`Argued with a real verve, it makes a plea to rethink the role of tourism in modernity seeing it not as a fleeting and marginal element, but as something enduring, emblematic and constitutive of contemporary society. Tourism is seen as a key element of modern life, not an escape from it' - Mike Crang, Department of Geography, University of Durham </p>

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Tourism is a rapidly growing area of student enrolment. Lecturers and students who have waited patiently for an up-to-date, lucid and indispensable teaching and research text, need wait no more. This book is a matchless guide to understanding the theory, practice, development and effects of tourism. </p>

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Tourism: An Introduction: </p>

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- equips students with a critical perspective of the central processes of tourism and the relationship between tourism and culture</p>

- places tourism at the heart of modern life rather than as a peripheral feature added on after work</p>

- illuminates the relationship between tourism and nation formation, citizenship, consumerism and globalization</p>

- reveals the ritual, performative and embodied dimensions of tourist experience</p>

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This book offers readers a major synthesis of modern thought on tourism. It breaks the mould of approaching tourism as a self-contained, compartment of contemporary life and treats it as a major and exciting cultural phenomenon. This is a landmark work in the study of tourism.</p>

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Adrian Franklin is the editor of the acclaimed journal Tourist Studies (SAGE Publications).