Document Type

Book Chapter

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

Cultural and economic geography

Publication Details

pp. 61 – 82, in, O’Connor, B. and Cronin, M. (eds), Irish Tourism: Image, Culture and Identity, Cork University Press, Cork.

Abstract

In the contemporary era local places seem exposed to more and faster change than ever before. The difference between places seems to be diminishing and debates as to whether ‘cultural homogenisation’ or ‘reconstituted difference’ best describes the changes affecting place feature prominently in recent social science and humanities literatures. Local places are linked to regional, national and supra-national spheres through multiple connections. Tourism is one important globalising force, linking places into the wider world and influencing the changing meanings of place. This chapter is broadly concerned with examining how tourism is implicated in changing the meanings of place. The type of tourism places selected for enquiry is arts festivals turned tourist attractions. The arguments draw on doctoral research conducted into the Wexford Festival Opera and the Galway Arts Festival. It construes tourism places as phenomena forged through local – extra-local interactions, explores the complicated roles played by both place-based actors and tourists, and analyses the tourism places ultimately reproduced.


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