ABSTRACT
Tourism theory and urban theory are still evolving on parallel trajectories. It is therefore urgent to consider together urban theory and tourism theory in order to attempt to understand how metropolises have become major tourism spaces and how the co-inhabiting between tourists and residents are full of controversies. Three issues are examined: first, tourism as legal, statistical or moral categories affects the ways the ‘regime of value’ of tourism is constructed. Specifically, the concept of urban tourism bears problems of coherence in the context of planetary urbanisation. Second, on which grounds can we oppose the tourist and the resident? Can we conceptualise both as mobile inhabitants of the city? Mobilising practice theory, l will develop a conceptual framework with ‘inhabiting’ as key concept where spatial competences and ‘spatial capital’ are emphasised. Third, the question of ‘inhabiting’ leads to the question of public space and the ‘right to the city’. I will discuss this notion stemming from urban theory and show how the presence of tourists challenges the question of the right to the city.
