ABSTRACT
All tourism students have experienced that moment – at a dinner party, or the first day of a course – when we announce that we study tourism, only to have others smirk and make comments like, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ The implication is that studying tourism is easy. My research in Japanese hot springs villages (onsen) brings even more misunderstanding. ‘Wow, that must be really rough!’ Friends joke about me soaking in baths, towel wrapped around my head and a scuba diver’s pen in hand, interviewing whoever happens to be nearby. There is a sense of decadence to such research, and especially for colleagues who study the Greenland ice sheets or villages in the Andean highlands, there is envy of the field site’s accessibility.
