Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tourists to share places with other tourists and create seasonal patterns through their
recommendations.
These features are particularly strong in nature-based forms of special interest tourism. A
diver visiting Palau is likely to choose the best diving season and one of the main dive opera-
tors. He looks for the respect and company of fellow divers, possibly spending his entire vaca-
tion in the seclusion of a 'liveaboard', anchored on an isolated reef, with up to fi ve daily dives.
The underwater world is immensely interesting and completely satisfactory in combination
with the all-inclusive boat accommodation. There is no motivation to leave this specifi c
metaspace or to meet any other people, who do not, after all, understand what diving really
is. The enclave has it all, even in terms of social interaction.
Tourism metaspaces: some conclusions
Understanding the psychology of short-term cross-cultural transitions and their metaspatial
dimensions may have therapeutic value for tourists with feelings of inferiority after a failure
to make an in-depth contact with the culture visited. It is probably best to accept that a tour ist
abroad is seldom genuinely able to meet the Other , because there are always external and
internal limitations. In the limited time available, it may be more rewarding to look for
'domesticated difference' in tourist metaspaces, where positive outcomes tend to be more
immediate. As a result, a tourist remains in a state of suspension, catching the taste of the
Other now and then but not satisfying their hunger. They therefore must continue their
search, becoming one of the millions of 'serial travellers' who congregate in the airports,
harbours and train stations of the world.
The research literature on tourism, sojourning and immigration are largely intercon-
nected in the question of exposure to Other spaces (see Duncan, Chapter 14 a nd Casado-Diaz,
Chapter 15 in this volume). Tourists, sojourners and immigrants each have their metaspatial
enclaves and organised meeting grounds for encountering local people and they utilise these
structures to establish a cultural comfort zone in their new environment. The umbrella theme
is human social interaction and its organisation in space and place: an aspect with close links
to the discourse of social psychology. As Lorraine Brown (2009) describes in the context of
the international student experience, tourism and sojourning studies have each benefi ted
from theoretical developments in their neighbouring fi elds. For example, intercultural adap-
tation studies in tourism hold a signifi cant part of their basis in sojourner studies. Conversely,
new insights of metaspace, control and behaviour in tourism have been adopted in sojourner
studies and social psychology (e.g. Janes, 2008; Sobre-Denton and Hart, 2008; van 't Klooster
et al. , 2008). This is fertile ground to build on.
The understanding of tourist spaces as functional metaspaces via the interplay of action and
structure opens a new comprehensive framework for analysis in spatially oriented and place-
based studies of tourism. The theory of metaspatiality provides a bridge to connect many of
the themes in classical theories of tourism (Hottola, 2008). For the moment, its potential has
barely been touched upon. A number of case studies in different locations and situations
would be needed to widen the understanding of variation of the metaspatial processes, espe-
cially in the context of tourist enclaves, and to test the current theoretical grounding. As
Wilson and Richards (2008: 24-5) point out, the locus of control may shift between the
various social entities taking part in the process of an enclave's spatial and demographic evolu-
tion. In the beginning, a more holistic approach was necessary to open the road for enquiry.
During the next stage, it is time to map the diversity involved and the subsequent implications
for the places and spaces being visited.
 
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