A touristic habitation: automobilities of Chinese driving tourists

ABSTRACT

As an emergent tourism sector, driving tourism connects car use and touristic activities intimately. Following the notion of the ‘inhabited car’, this article explores how and why Chinese tourists inhabit a travelling car for drivers/passengers in the leisure automobility and driving tourism context. Through three different road trips and ‘mobile methods’, it was found that Chinese tourists inhabit the car in four ways: driving, gazing, listening, and communicating. Through this embodied habitation, the car is turned into a ‘touristic inhabitation’ space for protecting the tourists generating touristic emotions、social interactions, and tourism meanings. The study contributes to automobility and tourism literature and provides implications for driving tourism development in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Automobilities
• habitation
• driving tourism
• cars
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Peng Yang is a lecturer in the School of School of Economics and Management, at Shanghai University of Sport. His research interests include driving tourism, sports tourism, tourism mobility, tourist behavior and experience.

Honggang Xu is a Professor in the School of Tourism Management at Sun Yat-Sen University. Her research interests include tourism geography, mobilities, and system dynamics.

Kevin Hannam is a Pro-Rector (Research) at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau SAR, China. He is also a Visiting Professor at Nebrija University, Spain, the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and T HEI, Hong Kong SAR, China. His research interests include ecotourism, Third World tourism, European cultural and heritage tourism, and tourism theory.