ABSTRACT
Over the past few decades urban tourism has been shaped by the emergence and diversification of visitor practices with a focus on urban day-to-day life. Widely referred to as new urban tourism, this trend transforms urban neighbourhoods and stretches well beyond the established tourist attractions in the city. In this chapter, we argue that tourists aim at experiencing places of Muße to escape from a stressful urban environment and demanding visitor activities, so that they may temporarily experience feelings of freedom and comfort. Such places include urban parks, cemeteries, churches, museums, restaurants, but also squares and streets. Focusing on Paris, we take a leading destination in European city tourism to study representations of places and practices of Muße within the field of new urban tourism. Based on a qualitative content analysis of three German-language travel guides (ADAC, Baedeker, Reise Know-How) and two selected travel blogs, we identify linguistically constructed Muße places and related visitor practices in Paris. In our analysis, we start with a map of the identified Muße places. Then, we point out particular characteristics of these places, and finally we discuss the dilemma of Muße places being shared by travellers and residents, with particular regard to the authenticity and fragility of such places in urban tourism.
