ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on travellers/tourists and their narratives, covering a range of different places. It also considers specific narratives of places in travel and tourism. Many researchers have studied travel writing', thus contributing to the development of a considerable body of knowledge about this particular element of tourism and travel narratives. Existing research has indicated that narratives of travel and tourism are not only an essential ingredient in the construction of personal, collective and place identities but are also important in the process of contemplating, experiencing, remembering and disseminating travel and tourism experiences, both factual and fictional. Paul Cleave and Pamela Richardson cover a broad spectrum of travel and tourism experience, from a pre-Second World War Grand Tour' of Asia and North America to a wartime holiday visiting friends in Devon, south-west England.
