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‘human love of place’ (seeplace) or ‘the
affective bond between people and place’
(cf. affect). Tuan argued that this bond
varies in intensity among individuals and in
its cultural expression, and suggested that
such attachment can be based on aesthetic
appreciation,memory, pride of ownership or
dependence on a place for one’s livelihood or
security. Topophilia is not only a response
to place, Tuan insisted, but also actively
produces places for people. Its converse,
topocide, was proposed by Porteous (1998)
to describe the annihilation of those bonds
and the places to which they are attached
(cf.urbicide). Topophilia is closely associ-
ated with thehumanistic geographyof the
1970s. jsdtourism Tourism has been defined as ‘the
activities of persons traveling to and staying in
places outside of their usual environment for
not more than one consecutive year for leisure,
business and other purposes’ (UN World
Tourism Organization, 1994). This relational
definition positions tourism as contrasted to
other travel and leisure practices. Thus travel
for pleasure without staying tends to be defined
asleisure, whilst organized activities for pleas-
ure at home tend to be calledrecreation.
Travel without return ismigration, whilst
temporary travel leading to residence for work
over a year is to be a sojourner. The utility of
this definition is enabling the counting and
mapping of touristflows– arrivals, stays and
departures. However, this a very limited ap-
proach to tourism. First, as a typology of travel
it tidies away a wealth of practices that elide the
differences ofthesecategories.Second,thereare
distinctions among tourists. Third, it fails to
capture the dynamic of the relationship of tour-
ists to the people and places that they visit.
The first problem is that the practices and
organization of tourism exceed its categories.
It may be the largest industry on the planet,
but it is a very diffuse industry. Thus tourist
attractions may also serve local populations –
facilities that serve tourist needs (such as res-
taurants or hotels) may serve local needs as
well. Amidst what tourists do, there are a
wealth of different interests and activities.
Thus much tourist time may well be pursuing
‘normal’ activities (such as child care, cleaning
or cooking). Equally, the edges of what is tour-
ism are very fuzzy, so that local people might
approach their local environment for pleasure
like a tourist. Meanwhile, tourism has been
said to develop from, and as a secular form of,
pilgrimage, leaving questions over whether wewould count these spiritual practices as ‘tour-
ism’ or whether we would deny any spiritual
dimensions to any forms of tourism.
The second problem is that the general def-
inition obscures differing types of tourism.
One recurrent response has been to produce
typologies of tourists usually defined by their
motivation for travel. Popular distinctions
among tourists often start by dividing them
in terms of a hierarchy of serious mindedness,
where the explorer charts the unknown (see
exploration) and the traveller seeks to en-
counter difference, whilst the tourist follows
the beaten track. The distinctions between
these cultures of travel are social ones that
are about status and cultural values.
John Urry (2002) suggests contrasting
romantic and collective cultures of tourism.
The latter is that which celebrates together-
ness in visiting, which focuses on enjoyment
and activities amongst and between visitors
rather than between visitors and the environ-
ment. The former is that of the traveller, who
seeks an individual encounter with the place
visited – with direct contact with the locale
and perhaps locals. It defines itself in oppos-
ition to the collective gaze – and in doing so
sows the seeds of its own self-destruction. For
once a site is found and becomes popular, is
laid out in guidebooks, and develops kiosks
or stalls, then it loses its appeal. The result
is an expanding structure, always looking
over the next hill or to the next island for
the ‘untouched’ valley, ‘pristine’ beach or
‘authentic’ locals. This lays out tourism as
what MacCannell, in his influential 1976
bookThe tourist, saw as a quest to encounter
the authentically differentother. However,
Urry’s division makes clear that this is only
one set of desires or motivations for tourism.
He himself favours a definition that frames
tourism in terms of a time and place out of
the ordinary.
The notion of an ‘extraordinary’ time and
place has been used to unpack the third issue
of the dynamic of tourists and the places that
they visit. Tourism as a secular kind of pil-
grimage might be seen as a material semiotic
process that ‘sacralizes’ places. In this process,
various signifiers mark out sites as noteworthy
to the ‘tourist gaze’ (Urry, 1990). These signi-
fiers can be guidebooks, postcards, travel
books, brochures, adverts and the like. These
help script notions of the destination and can
be seen as ‘linguistic agents of touristic social
control’ (Dann, 1999, p. 163). Guidebooks
do not just describe places, but set normative
agendas of what ought to be seen. TheyGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_T Final Proof page 763 31.3.2009 9:40pm Compositor Name: ARajuTOURISMTOURISM