Citation
Lehmann, S.M. (2023), "Book review: Screen tourism and affective landscapes. The real, the virtual and the cinematic", Journal of Tourism Futures, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 440-440. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-09-2023-294
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Sabine Michaela Lehmann
License
Published in Journal of Tourism Futures. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes: The Real, the Virtual and the Cinematic is primarily a book of case studies highlighting the tourism opportunities that screen-based story worlds create: movie screens, phone screens and windshields (car screens). Screen tourism was of course the only kind of tourism the world engaged in during the height of the global lockdown, so the book is timely.
While the book is not focused on foresight and futures specifically, there are aspects which will create and spark ideas for the tourism futurist.
The book is divided into 3 parts with 14 chapters in total.
Part One explores why screen locations attract tourists. In this section, Chapter 3: Windshield Tourism Goes Viral by Boczkowska may be of interest to those in the tourism future. The authors highlight that screen tourism can be viewed through multiple (literal) lenses: the virtual screen, the phone screen (YouTube videos) and the screen (windshield) of your car.
Part Two explores landscapes and how they evoke atmosphere. Of particular interest in this section are the case studies focusing on uneasy landscapes, forbidding and foreboding atmospheres.
Part Three explores the fans and audience of screen tourism. Our viewing practices have changed enormously in the past half century, from the shared traditional cinema going experience to viewing much smaller screens on our phones and in parallel with others. It is increasingly rare that we watch the same screen at the same time and in the same space as others. Destination-marketing practitioners and location-based tourism sites and attractions are having to respond to this change by considering how they engage single-viewer screen experiences into the social encounters people are wanting to engage in to varying degrees.
One aspect not explored enough is how screen-based tourism may in fact solidify the image of a destination, forever locking it into its past self and thus perhaps robbing it of a changing future self. Tourists want to see an unchanged version of what they saw on the screen.
The book is easy to read and engaging. The case studies span a range of geographical regions and screen genres including both screen classics and recent alternative niche screen shows.
Considering that the major shift globally has been to smart phones with the result that there has been a shift to single viewer experience, looking at smaller screens for longer; with shorter attention spans, then these case studies can be used as a basis for conversations about the future of leisure and tourism. This reviewer found that many concepts in the book sparked ideas for futures and foresight conversations rather than providing new insights.
Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes is not intended or aimed at futures and foresight practitioners but at tourism practitioners. As such, it may not be at the top of the reading list for tourism futurists.