ABSTRACT
The online blog of the UK travel company Thompson Holidays includes an interactive map entitled ‘How Music Travels: The Evolution of Western Dance Music’ (Khan 2011). The map features styles of electronic dance music and draws on information from Wikipedia and other sources to show when and where these styles emerged and how they interacted and developed. The blog is headed by the following statement:
Music tourism (visiting a city or town to see a gig or festival) is on the rise. But why stop at gigs and festivals? Why not visit the birthplace of your favourite genre and follow the actual journey various music genres have taken as one style developed into another. (Khan 2011)
Comments posted on the blog show that the map prompted discussion and debate, but it also provided a marketing device for the company, which has specialized in package holidays to Ibiza and other Mediterranean locations targeted at young adults. The map suggests that music is a perfect example of a global ‘traveling culture’ (Cliff ord 1992), and that one of the UK’s leading travel companies has recognized the commercial appeal of mapping the fl ows, routes, and mobilities of popular music cultures, which is testament to the growing importance attached to music geographies and ‘musicscapes’,1 whether locally, nationally, or, as with the Thompson example, as a feature of global and transnational tourism mobilities.
