Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
The Emergence of Slow Travel
Our treatise is a simple one. From its roots in the slow food movement of the
1980s, with concern for locality, ecology and quality of life, slow travel has
gained momentum over the past decade. It will continue to grow as the need
to reduce our carbon footprint becomes central to our lifestyles. Characterized
by shorter distances, low-carbon consumption and a greater emphasis on the
travel experience, slow travel heralds a fundamentally different approach to
tourism. We contend that it will become more widespread in future decades.
The aim of this topic is to define slow travel and to discuss how some of its
underlying values are likely to pervade new forms of sustainable tourism
development. The topic also aims to provide insights into the travel experi-
ence; these are explored in several chapters that bring new knowledge about
sustainable tourism transport from across the world.
In recent years slow travel has emerged as a topic of discussion in a
number of academic, tourism sector and media contexts. In academia, slow
travel, and associated terms such as slow tourism, slow mobility and soft
mobility, have increasingly been associated with low-carbon travel (Hall,
2007a). For example, Matos-Wasem (cited in Ceron and Dubois, 2007) refers
to 'le tourisme lent', and Dubois and Ceron (2006a) have referred to rail
tourism as 'slow tourism'. Dickinson et al (2010a) have defined slow travel as
follows:
Slow travel is an emerging conceptual framework which offers
an alternative to air and car travel, where people travel to des-
tinations more slowly overland, stay longer and travel less.
The idea also encompasses more experiential elements such as:
the importance of the travel experience to, and within, a desti-
nation, engagement with the mode(s) of transport, associations
