The Tourist Culture Nexus: Occurrence, Advantages, Sustainability

This article investigates the concept of tourist culture in three island cases. Fieldwork and qualitative depth interviews of key stakeholders are used to identify and describe. Tourist culture is identified through artefacts and practises that are shown to be stimulated, reinterpreted and created as a result of interactions between hosts and guests, both of whom are shown to have distinct cultures of their own. Tourist culture is thus described as a nexus between. A range of benefits are identified. These may be associated with overall sustainability of tourism. Yet findings highlight that tourist culture evolution is affected by stage and scale of tourism development and may therefore need careful management if it is to be established and maintained.