Rethinking Cultural Tourism

Book excerpt: This insightful book reappraises how traditional high culture attractions have been supplemented by popular culture events, contemporary creativity and everyday life through inventive styles of tourism. Greg Richards draws on over three decades of research to provide a new approach to the topic, combining practice and interaction ritual theories and developing a model of cultural tourism as a social practice. Taking readers on a concise journey from the 1900s to the present day, Rethinking Cultural Tourism examines the evolution of cultural tourism and the resulting consequences, analysing the dynamics of new practices and emerging trends. The book concludes by considering how technology is causing a shift in tourist behaviour and experiences to meet the ever-growing demand for new travelling experiences and discovering new places and cultures. This innovative, thought-provoking book is an essential read for researchers of cultural and creative tourism and social practices, as well as providing a useful review of the development of cultural tourism for scholars in related fields such as human geography.