Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
for travel. Becken (2005) shows how Japanese tourists tend to travel long
distances around New Zealand during a week, to take in a variety of iconic
destinations.
There is also evidence that many people only conceptualize holiday travel
as car- or air-based (Verbeek and Mommaas, 2007). While such people are
aware of alternatives, it is not the norm to consider them for holiday travel
(Dickinson and Robbins, 2008; Lassen, 2009). Over time, such ideas become
pervasive and guide people's actions (Dickinson and Dickinson, 2006), regard-
less of whether they have experience of slow travel alternatives or their
feasibility for a given trip.
Given that a growing proportion of tourism is based on obligations to visit
people in particular places (Larsen et al, 2006), this may perpetuate air travel.
The World Tourism Organization (2008) categorize 26 per cent of interna-
tional arrivals as involving visiting friends and relatives, health, religion and
other; rather a broad categorization, but one that has showed sustained
growth since the 1980s. There are also issues related to the increasingly diverse
range of equipment carried by tourists. As part of a general commoditization
of leisure time, people increasingly own wetsuits, kayaks, surfboards and so
forth, which generally require a car to transport (Dickinson and Dickinson,
2006).
Randles and Manders (2009a) highlight the 'stickiness of practice', as con-
sumers are not free to choose (Spaargaren and van Vliet, 2000). Socially
embedded rules of tourism and the travel structures available currently limit
slow travel. Dickinson et al (2010a) therefore recommend policy actions to
enable structure change and focus industry attention on slow travel provision.
To this end, Verbeek and Mommaas (2007) recommend that the holiday prac-
tice should become the central unit of analysis.
The sociology of mobility
The notion of mobility as a means of ordering social relations has emerged in
recent years (Urry, 2000; 2002; 2007). This perspective, which integrates an
analysis of travel patterns with that of social networks, raises questions about
the potential to decrease mobility and the development of slow travel that will
be explored further. Much social science ignores the movement of people,
tending to focus on other economic, social or political factors that shape soci-
ety. At the same time, the study of transport has largely ignored the social
dimensions of travel, and there is 'little understanding of how travel patterns
are socially embedded and depend upon complex networks of family life,
work and friendship' (Larsen et al, 2006, p3). For instance, in his analysis,
Urry (2000, p57) describes the car as:
the predominant form of 'quasi-private'
mobility
which subor-
dinates other 'public' mobilities of walking, cycling, travelling
by rail and so on, and reorganises how people negotiate the
opportunities for, and constraints upon, work, family life,
leisure and pleasure.
