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Our argument is that it is important in tourism theory to explicitly
interpret and explain tourism also as an innately geographical phenomenon
that takes place on the Earth. This is not a novel idea. It may readily be
found in many traditional accounts of tourism, and not only those of
tourism geography. It is obvious too that the core of tourism since the
founding days of tourism studies has been thought of in terms of travelling
and going somewhere else, for example; “[t]o be there oneself is what is
crucial in most tourism” (Urry 1990/2002, p. 154).
It may further be noted that paying heed to the geographical nature
of tourism also means to keep a critical eye on its spatial underpinnings.
For example, tourism has in tourism theory often been captured by a
spatial imagery that assumes a clear distinction between home and away.
The universality of this spatial imagination of tourism has recently been
questioned and critiqued as we have alluded to in the above.
Tourism imaginationings as geographical patterning
Human life on the Earth has always involved geographical movements
between different locations and environments, be it for survival reasons,
for the purpose of work, exploration, curiosity, adventure, or whatever else
possible human motives there might be. However, prior to the advent of
modern mass tourism there were no touring masses on the road travelling
on return tickets for leisure purposes from the origin of home to the away
of tourist destinations.
In other words, humans were geographical animals long before they
became those touring animals we refer to as “tourists”. Geographical
imaginationings, like information and communication about other places
and people so central for modern tourism, have also existed as long as
humans themselves. Before modern tourism people like adventurers and
explorers also wrote about their various experiences and understandings.
They then contributed to the development of modern forms of collective
geographical imaginationings which later were to become part of tourism
imaginationings. In a publication from 1852 one could, for example, read
about Iceland in the following way:
This is the island that is shown to us in our geographical books and
maps, as a small white spot on the borders of the Arctic ocean, and
described as a cold, dreary, and uninteresting region, inhabited by a few
dwarfish and ignorant people, who have little knowledge of the world
and whom little is known (Miles 1852, in Boucher 1989, p. 17).
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