there is much left untold. What can be seen? Is the view of the country pleasing? Are there any famous historical places encountered? What is there especially attractive about this route or that? These and many other questions, all important, have arisen, but remained unanswered. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Motoring unmasks the forces that shape the American driving experience--commercial, aesthetic, cultural, mechanical--as it takes a timely look back at our historically unconditional love of motor travel. Focusing on recreational travel between 1900 and 1960, John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle cover dozens of topics related to drivers, cars, and highways and explain how they all converge to uphold that illusory notion of release and rejuvenation we call the "open road." Jakle and Sculle have collaborated on five previous books on the history, culture, and landscape of the American road. Here, with an emphasis on the driver's perspective, they discuss garages and gas stations, roadside tourist attractions, freeways and toll roads, truck stops, bus travel, the rise of the convenience store, and much more. All the while, the authors make us think about aspects of driving that are often taken for granted: how, for instance, the many lodging and food options along our highways reinforce the connection between driving and "freedom" and how, by enabling greater speeds, highway engineers helped to stoke motorists' "blessed fantasy of flight." Although driving originally celebrated freedom and touted a common experience, it has increasingly become a highly regulated, isolated activity. The motive behind America's first embrace of the automobile--individual prerogative--still substantially obscures this reality. "Americans did not have the automobile imposed on them," say the authors. Jakle and Sculle ask why some of the early prophetic warnings about our car culture went unheeded and why the arguments of its promoters resonated so persuasively. Today, the automobile is implicated in any number of environmental, even social, problems. As the wisdom of our dependence on automobile travel has come into serious question, reassessment of how we first became that way is more important than ever.