Music tourism, the act of travelling to places associated with music, has become part of the tourism itinerary of many European cities. Although academic interest in this phenomenon is growing, little empirical research explores the experiences of music tourists-what are music tourists looking for? This study is based on participant observation and 15 in-depth interviews with tourists to Wagner's Bayreuth, ABBA's Stockholm and U2's Dublin. It is argued that music tourism experiences involve a process of identity-work on a personal, cultural and embodied level. For most of the respondents, music plays an important role in their story of self, which is one of the main motives for travel and a source of performing self through music tourism practices. Once there, tourists relate personal music memories to music histories encountered in situ. Thus, music tourism effectively connects personal memories with shared identities and social spaces created by embodied practices.
This research note introduces the design of a recently launched research project at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The topic of this new research project is media tourism, the phenomenon of people traveling to places because of an association with a film, television series, novel,
song, or other media product. Recently significant growth has been detected in this form of tourism, with far-reaching consequences for the locations concerned. The aim of this project is to discover why and under what circumstances popular media products give rise to new tourism flows, and
which variations can be found based on the specific characteristics of the medium, the tourist, and the location involved. Media tourism has received a growing amount of attention from scholars in various academic disciplines. However, the existing knowledge about this phenomenon is still
highly fragmented. This project aims to be the first in which interdisciplinary research will be conducted, involving an analysis and comparison of literary, cinematic, and musical examples of media tourism. By investigating commonalities and differences, we intend to highlight how literature,
film, and music, each in their own way, stimulate the geographical imagination and literally "move" their audiences. The research is based on a combination of qualitative content analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and experimental methods.
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