Abstract
To date the vast majority of the analysis on tourism has been examined ‘Western’ tourists and forms of tourism. This lecture illustrates why the rapid growth of travel for leisure and recreation across Asia today demands a reappraisal of how tourism is analyzed and understood. By attending to the cultural, social and economic dimensions of domestic and intra-regional tourism in Asia, the lecture raises the question of whether we need new modes of analysis and new ways of thinking about what tourism is and does.
The Speaker
Tim Winter’s research interests focus on heritage and tourism in Asia. Within this, two keys themes steer his research. Firstly, working on Cambodia over a number of years has led to a strong interest in understanding the simultaneous and often contradictory challenges which emerge around heritage and tourism within societies suffering from, or recovering from, periods of armed conflict. Of particular interest here is how processes of ‘national reconstruction’, ‘development’ and ‘restoration’ play out as political and economic discourses. Paralleling his work on Cambodia, Tim is now looking at such issues in Kashmir, Croatia and Sri Lanka. He has published extensively on this material, including his recent monograph Post-conflict Heritage, Postcolonial Tourism; culture, politics and development at Angkor.
Tim’s other research focus examines the social impacts of the fast growing Asian tourism industry. Issues being considered here include heritage, memory and the Asian tourist; citizenship, consumption and mobility; intra-regional postcolonial tourism; and tourism/heritage vis à vis Asian modernities. Prior to joining Sydney in late 2006, Tim spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, Singapore, during which time he convened a major international conference on Asian tourism, which produced the forthcoming collection Asia on Tour: exploring the rise of Asian Tourism.
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