Abstract: I argue that tourist theory has suffered from an over-emphasis on symbolic meanings and interpretations. However, I contend that tourism is as much about feeling as meaning; in this sense, tourism is concerned with seeking a temporary shift in emotional, affective and sensory experience. One approach to exploring these emotional, sensory and affective transformations is by considering tourist desires to enter different kinds of atmosphere. While atmospheres are difficult to describe, they are widely recognisable in many settings. The lecture will start by providing a theoretical account of atmosphere, after which I focus on design of distinctive spaces to produce predictable, familiar tourist atmospheres but also how in other tourist contexts such atmospheres are more loosely regulated. Second, I emphasise that tourists are not passive but are co-producers of atmospheres. Third, I examine how tourist atmospheres are also unpredictable, perhaps shaped by concerns about the risks of terrorism, disease and violence. I conclude by claiming that for tourists, the positive experience of an atmosphere can be as fulfilling as an encounter with a meaning-ful historical or cultural attraction.
