Tourism: An Introduction

`Argued with a real verve, it makes a plea to rethink the role of tourism in modernity seeing it not as a fleeting and marginal element, but as something enduring, emblematic and constitutive of contemporary society. Tourism is seen as a key element of modern life, not an escape from it′ - Mike Crang, Department of Geography, University of Durham

Tourism is a rapidly growing area of student enrolment. Lecturers and students who have waited patiently for an up-to-date, lucid and indispensable teaching and research text, need wait no more. This book is a matchless guide to understanding the theory, practice, development and effects of tourism.

Tourism: An Introduction:

- equips students with a critical perspective of the central processes of tourism and the relationship between tourism and culture

- places tourism at the heart of modern life rather than as a peripheral feature added on after work

- illuminates the relationship between tourism and nation formation, citizenship, consumerism and globalization

- reveals the ritual, performative and embodied dimensions of tourist experience

This book offers readers a major synthesis of modern thought on tourism. It breaks the mould of approaching tourism as a self-contained, compartment of contemporary life and treats it as a major and exciting cultural phenomenon. This is a landmark work in the study of tourism.

Adrian Franklin is the editor of the acclaimed journal Tourist Studies (SAGE Publications).

Adrian is a prolific researcher, writer and presenter, and is currently editor of SAGE′s HSS journal Tourist Studies. He has written numerous articles for a range of journals, from Journal of Sociology and Body and Society to International Review for the Sociology of Sport and Environment and Planning D. He has written three previous book for SAGE: Tourism: An Introduction (2003), Nature and Social Theory (2002) and Animals and Modern Culture (1999).

He also presents a television show called The Collectors (ABC, Australia).