Revisiting the concept of hosts and guests

Abstract

The concept of hosts and guests has patterned the social impact of tourism literature since Smith’s seminal collection in the late 1970s. However, recent moves to embrace the insights of postmodern and post-structuralist theories in tourism have suggested that these binary oppositions should be revisited. For example, Feifer’s idea of the post-tourist suggests links between the tourist experience and the everyday aestheticized consumption practices that pattern life in post-Fordist society. Using data generated during a community study of a north Queensland tourism town, the article illustrates the contested nature of hosts and guests. The blurred notions of hosts and guests highlighted the way in which participants’ motivations to migrate to the town mirrored the destination marketing for the town, focused on a tropical lifestyle. However, there are conflicting versions of this lifestyle, which have implications for the destination’s sense of community and sense of place.