Perspectives on proximity tourism in Fryslân
The notion of tourism encompasses many different ideas about attractiveness of places, when someone is or feels a tourist or not, which activities are typically touristic, where these places are located and what activities are appropriate. Over time, this has resulted in a certain socially accepted ordering of tourism. However, when a globalized tourism industry has enabled people to anticipate upon and experience the whole world as a potential destination, hereby increasingly familiarizing people with places and people ‘elsewhere’, could the usual environment itself –the everyday, near home environment and activities– just as well provide opportunities for (re)discovery and hereby have potential touristic value? Situated in the context of the Dutch province of Fryslân and employing three stakeholder perspectives (tourism policy, entrepreneurs and residents), this dissertation aims to better understand how practices of socio-spatial identification depend on and augment/constrain touristic consumption/production of places near home. It explores to what extent these perspectives provide a possibility for ‘proximity tourism’: the paradoxical experience of touristic otherness within places that are generally assumed familiar. These ideas are further developed in this dissertation and addressed in studies that focus on various touristic practices, from the positioning of Fryslân as tourism destination in tourism marketing, to Word-of-Mouth behavior of residents, and from the relationships between tourism entrepreneurs and local residents, to the role of weather experiences in the perceived attractiveness of domestic vacationing. The conclusions drawn are interpreted in terms of how tourism as cultural phenomenon is related to regional institutionalization, citizen engagement and sustainable travel.