Being a Tourist: Finding Meaning a Pleasure Travel

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Summary: Why Do Tourists Leave Home?
Review: Being a Tourist is unlike other works on tourism. It isn't about how tourists affect the places they visit, nor is it about how to market your products to tourists. It's about how travel affects the tourists themselves.

Why do people who don't need to leave the comfort of their homes, travel to places where the food is unfamiliar, the language is difficult, and the locals think you are odd? For many reasons, of course, including curiosity, status, and restlessness. Professor Harrison interviews several dozen Canadian travelers to find out why they go, where they go, what they do when they get there, what they bring back, and what they get out of the experience. She also discuses the difference between traveler and tourist, and sensibly decides there's no significant difference.

Being a Tourist is an academic work, but it is readable and interesting for a general reader, too, especially if you are a traveler. Or a tourist. Whatever.