ABSTRACT
Hunting batty bwoys1 is as instinctive as the craving for fry fi sh an bammy, a national dish. The mere sight of them can trigger the bedlam of a witch hunt. When the toaster rapper (Hammer) Mouth discovers two gay men in a garage-“hook up an ah kiss like . . . mangy dog,”— he hollers: Run dem outa di yard. Murder them, advises another toaster, kill them one by one. Murder dem till dem fi change dem plan (Noel, 1993, cited in Crichlow, 2004:197)
INTRODUCTION
Gay tourism can arguably be seen as an increasingly lucrative form of niche or ‘alternative’ tourism because of the growing economic wealth of the gay traveller and the increasing legitimisation of homosexuality, particularly within the developed world. The apparent importance of the gay consumer in the context of travel and tourism has been suggested by several authors such as Hughes (1997), Clift and Forrest (1999), and Alexander (2005), who note that travel and tourism are an integral part of Western gay culture and identity. However, against this background it is surprising that to date there has been a dearth of studies on homosexuality and tourism. The earliest writings on tourism and homosexuality emerged a little over a decade ago with works including that by Clift and Wilkins (1995), Holcomb and Luongo (1996), Hughes (1997), Clift and Forrest (1999), and Pritchard, Morgan, and Sedgely (1998). Undeniably, for researchers in tourism who seem to be already unwilling to address issues of sexuality and corporeality, the subject of homosexuality, even today, seems to present an added complexity and sensitivity. The lack of studies in this area might also lie in the diffi culties associated with defi nitions of homosexuality and consequently with identifying the gay traveller as a distinct market segment (Hughes, 2002).
