Contemporary Controversies Around Tourism in European Cities

Tourism theory and urban theory are still evolving on parallel trajectories. It is therefore urgent to think together urban theory and tourism theory in order to attempt to understand how metropolises have become major tourism spaces and how the co-inhabiting between tourists and residents are full of controversies. Three issues are examined: first, tourism as legal, statistical or moral categories affects the ways the “regime of value” of tourism is constructed. Specifically, the concept of urban tourism bears problems of coherence in the context of planetary urbanisation. Second, on which grounds can we oppose the tourist and the resident? Can we conceptualise both as mobile inhabitants of the city? Mobilising practice theory, l will develop a conceptual framework with “inhabiting” as key concept where spatial competences and “spatial capital” are emphasized. Third, the question of “inhabiting” leads to the question of public space and the “right to the city”. I will discuss this notion stemming from urban theory and show how the presence of tourists challenges the question of the right to the city.

Profile
Mathis Stock is a Professor of Tourism Geography at the University of Lausanne. His work is about tourist practices in a context of widespread mobilities and cities as tourist places, as well as resort development. His main research question asks about the differentiated ways people inhabit mobilities and places.

Organization: French Research Institute on Japan – Maison franco-japonaise (FRIJ-MFJ)