6th International Symposium on Aspects of Tourism at the University of Brighton, Eastbourne Campus

Visually-oriented research has long been a core (but somewhat under-rated) strength of tourism which is an essentially experiential, visual project. In framing the local and global into sets of performance, questions, and memories, tourism’s visuality has huge potential in helping us reveal what tourism means in modern society: as researchers we are not just interested in images as objects, but in who makes them, why, and the impacts on society.

Visual imagery and representation in the form of photographs, eyewitness material, moving images, destination and product brochures, historic film archives, religious icons, maps, storyboards, postcards can all be treated as evidence. Images are not merely reflections of place and space, but complex metaphors, allegories and illusions embedded in the social contexts in which they were produced.

The conference presents a major opportunity to discuss the challenges of using images to analyse and understand tourism and tourists.