Questioning Walking Tourism from a Phenomenological Perspective

Epistemological and Methodological Innovations

Bibliographic Data

ID20249355
AuthorsChiara Rabbiosi (0000-0002-2470-7962, University of Padua, corresponding author), Sabrina Meneghello (0000-0001-9176-1144, University of Padua)
Year2023
Volume12
Issue4
Pages65
Publication date2023-07-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHumanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/h12040065
OpenAlexW4384829585
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited49

This article aims to illuminate the overlooked entanglement of space, material practices, affects, and cognitive work emplaced in walking tourism. Walking as a tourism activity is generally practised in the open air away from crowded locations; therefore, it is being encouraged even more in this (post)pandemic era than prior to the pandemic. While walking is often represented as a relatively easy activity in common promotional discourse, this article argues that it is much more complex. It revises the notion of tourist place performance, focusing on walking both as a tourist practice and as a research method that questions multi-sensory and emotional walker engagement. While extensively revisiting literature on walking tourism and the most novel methodological innovations, the article draws from a walking tourism experience undertaken as part of a student trip to demonstrate that the emotions that arise from walkers’ embodied encounters with living, as well as inanimate elements, extend beyond what might be included in a simple focus on landscape “sights”. In conclusion, it is suggested that a phenomenological approach to walking may prove particularly useful for understanding key issues associated with space, place, and tourism mobilities

Aesthetics · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Geography · Sociology · Tourism · Computer Science · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Psychology · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management