ABSTRACT
Interventional tourism can turn the practice of writing travel guidebooks into a political act. Rick Steves targets just such an audience for his Travel as a Political Act, an innovative guidebook that focuses not on a specific destination but on a specific way of travel. The chapter extends the work of scholars in diverse academic disciplines who have problematized travel guidebooks through various theoretical approaches but have offered few insights into how the genre can be rehabilitated in practice. Travel guidebook authors are duty-bound to acknowledge their subjectivity and to explicitly situate themselves for their readers. The chapter discusses the implementation of alternative rhetorical strategies in guides to Asian cities. These rhetorical strategies promote interventional tourism while simultaneously enhancing usability. Ultimately, chapter proposes that authors are ethically bound to integrate interventional tourism into their travel guidebooks. Such an approach can foster productive and equitable encounters in the contact zones of contemporary global tourism.
