ABSTRACT
This book considers leisure/tourism as an encounter. That encounter occurs between several things. It occurs between people, between people and space, amongst people as socialised and embodied subjects, and in contexts in which leisure/tourism is available. The encounter is also between expectations and experience, desire, and so on. This chapter introduces these themes. In their own way each chapter explores different ways in which people make leisure/tourism. Thus aspects of the encounter are actively contextualised and practised by active human subjects. People as human beings (rather than, say, consumers) enjoying leisure/tourism are the subject of this book. Leisure/tourism is a process rather than a product, although it is frequently abstracted as the latter. Knowledge in leisure/tourism is also a matter of process, being worked, refigured, in flows rather than fixed in time-space. As a practice leisure/tourism involves complex human and social engagements, relations and negotiations and it is therefore appropriate to write in terms of ‘practice’. Of course, leisure/tourism may not become enjoyment and instead may be marked by a frustrated hope or mirage and negative memory. Space is important in each of its aspects.
