ABSTRACT
The location of history in a place is one basis to begin to analyse tourism, whether we are considering the confused attempts to deny historical significance in places of mass, or sun-based tourism, or the ‘commoditisation’ of cultural histories in so-called cultural tourism. The central question in this chapter is, thus, what do the presentations of histories to tourists tell us, both about the tourists and about those who are presenting the past to those tourists? Tourism in the Cantal, in the mountains of central France, is not mass tourism as seen on the South Coast beaches. Tourists are assumed to require, and are thus offered, explicit labelling and framing of events and performances by signs and symbols of authenticity, such as the ‘Auvergnat’ costumes and local music played on ‘authentic’ instruments, as an array of signifiers of ‘Auvergnat-ness’.
