ABSTRACT
Social life is intrinsically spatially contextualised. Where we live is fundamentally linked to the types of things we do as consumers. What we consume is intricately linked to social identity, ‘who we are’ (Miller, Jackson, Thrift, Holbrook, & Rowlands, 1998; MacKay, 1997). The spaces and places of home life impact upon the types of places chosen for leisure and tourism and the types of activity we choose to do ( Crouch, 2001). In postmodern conceptions of society, space becomes fragmented; boundaries, both physical and symbolic, become blurred; identity is ephemerally linked to place, and not rooted in notions of ‘home’, ‘family’ or ‘church’ ( Featherstone, 1991). Mobility and technology gains have brought the far away into the home environment and made home a commoditised, consumer ‘good’. Location, location, location are the bywords of fashion, taste, identity and status in the lifestylisation of home, and yet the places of tourist destinations are losing their recognisability as the arbiters of fashion. Cheap flights bring once-exclusive destinations within the reach of budget travellers ( Urry, 2002). The places in which we choose to make home are now often determined more by considerations of work, schools or aesthetic sensibilities than by family ties or historical associations. The spatial relations that characterise postmodern societies and their shifting, slipping meanings are as much determined by experiences of tourism places and preferences for particular types of landscape (such as the seaside or mountains) as much as traditional conceptions of home. Tourism places, ‘destinations’, ‘resorts’ or ‘holiday spots’ have become central to modern lives. The collective ability to name places visited as tourism destinations and describe experiences of them are a fundamental part of modern lives as consumers, and help shape identities. Yet individual's engagement in places is changing as societies like the United Kingdom move into the new Century. The fact that tourism is wrapped up with identity in a fairly critical way is not a new concept (cf. Cohen, 1972, 1974; Desforges, 2000; McCabe & Stokoe, 2004). It appears however, that old ideas about the tourist experience as ‘fleeting’, ‘spurious’, ‘ephemeral’ 92and ‘pastiche’ are changing as more and more people in society decide to take up semipermanent or permanent residency in another country. There are increasing numbers of people who are willing to give up homes and cultures in exchange for ‘a place in the sun’. This raises interesting questions that appear to contradict conventional notions of tourism/place/identity relations. In some spatial contexts it is becoming increasingly difficult to make clear and simple distinctions between tourists, long-term residents and migrants. Similarly in postmodern accounts, the cult of the individual is paramount. In the context of tourism, ordinary people contribute written articles to tourism brochures and feature in the wider media on TV shows dedicated to describing and representing places (destinations), giving accounts of their experiences — the individual it seems is more cogent an arbiter of taste than artists, professionals or conventional celebrities (cf. Dunn's chapter in the present volume). Therefore, modes and types of representations of touristic places are shifting as are touristic experiences themselves.
