Seeing the Sites: Tourism as Perceptual Experience - Tourism and Visual Culture: Theories and Concepts - page 176

and accompanying text is associated with the
psychological notion of provoking a reaction in
terms of inner 'thoughts' and 'feelings', and the
construction of oneself as a tourist. In this way,
the inner/outer dualism is maintained as a per-
vasive discursive cultural common place, of the
need to experience being a tourist through see-
ing these sites. In each case, the construction of
'mind' as 'working on' what is seen in order to
constitute a tourist 'experience' is actively pur-
sued. Here the individual brings his or her mind
to bear upon the place that has been travelled
to, thus preserving intact the notion of the tour-
ist as primarily a psychological individual. The
constitution of this dualism through the use of
sightseeing is therefore a powerful and perva-
sive cultural feature, which is implicated in the
exportation of tourism as a perceptual experi-
ence. It is the visual experience that is taken as
provoking notions of a psychological 'reaction'.
In this sense, the reader of such tourist
guides and brochures literature is positioned as
'outside' of the experience and needing to be
'drawn in' to being active participant, to see it
with one's own eyes. Perhaps this is why these
guides literally guide tourism as a form of sight-
seeing; they position the reader as having to be
guided as to what to sites to go to and what to
see in order to have a certain kind of psycho-
logical experience.

when on-site that actually seeing things fully. It
is also the case that people take photographs
and images of themselves 'experiencing' being
a tourist at particular sites and of 'enjoying'
themselves. Here the focus is not on the place in
itself but of photographs of tourists as being
there. The socially constructed nature of tour-
ism, as having 'been there, seen it and done it'
effectively ensures its constitution as rooted in
the psychology of the individual. Close-up pho-
tographs of smiling faces again serve to main-
tain tourism as a means of personal enjoyment.
These photographs and video recorded
images are used back home to show to others or
to remember what was seen. They also in some
sense raise the visibility of the person as having
been a tourist by virtue of having seen these
sites/sights. In other words, people can point to
these photographs and images as markers of
their psychological experiences and enjoyment.
It is a means of recalling being in situ and of
having these experiences as a result that these
images are used as a social practice of remem-
bering and recounting.

Conclusion

The notion of these two separate realms that
interact and where there is a process of infl u-
ence going on between the two is therefore a
major rhetorical feature, which is incorporated
into the constitution of tourism as a visual
encounter. It provides a means of trading on
notions of 'understanding' as well as the por-
trayal of people's 'inner' mental states and pro-
cesses states as related to their actions. Popular
tourist literature presents a world of sightseeing
in order to provoke an 'inner' reaction of want-
ing to be there. And for whatever else 'seeing' is
in terms of requiring biological apparatus, it is
nonetheless a social practice in which 'percep-
tion' is claimed to be its outcome, that is, an
'inner' mental operation on what is 'seen'.
Tourism studies could well engage with
this examination of the ways in which an inner/
outer dichotomy is constituted as tourism. I
have briefl y outlined a few ways in which this
could be explored but a more thoroughgoing
project could be incorporated into this fi eld. For
example, tourist sites of natural beauty are

The Tourist Capturing the Image and
the Image of the Tourist

I now want to turn to how the tourist is made
visible through the very images captured when
on site. It would be unthinkable for most us to
be a tourist somewhere without a camera or
camcorder. People want to have their own photo-
graphs and images of the sites they have visited.
This desire to capture the image can be so
strong that, despite 'No Photography' signs at
certain sites (e.g. religious sites, palace interiors,
museums etc.) people will routinely ignore these
and attempt to photograph or video record
what they see. There is therefore a sense in
which being a tourist involves not only seeing
for oneself but also of capturing images. Indeed
as many tourists will know, it is often possible to
spend more time actually capturing these images