Introduction: proximity and intraregional aspects of tourism

Abstract

Tourism research often tends to overlook both the mundane of the exotic and the exotic of the everyday. However, when acknowledging that exoticism is not necessarily linked to geographical distance, it is similarly possible to attribute touristic otherness to and experience unfamiliarity in a geographically proximate environment. This entails a need to rethink the intertwining relationships of meanings of the exotic and the mundane, as well as the ways people make meaning of their everyday environment through processes of territorialization and identification in a tourism context. Following this idea, these articles focus on the intraregional scale level and on the concept of proximity as a way of studying meanings and practices of tourism near home. In an attempt to strengthen the momentum of proximity tourism research, a double session (sponsored by the Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group) was organized during the Royal Geographical Society (RGS)-IBG (Institute of British Geographers) Annual International Conference which took place in September 2015 at the University of Exeter (UK). The sessions form the basis of this collection of articles, in which various aspects of proximity and intraregional tourism are discussed.