Challenging Connectivity During Nature-Based Tourism: (Dis)connection at Banff National Park

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_A0B3C7CFE691
Type
A part of a book
Publication sub-type
Chapter: chapter ou part
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Challenging Connectivity During Nature-Based Tourism: (Dis)connection at Banff National Park
Title of the book
Progress in French Tourism Geographies
Author(s)
Müller-Roux Morgane
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
ISBN
9783030521356
9783030521363
ISSN
2366-5610
2366-5629
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2021
Pages
87-103
Language
english
Abstract
Global mobility coupled with digital technologies raises new issues regarding human relations, which can now be continuously maintained even when people are separated by a great distance. By making use of digital photography and their smartphones, tourists now have the opportunity to capture and instantly share intangible memories with their loved ones or the rest of the world. In this context, a new form of tourist practice is emerging: disconnecting from all forms of information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to escape daily life. National parks seem to offer the perfect space for people to get “away from it all”, as the wilderness is becoming increasingly important within the tourism industry precisely because it symbolises a break from the routines of daily life. Here, I explore how tourists’ use of social media includes new strategies to capture the materiality of the wilderness and, in the process, creates new ways of engaging with it. Furthermore, I show how representations of this engagement with nature and “the wilderness” are produced in a very particular way in order to be shared with the rest of the world while still conforming to the imaginary as produced by social media and simultaneously reproducing it. The aim of this contribution is to understand how the ubiquity of ICT produces new ways of experiencing the wilderness. This study relies on an extensive investigation of tourist narratives and performances produced in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.
Create date
02/02/2021 10:00
Last modification date
10/08/2023 6:59
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