Backpackers have shifted from the margins of the travel industry into the global spotlight. This volume explores the international backpacker phenomenon, drawing together different disciplinary perspectives on its meaning, impact and significance. Links are drawn between theory and practice, setting backpacking in its wider social, cultural and economic context.

Backpackers have shifted from the margins of the travel industry into the global spotlight. This volume explores the international backpacker phenomenon, drawing together different disciplinary perspectives on its meaning, impact and significance. Links are drawn between theory and practice, setting backpacking in its wider social, cultural and economic context.

Thanks to the rise of neoliberalism over the past several decades, we live in an era of rampant anxiety, insecurity, and inequality. While neoliberalism has become somewhat of an academic buzzword in recent years, this book offers a rich and multilayered introduction to what is arguably the most pressing issue of our times. Engaging with prominent scholarship in media and cultural studies, as well as geography, sociology, economic history, and political theory, author Julie Wilson pushes against easy understandings of neoliberalism as market fundamentalism, rampant consumerism, and/or hyper-individualism. Instead, Wilson invites readers to interrogate neoliberalism in true cultural studies fashion, at once as history, theory, practice, policy, culture, identity, politics, and lived experience. Indeed, the book's primary aim is to introduce neoliberalism in all of its social complexity, so that readers can see how neoliberalism shapes their own lives, as well as our political horizons, and thereby start to imagine and build alternative worlds.

Destinations across the world are beginning to replace or supplement culture-led development strategies with creative development. This book critically analyzes the impact and effectiveness of creative strategies in tourism development and charts the emergence of 'creative tourism'. Why has 'creativity' become such an important aspect of development strategies and of tourism development in particular? Why is this happening now, apparently simultaneously, in so many destinations across the globe? What is the difference between cultural tourism and creative tourism? These are among the important questions this book answers. It critically examines the developing relationship between tourism and creativity, the articulation of the 'creative turn' in tourism, and the impact this has on theoretical perspectives and practical approaches to tourism development. A wide range of examples from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa explore the interface between tourism and creativity including: creative spaces and places such as cultural and creative clusters and ethnic precincts; the role of the creative industries and entrepreneurs in the creation of experiences; creativity and rural areas; the 'creative class' and tourism; lifestyle, creativity and tourism and marketing creative tourism destinations. The relationship between individual and collective forms of creativity and the widely differing forms of modern tourism are also discussed. In the concluding section of the book the contribution of creativity to tourism and to development strategies in general is assessed, and areas for future research are outlined. The diverse multidisciplinary contributions link theory and practice, and demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of creativity as a tourism development strategy and marketing tool. It is the first exploration of the relationship between tourism and creativity and its consequences for tourism development in different parts of the world.

Destinations across the world are beginning to replace or supplement culture-led development strategies with creative development. This book critically analyzes the impact and effectiveness of creative strategies in tourism development and charts the emergence of 'creative tourism'. Why has creativity become such an important aspect of development strategies and of tourism development in particular? Why is this happening now, apparently simultaneously, in so many destinations across the globe? What is the difference between cultural tourism and creative tourism? These are among the important questions this book answers.

It critically examines the developing relationship between tourism and creativity, the articulation of the creative turn in tourism, and the impact this has on theoretical perspectives and practical approaches to tourism development. A wide range of examples from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa explore the interface between tourism and creativity including: creative spaces and places such as cultural and creative clusters and ethnic precincts; the role of the creative industries and entrepreneurs in the creation of experiences; creativity and rural areas; the 'creative class' and tourism; lifestyle, creativity and tourism and marketing creative tourism destinations. The relationship between individual and collective forms of creativity and the widely differing forms of modern tourism are also discussed. In the concluding section of the book the contribution of creativity to tourism and to development strategies in general is assessed, and areas for future research are outlined.
The diverse multidisciplinary contributions link theory and practice, and demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of creativity as a tourism development strategy and marketing tool. It is the first exploration of the relationship between tourism and creativity and its consequences for tourism development in different parts of the world."

Thanks to the rise of neoliberalism over the past several decades, we live in an era of rampant anxiety, insecurity, and inequality. While neoliberalism has become somewhat of an academic buzzword in recent years, this book offers a rich and multilayered introduction to what is arguably the most pressing issue of our times. Engaging with prominent scholarship in media and cultural studies, as well as geography, sociology, economic history, and political theory, author Julie Wilson pushes against easy understandings of neoliberalism as market fundamentalism, rampant consumerism, and/or hyper-individualism. Instead, Wilson invites readers to interrogate neoliberalism in true cultural studies fashion, at once as history, theory, practice, policy, culture, identity, politics, and lived experience. Indeed, the book's primary aim is to introduce neoliberalism in all of its social complexity, so that readers can see how neoliberalism shapes their own lives, as well as our political horizons, and thereby start to imagine and build alternative worlds.

This volume examines and contrasts different perspectives on and approaches to the geography of tourism from across European regions and language traditions. Authors have critiqued the dominance of Anglo Saxon voices in research on tourism geographies - not just in linguistic terms - but also in relation to the framing and theorizing of space, place and tourism appearing largely based on Anglo-Saxon research contexts. This is a tendency observed across the whole spectrum of research in human geography. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, nine internationally renowned contributors from across Europe share their knowledge and experiences of research and scholarship in their respective regional contexts, plus an overview chapter is provided by C. Michael Hall, editor of the journal Tourism Geographies. This volume aims to: map out the past and present of the tourism geographies sub-discipline within - and more importantly - beyond the English language contributions learn from the historical trajectories as well as experiences of tourism geographers working in different cultural and linguistic contexts.