Imagining Tourists and Tourism Conference Paris

Imagining Tourists and Tourism Conference - Paris 19-21 June 2024

Aims of the Conference

The conference aims to explore the links between tourism and fiction, and more precisely to consider tourism and tourists as fictions. It is part of a series of conferences organized since 2011 by researchers from the Universities of Geneva, Panthéon-Sorbonne and Berkeley to explore the links between tourism and the imaginary. The first four meetings had evoked how tourism mobilized imaginaries specific to destination countries, their landscapes, their cultures and their inhabitants. The fifth conference will focus on the imaginary that applies to tourists themselves.

Imaginary tourists

We will examine how the various actors of tourism, as well as the places and practices of tourism, appear in works of fiction. Literature, cinema, theater, song, advertising, etc., stage tourist configurations, which are sometimes at the very heart of these fictions. Fictional tourists include those invented by the inhabitants of the destination countries, the actors of tourism, but also the tourists themselves. Stereotypes, fantasies and preconceived ideas contribute to drawing up portraits of tourists who, although imaginary, are actors in the tourism process. We will also ask the question of how researchers, particularly in tourism studies, imagine tourism and tourists. How is tourism represented? Do these representations have consequences on tourism practices?

Imagining tourists

We propose to analyse forms of tourism that proceed from the imaginary in the sense that they involve tourists traveling in their minds, as armchair tourists. We are thinking of the very recent forms of virtual tourism, but also of older devices which, through text (novels or travelogues), maps, images or complex scenographic forms (panoramas), allow travel without actually going to the destination. How does this imaginary tourism work? What are its connections with actual tourist practices?

Tourists and imagination

We intend to consider how, why and to what extent tourists can engage in fiction, playing certain roles or characters (cosplay), telling stories, imagining situations, dressing up as a native, getting into the skin of locals, taking on a role proposed by a place of visit or accommodation (such as staying in hotel which is a former prison), etc. Tourists sometimes have to pretend, and mobilize the tools and contents of fiction to achieve their experience, like visitors to theme parks who emotionally embrace the heroes of their favorite cartoons. More generally, tourists have to suspend their disbelief and engage in fiction whenever they are confronted with staged authenticity. Thinking in terms of contents tourism engages one to pay more attention to the creativity of tourists and to the content of the narrative worlds they refer to (rather than on the media, as with film induced tourism, for example).

Imagining Tourism and Tourists

Fiction, practices and representations

19-21 June 2024, Paris, France

PROGRAMME

Wednesday, June 19^th, 2024

Fondation Hellénique, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, 47 B Bd Jourdan, Paris

 17:00 OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE

17:15 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Nelson Graburn, Maria Gravari-Barbas, Jean-François Staszak

18:00 Florian Freitag, University of Duisburg-Essen

Dreaming of Disneyland: Theme Park Paratexts and 'Virtual' Tourism

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Thursday, June 20, 2024

Institut National d’Art et d’Histoire, 2 rue Vivienne 75002 Paris.

9:00 - 13:00 TWO PARALLEL SESSIONS 

Session 1 : Tourism, place identity and memory: how tourism helps build place identity (Room Demargne, INHA)

Between trauma and Trabant: Inventions, inceptions, and imaginaries of heritage tourism in post-socialist city

Jovana Janinovic (Université du Montenegro)

When Spring meets the unbearable: an auto-ethnography of a non-Jewish visitor to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Plaszow in the shadow of Resnais’ Nuit et Brouillard and of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List

Paula Mota Santos (Universidade Fernando Pessoa, Porto /

Universidade de Lisboa)

Tourists' imaginaries in Japan's wine tourism

Chuanfei Wang (Hosei University in Tokyo)

Eric Rohmer ou l’art des habiters touristiques

Olivier Lazzarotti (Université de Picardie-Jules-Verne)

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Session 2 : Tourism in cinematic fiction (Room Grodecki, INHA)

Du touriste a l’habitant : mission impossible. Representations audiovisuelles d’un touriste malgre lui dans la serie Almost Paradise.

Marie-Hélène Chevrier (Institut Catholique de Paris), Chloé Huvet (Université Evry Paris-Saclay)

“Reenacting, Remixing, and Speaking Back to the K-Wave from Below: Northbound Media Tourism in Thai Destination Cinema”

Brian Bernards (University of Southern California)

The Representation of Residents and Visitors of the Island in Euro-American Cinema

Emiel Martens (Utrecht University, Netherlands)

COFFEE BREAK from 10:30 a.m. 11:00 a.m. in salle du Chirac, Galerie Colbert, 1er étage

Imaginations of Tourism, Art, and Politics in the Matsu Islands

Chris Cristóbal Chan (University of California, Berkeley)

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Session 1 continued after the break: Tourism, place identity and memory: how tourism helps build place identity (in Room Demargne, INHA)

Imagining Millbay Residency: A meta-fiction and narrative story using dialogue journaling.

Clarisse Chicot-Feindouno (Plymouth Hope Learning Project. Plymouth UK); Charles Mansfield (Principal UK Management College), Manchester; Mark Stothard (Visual Practitioner and Researcher)

Spectacle of lanweilou (unfinished project), Affective Tourism, and Mediated Mobility: The Case of Dushan in Post-Pandemic China

Chloe Wenxian Zhang (University of Southern California)

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Session 2  continued: Tourism in cinematic fiction (in Room Grodecki, INHA)

The Indian Tourist Comes to Spain: Imaginary, Representation and Values in Movies

Rosanna Mestre Pérez &Maria C. Puche-Ruiz (Univ.Valencia /Sevilla)

Super-rich in The White Lotus: privileges, elitism and eccentricity in fictional representation

Jarlene Reis (Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Fonseca)

Jacques Tati et la mise en tourisme des lieux, le cas de Playtime et du personnage de Barbara (1967)

Bastien Ruaux, (Université de Caen)

Playing Princess in NOLA: Fictions, Fandom, and Race in [Disney’s] New Orleans

Diana Van Gilder (Lawrence University)

Cynthia Van Gilder (Saint Mary’s College of California)

13:00 - 15:00 Lunch, INHA restaurant

Imagining Tourism and Tourists, 2024

15:00 KEYNOTE

Sylvain Venayre, Professeur d'histoire contemporaine à l'Université Grenoble-Alpes

Comment penser ensemble tourisme et fiction ? T’en fais pas, mon p’tit loup (Salle Demargne, INHA)

16:00 Virginie Martin, commissaire de l’expo « Les Orientalistes » Atelier des Lumières

16:30 – 18:30 TWO PARALLEL SESSIONS

Session 3 Virtual tourism today and yesterday: Forms, reasons and characteristics (Room Demargne, INHA)

Vues stereoscopiques et tourisme virtuel

Jean-François Staszak (Université de Genève)

Redefinir les ancrages spatio-temporels de l’experience : le tourisme a distance entre imaginaire et realite

Aurélie Condevaux (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Picturing the World: Sekai ryokō bankoku meisho zue as Armchair Globetrotting in Nineteenth-Century Japan

Sonia Favi (University of Turin, Italy)

Let's Play: Digital Gaming as Tourism Practice

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Session 4 Using fiction and imagination to build tourist attractions in Room Grodecki, INHA

Dana R. Herera (Saint Mary’s College, California); Olivia Brophy (University of British Columbia)

Les parcs Disneyland face au defi de la supra-fiction

Steven Damerval (Université Sorbonne Paris, Université du Québec à Montréal)

The effect of storytelling on guest’s experience in boutique hotels

Kiana Dehdashti & Fatemeh Yavarigohar (Allameh Tabataba'i University-Tehran)

Colombia magical realism: an imagined destination.

Edna Rozo (Universidad Externado de Colombia)

Imagining and performing “the kingdom of Elfia”: cosplay at a heritage site.

Ilja Simons (Breda University of Applied Sciences)

Friday, June 21st, 2024

9:00 – 10:45 TWO PARALLEL SESSIONS

Session 3 Virtual tourism today and yesterday: Forms, reasons and characteristics

(ctd) (Room Demargne, INHA)

Perceived restorative quality and well-being of IMAX Dome visitors: The comparison during and after the pandemic. 

Yi-Ju Lee (National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan)

Actualiser le passe. Voyage virtuel dans la prehistoire et experience du temps, l’exemple du site touristique de Lascaux IV et de la vallee de la Vezere.

Nicolas Leresche (Université de Genève)

Experience and interaction: immersive performances and tourists' behaviour intentions in cultural tourism projects

Wu Xian (Shangai Theatre Academy)

Session 4 Using fiction and imagination to build tourist attractions (ctd) (Room Grodecki, INHA)

The Cabarets of Pigalle and Montmartre: Questioning The Place of the Tourist Imaginary in the Process of Heritigization

Allison Strickland, PhD Candidate (EIREST, University of Paris 1, Pantheon- Sorbonne)

Kitchen counter tourism: experiencing the monastic world through cooking

Marie Launay Smirnov (SOAS, University of London)

Immersive Imaginations: Exploring Tianjin's Historic Concessions with “Time travelling” experiences.

Maria Gravari-Barbas, Chensi Shen, Yue Lu (University of Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne)

Le reve eveille des lecteur.trice.s de blogs voyage : Les moyens langagiers et semiotiques d’une immersion temporelle et spatiale.

Eugénie Pereira Couttolenc (Université de Genève)

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COFFEE BREAK from 10:45 a.m. 11:15 a.m.

salle du Chirac, Galerie Colbert, 1er étage

Session 5 Tourism in literary fiction in (Room Demargne, INHA)

India as Imaginary Homeland: The Travelling Imagination of Western Tourists in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Travellers (1973). Nadia Butt (Frankfurt Universität)

Sight-Seeing the Columbian Exposition: Imaginary Tourists in Tudor Jenks’ The Century World’s Fair and Clara Louise Burnham’s Sweet Clover. Nilak Datta (BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus)

From reader to tourist in the city of Salvador: the novel Dona Flora and her Two Husbands and its today resonances Juliana Santos Menezes (Universidade Nova de Lisboa & the Instituto Federal da Bahia)

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Session 6 Tourism's contribution to the construction of imaginary representations of self and otherness (in Room Grodecki, INHA)

Deux petits touristes en Algerie (1888) – fictional tourists and colonial tourist imaginary

Camila Dazzi Federal Center for Technological Education of Rio de Janeiro Federal University of Ouro Preto

The German touristic patterns documented in travelogues and works of fiction

Alina Dittmann (University of Applied Science in Nysa, Poland)

Touristes francais en Espagne: imaginaires, portraits en creux et touristophobie precoce dans les guides et recits de voyage 

Ivanne Galant (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Pléiade)

Imagined Cities: Fiction and Sightseeing Practices of US Tourists in Western Europe during the Cold War

Aimée Plukker (Cornell University, Ithaca NY)

13:00 - 14:30 Lunch, INHA restaurant

14:30 – 16:15 TWO PARALLEL SESSIONS

Session 5 (ctd) (Room Demargne, INHA) 

Faire le tour du Monde d’un trait de plume : tourisme et fiction dans les premiers recits de globe-trotters.

Laura Saysanavongphet (Université de Genève)

Y a-t-il des touristes dans les Voyages extraordinaires de Jules Verne ?

Marie-Françoise Melmoux-Montaubin (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)

Reading Paradise: Imagining Tourism in Postcolonial Hawaiian Literature

Cynthia L. Van Gilder (Saint Mary’s College of California)

Inviter a visiter les lieux de la fiction: Le lecteur-touriste dans Le Comte de Monte-Cristo de Dumas, Madame Bovary de Flaubert, L’Aguille creuse de Leblanc

Marie-Clémence Régnier (Université d’Artois)

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Session 6 (ctd) (Room Grodecki, INHA)

Eating Indigenousness: Consuming and Imagining Indigenous Foods & Foodways as Slow Food Tourism Practices in East Coast Taiwan. Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh (National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan)

Reproduced Pasts: Tourism Imaginaries of Chinese Heritage at the Orchid Pavilion. Yujie Zhu (Australian National University)

La construction imaginaire de la ≪ figure ≫ du touriste moderne : recits de voyage des premiers ≪ touristes Cook ≫ en Palestine (fin du XIXe siecle – debut du XXe siecle). François Jeandillou (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, EIREST)

16.15—17.00 DISCUSSION AND CLOSING REMARKS

Nelson Graburn, Maria Gravari-Barbas, Jean-François Staszak

17:00 END OF THE CONFERENCE

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18:00 Visit of the exhibition “The Orientalists”  38 rue Saint-Maur 5008 Paris

Imagining Tourism and Tourists, 2024

SATURDAY, June 22th, 2024
POST-CONFERENCE EXCURSIONS

Guided Visits of Paris

Two options are offered for the morning visit 10h00-12h00

Meet at Place de la Contrescarpe (5th arrondissement)

Option 1 : Emily in Paris Tour

Emily in Paris, the Golden Globe-nominated series, is now for real! Come and discover Paris with the eyes and in the footsteps of Emily Cooper, the young American fascinated with the French capital. We will walk through the cult places of the series, from the charming Place de l’Estrapade, in the famous Latin Quarter where the tiny “chambre de bonne” of Emily is located, to the gardens of the Palais Royal, making a stop at her marketing agency’s address.

Each step of this initiatory journey will allow us to revisit the great moments of the scenes lived by Emily: her office at the social media agency Savoir, the famous “Pâtisserie Moderne” where she buys everyday her "Pain au chocolat”, the restaurant of the handsome Gabriel and so on. The itinerary is a remarkable best of architectural gems in the heart of

Paris. (Meet at Place de la Contrescarpe, 5th arrondissement)

Option 2 : The image of Paris as seen in literature and American films

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” (Ernest Hemingway)

Many American artists came to stay permanently in Paris in the 20th century, more particularly after the two world wars and in the 1960s. Fleeing prohibition or racism, attracted by the favourable exchange rate, they sought the spirit of freedom which reigned in the capital at that time, the Parisian way of life imbued with the memory of poets (Verlaine) and impressionist painters. This temporary diaspora included many writers (Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzerald, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Allan Ginsberg, William Burrough...) but also dancers (Isadora Duncan, Joséphine Baker), photographers (Man Ray, Robert Capa ), musicians (Sidney Bechet, George Gerschwin)…Paris was and is still the setting of famous movies like "An American in Paris” (directed by Vincente Minelli with the soundtrack of George Gerswhin), “The devil wears Prada” (starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt), or “Midnight in Paris” (directed by Woody Allen). This tour will lead you on the footsteps of so many American artists, that came to seek refuge or inspiration.

12h00-15h00: LUNCH IN A PARISIAN RESTAURANT

15h00-18h00: A guided visit of Pigalle: Representations of Pigalle, from fiction to reality  By Allison Strickland (EIREST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Imagining Tourism and Tourists, 2024

Meet at Place Blanche

As we traverse through the streets of this storied neighborhood, we'll explore its portrayal in literature, film, and art, delving into the dichotomy between its romanticized depictions and the gritty realities of its reputation as a hub of sensuality and vice. Pigalle's allure has long fascinated writers, filmmakers, and artists, serving as a canvas upon which to project fantasies and unravel societal taboos. Join us on this journey as we peel back the layers of Pigalle's mythology, uncovering the truth behind its seductive facade and shedding light on the complex interplay between imagination and reality in one of Paris's most intriguing districts

Learn more about literary writing and tourism - please click on book cover below