To see or to experience - that is the question. Tourist Gaze as motivation for travel.

Why do people travel? What is the driving force behind their decision to choose one place over another? Over centuries the reasons for travelling have been changing, but usually revolving around travelling for culture and pleasure purposes Nowadays, the most common categorization is 'business' and 'pleasure'. A theory called the Tourist Gaze says that the motivation that makes people leave their normal places of work and residence for short periods of time is to gaze upon and experience different scenes, landscapes or landmarks which are out of the ordinary. This paper sets out to explore the concept of the tourism gaze in more detail by looking at the historical development of travel and tourism. Also, different approaches will be looked at including the 'places one must see, and the ongoing discussion tourist vs. traveller.

Travelling to explore and learn about other cultures is not a new phenomenon. Medieval times saw the religious pilgrimages as a reason for visiting remote places of worship. "Grand Tours" in the 17th century were embarked upon by young aristocrats for educational purposes. However, it was not until 1840s when travel became available for the wider population. It was due to middle class being wealthy enough to travel for pleasure. The technological advancements in the 20th century caused an extensive growth in travel, which became part of nearly everybody's yearly life cycle.

The tourist gaze is directed to features of landscape and landmarks that are unlike the ones that one can witness in one's everyday surroundings. When a tourist sees a small village in England he associates the gaze with 'real olde England'. In any historic period it has been constructed as a contrast to its opposition, the non-tourism forms of social experience and consciousness. Over the years the tourist gaze has been questioned concerning its authenticity. Consider, for example, the Hula dance, which originated as a religious performance at the platform temple and now is performed on stages for tourists.

As for tourist attractions they have been defined as an empirical relationship between a tourist, a sight and a marker (piece of information about a sight). Markers come in a variety of forms; i.e. guidebooks, slide shows, souvenir matchbooks, photographs, etc. Sights that attract tourist are the well-marked ones and include mountain ranges, the Mona Lisa painting or even entire nation-states like the Vatican.

Tourists chose the places to gaze upon on the basis of anticipation of intense pleasure involving different senses than those normally encountered. The choice can also be made on the base of wanting to see a live event, scheduled to take place at a particular moment. The gaze and tourism itself is also often about the body-as-seen, for example the Hula dance. In simple terms, travel is motivated by the need of co-presence that involves seeing or touching or hearing or smelling or tasting a particular place.

In modern tourism sightseeing has its own moral structure which is a collective sense that certain sights must be seen. If one goes to London, one 'must see' Big Ben; if one goes to Rome, one 'must see' the Colosseum; if one goes to Paris, one 'must see' the Louvre, etc. The 'must see' approach brings on the subject of the 'sight sacralization' process, which involves a site 'going' through five different stages; naming, framing and elevation, enshrinement, mechanical reproduction, social reproduction.

However, both the sight sacralisation and the 'must see' approach have been questioned, with most criticism falling on to the latter. The ongoing discussion about the tourist vs. traveller is only spurred on by the 'must see' attitude. A Tourist, as oppose to a traveller, will not spent too long on marvelling at a beautiful landscape simply because he needs to run to see X, Y and Z. Nowadays most people go to Paris just to see the Eiffel Tower, very often not realizing there are dozens of other remarkable places worth visiting merely because they did not devote the time to do some research. They go to see it only because it is in Paris and it is famous for being famous.

Looking at the tourist vs. traveller debate which is driven by the 'must see' approach brings the question, is it the tourist gaze experience still true? . People should learn about the places they are going to and once there get local and not rush. However, if the tourist gaze is constructed as an opposition to the non-tourist experience maybe we have to be tourists not travellers. The lifestyle is much faster than a century ago leaving less time for appreciation and experiencing things. The answer is difficult and quite possibly will be delivered in the future when looking back and making a judgement will be more appropriate.


Urry, J. (2002): The Tourist Gaze, 2nd Edition, London: Sage
MacCannell, D. (1999) The Tourist. London: California Press.
Kendle, A. (2006) 4 Ways to be a traveller, not a tourist [online]. http://www.vagabondish.com/4-ways-to-be-a-traveler-not-a-tourist/

I chose this paper as I was intrigued to see what someone else had to say about the tourist gaze after researching upon it for my paper. There is a substantial amount of examples which makes your information more significant and interesting for readers. A fault however is the absence of academic literature labelled throughout the text. I could however tell in certain places where you used key authors such as McCannel & Urry from my own secondary research on the tourist gaze, and how you noted your references at the end.

I found it an interesting paper, which is easy to read due to the noticeable introduction and conclusion. You cover aspects of how the tourist gaze works, without losing focus of the paper. I like the structure and how you mention a history of how travelling to see things isn't a recent phenomenon, why people want to gaze, tourists lack of appreciation for the gaze, and different forms of gazing. It would however of also been interesting to read a segment on the future of the gaze, to see your opinions on whether the tourist gaze as a motivator for travel will ever weaken, or whether the anticipation of intense pleasure through the tourist gaze will always be required (Urry 2002).

Your argument of whether the tourist gaze is about 'seeing' or 'experiencing' is something that in my opinion in today's society is more understood as 'seeing' is 'experiencing', and therefore not a separate context. This is because tourists are more interested in the quantity of attractions than quality of attractions which can be seen as a problem for tourism interest. Also as you highlighted yourself 'lifestyle is much faster than a century ago leaving less time for appreciation and experiencing', so this 'experiencing' is now just done by 'seeing'. Society want to be able to say they have seen certain things, without technically experiencing things. As you so rightly put it, tourists would rather 'run to see X Y and Z', without spending hours gazing upon one single attraction. Basically now we like to tick things off one by one as we have seen them. Tourism is all about having the memories and photographs to share with others after the 'experience' (Perkins & Thorns 2001). These memories of certain gazes, are something that you'll never forget (Osbourne 2000). It makes individuals look good amongst others when they say how they have seen a sum of these attractions because they are so iconic.

You mentioned how tourists want to see and experience different things due to different tourist gazes, i.e. the photographic gaze in terms of Mona Lisa, and covered how certain attractions are must 'see's', but could of also highlighted how attractions can be visited because the romantic gaze. It is referred to as romantic to see the Eiffel Tower with a partner, and therefore couples go to experience the romance over the actual attraction. (Urry 2002).

To conclude, this is an interesting paper, which shows that you have successfully investigated and gathered relevant information regarding the Tourist Gaze. It covers the chosen topic well, and has give me a greater understanding of the topic. However I believe the above issues I raised could of made your paper that slightly more creditable.


References

Osbourne, P, D (2000) Travelling light: photography, travel & visual culture, Manchester: University Press

Perkins, C, H., Thorns, C, D (2001) Gazing or Performing: Reflections on Urry's Tourist Gaze in the Context of Contemporary Experience in the Antipodes, International Sociology, Vol 16 (2) 185-204

Urry, J (2002) The Tourist Gaze, 2nd edition, SAGE Publications: London

I want to comment on this particular conferences paper because it is a very interesting topic and relates to some extent to my dissertation 'Using all five senses in Tourism - Multi-Sensory Marketing as a new strategic way of strengthening your brand?' Senses in tourism are often underestimated, bearing in mind what great influence they can have on a tourist experience.

I really do like the structure of your paper due to the fact that it is easy to follow and clearly arranged. You gave some background information and then narrowed the topic down to your main focus. Moreover, emphasizing your arguments with several examples made your thoughts even more understandable and interesting. In the end there was also a critical approach to the topic which makes the reader think and even more likely to read the full conference paper.

In the past years, tourists 'were looking for new experiences' (Urry, 1990, cited in Munt, 1994, p. 102) which was supported by your argument that tourists chose the places to gaze upon on the basis of anticipation of intense pleasure involving different senses than those normally encountered. As you were writing about the 'must sees' in different destinations, it is argued by several authors like Adler, 1989; Urry, 1990; Macnaghten and Urry, 1998; Rojek, 1995; Crawshaw and Urry, 1997 (cited in Franklin, 2003, p. 83) that the visual sense is the most often utilized sense when considering tourism. However, Pan and Ryan (2009, p. 628) believe 'that the tourist experience is multisensory and involves more than just the visual' which was mentioned in one of your paragraphs as well.

To some extent I want to take Emma's thoughts into consideration. I agree that 'seeing' is 'experiencing'. However, I would not agree with the statement that 'experiencing is now just done by seeing' because even though the sight sense seems to be the most influencing one, other senses, especially the smell sense, seem to have an impact on the tourist as well, no matter if it is consciously or unconsciously. Lindstrom (2005, p. 87) points out that 80 per cent of men and 90 per cent of women can connect memories with a particular smell. People will remember different senses, even though they are gazing from one attraction to another, because senses are directly connected to our memory. Another thought could be that even an atmosphere is one type of experiencing a sight (Franklin, 2003, p.88), which cannot be captured in a photograph. Let us therefore take the example of the Eiffel Tower, which was described as a romantic gaze. I would say, it depends on the tourist how much 'input' he or she gets from a short gaze around an attraction. However, photographs still seem to be most important memories when sharing certain gazes, as you mentioned Emma.

All in all, the paper was really interesting to read and leaves scope to put thinking further as it was seen in the comment. The topic itself is very broad and I think, you did a really good job to stick to the main points.

Franklin, A. (2003) Tourism An introduction. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Lindstrom, M. (2005) Broad sensory branding, Journal of Product and Brand Management, 14 (2), pp. 84-87.

Munt, I. (1994) The 'Other' Postmodern Tourism: Culture, Travel and the New Middle Classes. Culture & Society, 11, pp. 101-123.

Pan, S., Ryan, C. (2009) Tourism Sense-Marketing: The role of the senses and travel journalism. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 26, pp. 625-639.