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202 Espaces
with mass tourist destinations all, in different ways,
indicate a fascination in the tourist mind with preconsumerist
economies and societies.
Following these considerations, it may be
generalised that the ultimate destination to which
tourists wish to escape is part utopia, part
paradise. One of the most enduring images of
tourism utopia derives from the myth of Shangri
La �Hutt 1996), an imaginary and remote Tibetan
valley ruled by wise lamas in which competition
and greed were absent, where government was
benign, and where people lived long and fulfilled
lives. The idea of Shangri La originated in the
1930s, but is used nowadays in tourism publicity to
denote supposedly utopian destinations �see denotation).
Deriving from the old Persian pairidaeza ±
garden or pleasure park, echoed by the Hebrew
pardes �orchard) ± ideas of paradise have ancient
roots, most strikingly illustrated in the biblical
Garden of Eden with its material self-sufficiency
and human innocence. More modern notions of
paradise derive from various sources, including
�perhaps most famously) the voyages of Bougainville,
James Cook and other Western explorers to
Tahiti. Later elaborated in the paintings of
Gauguin, Tahiti as paradise came to be associated
with plenty, fertility, beauty and sexual availability;
and these are precisely the characteristics which
inform much of the promotional literature associated
with contemporary tourism.
Another sense of escape concerns getting free
from detention or control and gaining liberty by
flight. There can be few more persuasive definitions
of the tourist: one who escapes from the dayto-day
realities of poverty and shortage, conflict,
bad government and constraints of time to a
paradise or utopia from which these have been
banished, and in whose place �so the fantasy
continues) are plenty, social harmony, benign forms
of authority and unlimited time. Arguably, however,
the defining characteristic of the tourism
paradise is that it promises the possibility of the
recovery of more complete senses of the self and
society than the fractured landscapes of the
postmodern condition normally allow.
References
Berger, P., Berger, B. and Kellner, H. �1973) The
Homeless Mind:Modernisation and Consciousness,
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hutt, M. �1996) `Looking for Shangri-La : From
Hilton to Lamichhane', in T. Selwyn �ed.) The
Tourist Image:Myths and Myth Making in Tourism,
Chichester: Wiley.
Lash, S. and Urry, J. �1987) The End of Organised
Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.
MacCannell, D. �1976) The Tourist:A New Theory of
the Leisure Class, New York: Schocken.
Turner, V. �1969) The Ritual Process, Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
escorted tour see guided tour
Espaces
TOM SELWYN, UK
Espaces publishes articles on planning and development,
leisure and recreation, and transportation
as far as incoming tourism is
concerned. This journal is aimed at the tourist
as well as the industry, and at national and
regional organisations and educational centres.
Apart from its regular sections, each issue deals
with specific topics determined in advance by an
editorial committee. The coverage is typically
related to France and articles appear in French
�but submission can be in English). First published
in 1970, the journal appears twelve times a year. It
is published by Editions Touristiques EuropeÂennes
�ISSN 0336±1446).
RENE BARETJE, FRANCE
Estudios y Perspectivas en
Turismo
Estudios y Perspectivas en Turismo is a Latin American
journal devoted primarily to research papers
focusing upon the academic perspective on tourism.
It publishes articles dealing with the various
aspects of the tourism phenomenon. The articles
are published in Spanish, with abstracts in both
Spanish and English. Submissions may be in