Contents Tourism and Pop Culture Fandom

The first book to unite international research on travel by popular culture fans to sites of interest (‘contents tourism’)

The term ‘contents tourism’ has been defined as ‘travel behaviour motivated fully or partially by narratives, characters, locations, and other creative elements of popular culture…’. This is the first book to apply the concept of contents tourism in a global context and to establish an interdisciplinary framework for contents tourism research.

Takayoshi Yamamura is Professor at the Centre for Advanced Tourism Studies, Hokkaido University, Japan. His research interests include Japanese animation and tourism, pop culture and regional development/community revitalization.

Philip Seaton is Professor at the Institute of Japan Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan. His research interests include Japanese war history/memory and contents tourism (with a particular focus on historical dramas and heritage sites).

Takayoshi Yamamura is Professor at the Centre for Advanced Tourism Studies, Hokkaido University, Japan. His research interests include Japanese animation and tourism, pop culture and regional development/community revitalization.

Philip Seaton is Professor at the Institute of Japan Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan. His research interests include Japanese war history/memory and contents tourism (with a particular focus on historical dramas and heritage sites).

Contents tourism is among the very few productive new ideas that has emerged in tourism studies in the past several decades. The authors in this important volume capture the dynamics of the emotional and symbolic connection of tourists to the places they visit. The chapters prove the promise of contents tourism beyond studies of the mise en scene of Japanese anime where it originated.

This important book expands the concept of contents tourism, which has so far been limited mainly to the Japanese context, and shows its transnational and transmedial potential. Case studies from different cultural contexts, which refer to enthusiasm for literature, theatre, folklore or anime, illustrate the variety of paths the imagination can take – and how imaginary journeys become real tourism.

This book reconceptualises the largely compartmentalised views of media-tourism relationships, such as film and literary tourism, advancing and encapsulating them within the socialising frame of contents tourism. The authors provide engaging insights into the formation, curation and (re)crafting of media-related narratives, variously bonding communities, media, tourists and places across the different contexts. These insights provoke new interpretations and considerations, which will benefit anyone studying contents tourism (or any tourism-media relationship).

In this volume, an international group of scholars rewrites the old canon of ‘contents tourism’ with impressive cultural sensitivity. Across several chapters exploring aspects of Japanese popular culture’s adherence to performance and visuality, native phenomena are examined as instances of transnational hybridisation and global cultural connectivity. An essential read for students of international popular culture, tourism and the moving image.