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Title:
Gay tourism : culture and context
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Publication Information:
Binghamton, NY : Haworth Hospitality Press, 2006
ISBN:
9780789016027
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30000010127717 HQ75.25 W34 2006 Non Circulating Monograph Banned Book
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Summary

Summary

The gay tourism industry--a progressive social force or a pull towards an oppressive status quo?

The pink tourism dollar is now recognized as a highly profitable niche of the tourism market. Gay Tourism: Culture and Context critically investigates the emergence of a commercial gay tourism industry for male clients, the way it is organized, and how the tourism industry promotes cities, resorts, and nations as 'gay' destinations. This careful examination critically questions the social, political, and cultural implications regarding relationships between gay tourism, Western gay male culture, the erotic, sexual politics, and sexual diversity.

Gay Tourism: Culture and Context begins by detailing how travel often enabled the expression of Western same-sex male desire in the nineteenth century and then charts the
emergence of a Western gay tourism industry in the late twentieth century. A critical analysis is given of gay guidebooks and erotic videos that help to establish and maintain destinations as seemingly gay utopias, including Hawaii and the Greek island Mykonos. Carefull consideration
as to debates about how the gay tourism industry operates in the context of questions regarding the globalization of sexuality, sexual citizenship and place-marketing of (homo)sexualised cities. The text includes an extensive bibliography plus several photographs, charts, and figures to
clearly present concepts and ideas.

Topics in Gay Tourism: Culture and Context include:
the history of gay travel and tourism
the effect of HIV/AIDS on gay tourist destinations
gay travel writing sustaining same-sex fantasies about popular gay tourist destinations
analysis of the socio-political ramifications of gay tourism
the sexual politics of a heterosexual nation
gay tourists as an "invading force" of corruption
the economic rationale for the (homo)sexualized city
the concept of "gay villages"
the role of special events and festivals in gay tourism
and many more! Gay Tourism: Culture and Context is enlightening reading for tourism policymakers, tourism planners, tourism managers, and teachers and students in the fields of tourism studies, gay studies, social and cultural geography, and sociology.


Reviews 1

Choice Review

This first monograph focused on gay tourism aims to show how the phenomenon disrupts notions of gayness and ideas about tourism. An overarching objective--to place human sexuality in all its forms into tourism studies--may both account for the jargon and recondite diction and be an obstacle to the book's reaching that undergraduate audience the authors seek. Their material covers a great many matters: historical destinations and their scripts; promotions of gay paradises; narratives of gay-unfriendly destinations; explorations of sexualized spaces and cities; and a calendar of celebratory events and festivals. Authors Waitt (geography, Univ. of Wollongong, Australia) and Markwell (leisure and tourism, Univ. of Newcastle, Australia) even discuss gay pornographic DVDs to illustrate the making of gay paradises and fantasy destinations. But they neglect the many gay novels of similar allure and influence. Particularly informative is how cities (Miami, Sydney, Manchester) refashion themselves in a bid for pink dollars. Underscoring their subject's actual color and class and its Westernness, they stint neocolonial narratives (Bangkok) and working-class and non-white alternatives. The book seriously examines important issues in this emerging industry and experience. An excellent bibliography and grainy photos. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. P. K. Cline Earlham College