A Geography of Unconventional Tourist Mobility: New Approaches and Methodologies

Dear colleagues,

Prior to the COVID pandemic, tourism had permeated all spaces of experience, reaching every country, region, settlement, and corner of the globe (Timothy, 2019). In recent decades, the meanings, implications, and roles of tourism have also expanded significantly. This Special Issue focuses on unconventional tourism mobilities and same-day visits, which are an important but often neglected part of the tourism system, constantly challenging both scholars (Irimiás and Michalkó, 2016) and tourism industry stakeholders (Zátori et al. 2019). Unconventional tourism is an umbrella term that covers most kinds of unregistered or unaccounted tourist mobilities (e.g. second homes, same-day visits, illegal home rentals, visiting friends and relatives), some of which might not appear to be ‘tourism’ but should be in certain localities and under certain conditions (e.g. petty traders, utilitarian shoppers) (Michalkó and Timothy, 2001). Given the growth of unregistered tourist flows and unaccounted leisure (or utilitarian) mobilities, there is a need in tourism studies to apply innovative research methods and to reconceptualize the meanings of tourism in different geographical and social contexts. It is expected that people’s craving for travel in the post-pandemic era (Mitev and Irimiás, 2020) will educe new spatial and temporal tourism experiences and behaviors in which unconventional tourisms will play an important role. To better understand this phenomenon and to evaluate the development of new approaches to travel and behavioral spatialities, new ways of thinking, new theoretical constructs, and new methodologies are needed. This Special Issue seeks contributions that will explore unconventional tourism mobilities as described in all their forms, focusing on the geographical patterns, processes and hidden aspects of unconventional tourism. This special issue has a joint special issue in Sustainability.

References

Irimiás, A. and Michalkó, G. (2016). Hosting while being hosted: A perspective of Hungarian migrant hospitality workers in London, UK. Tourism Hospitality Research, 16(2), 172-183.

Michalkó, G. and Timothy, D.J. (2001). Cross-border shopping in Hungary: causes and effects. Visions in Leisure and Business, 20(1), 4–22.

Mitev, A. and Irimiás, A. (2020) Travel Craving. Annals of Tourism Research   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.103111

Timothy, D.J. (ed.) (2019) Handbook of Globalisation and Tourism. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Zátori, A., Michalkó, G., Nagy, J., Kulcsár, N. and Balizs, D. (2019). The tourist experience of domestic VFR travellers: the case of Hungary. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(12), 1437-1459.

Dr. Anna Rita Irimiás
Prof. Dr. Dallen J. Timothy
Prof. Dr. Gábor Michalkó
Guest Editors

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