The Intratourist Gaze - SAGE Journals

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ts. The Intratourist Gaze: Grey. Nomads and 'Other Tourists'. Donell Holloway. Edith Cowan University, Australia. Lelia Green. Edith Cowan University, Australia.
432043 2011

TOU11310.1177/1468797611432043HollowayTourist Studies

ts Article

The Intratourist Gaze: Grey Nomads and ‘Other Tourists’

Tourist Studies 11(3) 235­–252 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1468797611432043 tou.sagepub.com

Donell Holloway

Edith Cowan University, Australia

Lelia Green

Edith Cowan University, Australia

David Holloway

Murdoch University, Australia

Abstract The presence of other tourists is an integral part of the tourist experience. Hence, gazing upon other tourists is an inevitable part of being a tourist. This paper introduces the concept of the intratourist gaze, a tourist gaze where tourists are both the subjects and objects of the gaze. An analysis from ethnographic fieldwork carried out with senior tourists in rural and remote Australia indicates that the intratourist gaze has the potential to be a disciplinary gaze which, in this case, privileges and safeguards the natural environment. This paper explores the important influence other tourists have on tourists’ behaviours and sense of identity. It also contributes to discussion regarding tourist/tourist interactions in the under-explored area of qualitative research into senior tourism.

Keywords ecotourism; environment; grey nomads; intratourist gaze; senior tourism; tourist gaze; tourist interactions

Introduction This paper introduces the notion of the intratourist gaze in order to theorise and analyse the way in which tourists view and interact with each other while touring. The term is a re-articulation of Urry’s ‘tourist gaze’ (1990). The tourist gaze lays emphasis on the Corresponding author: Donell Holloway, School of Communications and Arts, Edith Cowan University, Bradford St, Mt Lawley, 6050 WA, Australia. Email: [email protected]

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manner in which tourists (particularly western tourists) maintain a sense of power and authority over local inhabitants when they tour (Maoz, 2006: 221). The intratourist gaze, on the other hand, emphasises the manner in which tourists view each other. The intratourist gaze leads to the construction of everyday knowledge and discourse regarding other tourists and can influence tourists’ understanding about what are considered acceptable and unacceptable touring behaviours. As with the tourist gaze, the intratourist gaze has the potential to be an authoritative gaze that can discipline and regulate the behaviour of others, in this case other tourists. It is also a self-governing gaze, however, in which the self-reflexive tourist may monitor and adapt their own behaviours in light of newer, emerging norms and discourses; for example, more thoughtful attitudes regarding the environment or indigenous cultures while touring. Research regarding how tourists view other tourists and in what manner appears limited to backpacker research (Enoch and Grossman, 2010; Murphy, 2001; Moaz, 2007; Sorensen, 2003) and research investigating recreational use and conflict in nature parks and reserves (Chin et al., 2000; Curtin, 2010; Moore and Polley, 2007; Morin et al., 1997; Ruddell and Gramann, 1994; Schneider and Hammitt, 1995; Vaske et al., 2000). This paper adds to this body of research by introducing work on a new subgroup of tourists (senior tourists) who also gaze upon other tourists while they are touring. Senior tourists, as with many other tourist groups, have been researched in terms of tourist typologies, market segmentation and destination studies (Holloway, 2010; Sedgley et al., 2011). However, minimal research has taken place which looks at more qualitative aspects of senior tourism. This includes ‘embodiments, emotions, identities and narratives’ (Sedgley et al., 2011: 11). This particular paper examines the narratives of senior tourists focusing on how the senior tourists’ intratourist gaze helps construct a sense of identity and authority while touring. The paper first introduces the notion of grey nomads, as one particular tourist community within the wider population of senior tourists. The second section discusses the use of the gaze in tourism, its importance as a turning point in tourism research and its perceived limitations. The following sections go on to discuss the intratourist gaze. Fieldwork with senior tourists is then used to highlight and further refine the notion of the intratourist gaze as it relates to seniors who tour rural and remote Australia.

Grey nomads Senior tourists who use caravans and motor homes to tour remote and rural areas of Australia are affectionately known as ‘grey nomads’. They have been part of Australian senior culture for at least four decades. Many take part in a seasonal migration route, travelling north at the beginning of winter and returning south with the onset of spring. Others do not return home, however. They are the full-timers who travel for years at a time. Grey nomads have similar counterparts in North America where they are named senior RVers (Ayers-Count and Count, 2001). Grey nomads are a relatively heterogeneous group of tourists encompassing a range of socio-economic backgrounds, age cohorts, preferred activities, health status and favoured destinations (Davies et al., 2009; Economic Development Committee, 2011; Holloway, 2010). Some live solely on government pensions while others are obviously

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well-resourced – touring in luxury motor homes costing well over half a million dollars. Some do not go to the more out-of-the-way places, and some choose to stay long-term at one site socialising with other grey nomads and the local community. These comparatively sedentary tourists are viewed by other (usually younger) grey nomads as staid and unadventurous (Holloway, 2010). These differences in adventurousness can, to some extent, be attributed to generational differences within the grey nomad cohort. This large group of tourists currently spans over three generations – the frugals (1910–1932), the silent generation (1931–1946) and the coming baby boomer generation (1946–65). All perceive themselves, at some stage in their retirement years, as being more adventurous and youthful than the preceding generation, and the tendency of generational cohorts to construct themselves as different from the preceding generation is as apparent in senior tourism as it is in other market segments. In this sense, the tourist/traveller dichotomy is also evident within the grey nomad cohort, albeit in a distinctly different manifestation from backpacker cohorts (Holloway, 2010). As a tourist lifestyle, grey nomads have many parallels with backpackers. Grey nomads and backpackers are both viewed as budget travellers – they tour for longer stretches of time than do other groups of tourists and they are often going through significant transitions in their lives. For backpackers, this transitional zone is usually the time between studies (endings) and starting out on new career pathways (beginnings). For grey nomads, this transitional zone is the time between the end of a working life and the anticipated end of good health and ‘doing things while we can’ is often a catalyst for travel (White and White, 2003). The notion of ‘the tourist gaze’, as developed by Urry (1990), has its beginnings in Foucault’s concept of ‘the gaze’ (Foucault, 1973). Socially constructed and systemised, the gaze is regarded as a disciplinary gaze, including judgement and the potential for chastisement, and thus as a dominant mechanism for the exercise of power (Foucault, 1975). The disciplinary nature of Foucault’s gaze, on which this article draws, has its beginnings in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, which highlights how the mechanisms of surveillance were used to attain discipline and control in 19th century penal systems. Relying on a networked system of relations, these mechanisms of surveillance impacted on the actions and behaviour of the self (Foucault, 1975: 176). ‘One never knows if one is being watched, so one acts as if she is under surveillance and adjusts her behaviour accordingly’ (McLaren, 2002: 107). Thus, the power of the disciplinary gaze is based on the assumption that one may be being watched and appraised. This results in varying degrees of self-discipline – or the self-censoring of actions and behaviours – just in case. Since the introduction of Foucault’s notion of the gaze, theorists have made use of the dynamics of the disciplinary gaze to examine and critique more generalised networks of society (Heaton, 1999: 759) including tourism (Urry, 1990). The tourist gaze (Urry, 1990) situates the tourist as a spectator of their touring environment which includes local inhabitants, the overall milieu, and landscapes that are typically exotic to the tourist or ‘different from the tourist’s everyday experiences’ (Gaffey, 2004: 4). Furthermore, the tourist gaze is mediated through the production and consumption of symbols relating to the tourist site or host community. This gaze is usually shaped and directed ‘by the institutions and practices of commercialised

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tourism’ (MacCannell and MacCannell, 2001: 35). Consequently, tourism is constructed as an increasingly ‘signposted experience’ involving the ‘spectaclization of place’ (Urry, 1992: 139). In this sense, Urry’s tourist gaze is consistent with Foucault’s conceptualisation of the gaze in that he successfully exposes ‘the dynamism of the tourism industry and of image-making and place-making by tourism marketers and managers’ (Perkins and Thorns, 2001: 190). Despite this, the tourist gaze has been criticised on many fronts (Chambers, 2007: 238). It is considered a gendered gaze (MacCannell and MacCannell 2001; Wearing and Wearing 1996). It has also been critiqued as being ocular centric (Chambers, 2007: 238), as it is seen to limit its depiction of tourist activities to the visual, omitting the notion of multi-sensory tourist encounters such as food tourism, wine tourism, and other embodied types of tourism such as sex tourism and physically active adventure tourism (Everett, 2008; Perkins and Thorns, 2001; Ryan and Kinder 1996; Richards et al., 2010). The tourist gaze has also been criticised for having a having a narrowly defined subject/object gaze (Gillespie, 2006; Haldrup and Larsen, 2003; Moaz, 2006; Moufakkir, 2011) where the objects of the gaze are limited to the local inhabitants of tour destinations. The notion of a host gaze, where locals gaze back at tourists, has been explored (Chan, 2006; Enevoldsen, 2003; Gillespie, 2006; Kingsbury, 2005; Moaz, 2006; Moufakkir, 2011). Moaz’s ‘reciprocal gaze’ is a two-way gaze between the local and the tourist. Here the local gaze exists alongside the tourist gaze resulting in what is termed ‘the mutual gaze’ within which both local and tourist gazes have an effect on each other, and both contribute to the tourist/host encounter (Moaz, 2006: 222). The ‘family gaze’ is another reshuffling of the subject/object focus in the tourist gaze, and is concerned with families (who are also tourists) performing various places, scripts and roles to and for themselves while on tour (Haldrup and Larsen, 2003: 24). Cheong and Miller (2000) argue that the power of the individual tourist gaze is less significant than had been assumed because it is tourism brokers and locals who actually direct the tourist gaze towards commercially predetermined places and peoples. It can be argued, therefore, that the gaze in tourism is a multifaceted dynamic in which power moves back and forth between locals and tourists (Noy, 2007: 79) as well as tourism brokers. In the case of the intratourist gaze, this disciplinary gaze is aimed at other tourists who are evaluated against the dominant norms and discourses of the particular tourist cohort.

The intratourist gaze The ‘intratourist gaze’ focuses specifically on the manner in which tourists watch (gaze upon) other tourists. This gaze is as ubiquitous as the conventionally understood tourist gaze and occurs wherever tourists congregate. In spite of its omnipresence, it is a gaze that has been taken for granted or overlooked by most. Nevertheless, it is an authoritative gaze responsible for the construction of everyday knowledge and discourse regarding other tourists, and it influences tourists’ understandings about what are considered acceptable and unacceptable touring behaviours, potentially shaping the behaviour of other tourists.

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A catalyst for resistant or differentiating behaviours between tourist groups, the intratourist gaze is particularly evident between different generational cohorts of tourists. For instance, young backpackers often imagine themselves as ‘representatives of a better mode of tourism, thereby sustaining a distinction between a backpacker “us” and a tourist “other”’ (Sorensen, 2003: 858). Accordingly, they tend to define themselves as differing from other (usually older) tourists, both socially and culturally. Moreover, in considering themselves to be fundamentally different from mainstream tourists, and longer-term in their commitment to the country, and to their tour plans, backpackers feel that they are more in touch and empathetic with host communities. Gazing at other tourists also brings about conforming behaviours. The presence of other tourists is important to those tourists who like to socialise (Freire, 2005: 75). This presence can also influence tourists’ behaviour (Carr, 2002: 978) and help construct what is thought to be appropriate and inappropriate tourist behaviour (Edensor, 2000: 327). In this sense, the act of visiting a place or location is not just an affective or aesthetic experience but also an authoritative one – one where the behaviour of self and other tourists is evaluated as better or worse – proper or improper.

Watching the ‘other’ tourist The intratourist gaze is akin to Urry’s tourist gaze in the sense that the object of the gaze is usually ‘different in some way or another’ (Chambers, 2007: 237). It is one where the general tourist cohort gazes upon itself, and in doing so differentiates other touristic cultures from the self. It can be an exotic gaze where the culturally different ‘other tourist’, is being critically assessed. The gaze can also be based on less obvious differences such as generational, socio-economic or other differences within a monocultural tourist population. Gazing upon tourists from other cultures is one example of the intratourist gaze. Older stereotypes of Japanese tourists as photograph happy, are still circulating (Facebook, n.d.; flicker, n.d.) Japanese tourists themselves turn a critical gaze on other tourists. They ‘seem to be more conscious [of] and constantly make clear distinctions between Japanese and others when seeing other tourists’ (Yagi, 2001: 29). Japanese tourists also have a preference for tourist destinations populated with other tourists who are Caucasian or ‘foreign to them’ (Yagi and Pearce, 2007: 38). This may be because foreignness, especially western foreignness, is viewed as an important element of the Japanese international touring experience (Yagi and Pearce, 2007: 38). It may also be that Japanese tourists are subject to less cultural restraints in the presence of western tourists, as this is time spent ‘without the behavioural rule of their home country’ (Yagi and Pearce, 2007: 39). International Japanese tourists, therefore, are known to incorporate the ‘other’ tourist in their tourist gaze. This particular intratourist gaze looks favourably on western tourists, incorporating them as objects to be gazed upon while touring. Typically, it is the everyday social exchanges between tourists that authorise and authenticate the intratourist gaze. These routine discourses do not work through obvious power hierarchies, but rather through a process of meaning making where individuals and groups shape understandings and attitudes through shared talk within their own

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communities of critique. This shared talk, customarily based around word-of-mouth interactions, now incorporates digital processes via a variety of social media platforms. Tourist postings to these platforms help overcome the temporal and spatial constraints associated with the corporeal act of touring, and work to ensure the rapid diffusion of judgements arising from the intratourist gaze. These digital exchanges have now been given the appropriate acronym of eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth). Tourist eWOMs are gaining the interest of tourism researchers who are, at this stage, endeavouring to identify which tourist groups use eWOM, what type of information is being exchanged, and which sites are helpful or not for tourism marketers and management (Axup and Viller, 2005; Bronner and de Hoog, 2010; Ip et al., 2011; Litvin et al., 2008). These sites are also potential targets for social data mining for marketing purposes. Tourists’ eWOMs regularly include postings regarding the behaviour of fellow tourists, and sometimes these take aim at the ‘other’ tourist in a derogatory manner. eWOM writers have noted that German tourists, for example, have a propensity to travel and do things as part of a group: ‘Many German tourists holiday here and lots of them are naked on the beaches’ (BellesandKane, 2007: 14 September) or, alternatively, ‘all the middle aged German tourists [are] in safari outfits’ (savelkoul, 2009: 13 January). Young Israelis who visit India, usually straight out of compulsory military service, are noted as being aggressive and boorish and sometimes treating locals disrespectfully. They are perceived as uninhibited drug users who are insensitive to the local culture (Enoch and Grossman, 2010; Moaz, 2006). One British backpacker claimed that these Israelis are: so aggressive … so brazen ... they just sit around here with their chillums ... huge ones.. smoking pot in broad daylight. Whereas, we Britishers at least keep up appearances. We’re not so open ... almost inviting trouble … I don’t know how they do it … how much they pay the cops! (Bansal, 2007: 9 January).

Travel bloggers also take aim at compatriots abroad. Young Australians are viewed as loutish and boorish by other Australian tourists (Forrester, 2007; Groundwater, 2007). These compatriots ‘experienced the rudeness and loudness of Australian tourists anywhere and everywhere in Europe? Our drunken young men of whom we are so proud?’ (Simons, 2009: 23 January). Grey nomads also participate in digital conversations about other tourists. In the following extracts from an online forum, grey nomads discuss [school] ‘Leavers’ week’, or ‘Schoolies’ week’, a time when young Australians holiday and party after the last exams of their final year at school. Similar to the spring break in the US, this week often finds schoolies and grey nomads sharing caravan parks and camping grounds with each other. Within the discussion thread around this theme, some grey nomads denounced the actions of partying teenagers: A group of teens trashed a small resort, breaking all the poolside equipment and throwing it and food in the pool, as well as ripping the spa pool lid. Then when outside they graffitied the walls. Now I have met some NICE teens, but the majority of them are rude, opinionated, smarta...d sullen little s...ts who need a good kick up the backside. And have no respect for people or their property, including in a lot of cases their own parents (Happywanderer, 2010: 4 December).

However most of the other posts displayed a more even-handed position:

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We were staying near Dunsborough (WA) during their schoolies a week or so ago, and there were virtually no problems. Things were well organised and the police had a fairly visible presence, but didn’t seem to have too much to do. Mind you, the local supermarket seemed to do a roaring trade in Coke and instant noodles (Nicholstones, 2010). Judging a whole class of the population such as school leavers by the actions of some is quite invalid. For example ...We see some 4wd drivers driving irresponsibly and ‘All 4wd drivers are hoons’ or ... we see evidence of some users of roadside free camps who litter the area or leave ‘snowflakes’ in bush nearby and ‘All grey nomads are to blame.’ This sort of logic is specious to say the least but there are plenty of examples of this (Jimricho, 2010).

The conversations cited in this section exemplify the manner in which the intratourist gaze is authorised and authenticated by social conversations, both face-to-face and virtual. Moreover, the forum postings (above) reveal how the intratourist gaze can be a contested gaze, one which may be challenged and negotiated.

The disciplinary intratourist gaze The intratourist gaze can often be a disciplinary gaze, as indicated by the examples above. Edensor (2000) also suggests that tourists are subject to the disciplinary gaze of other tourists (p. 327). This disciplinary gaze can influence what is thought to be appropriate and inappropriate tourist behaviour. In the case of backpacker enclaves, Edensor suggests that ‘practices concerning what to photograph, how to gaze, how to modulate the voice, and what to wear are often subject to self-monitoring and the disciplinary gaze of the group’ (Edensor, 2000: 328). A disciplinary intratourist gaze is also performed by nature tourists who gaze unfavourably on ‘other’ tourists whose behaviours seem to impact negatively upon the natural environment. Tourists in national parks often comment that ‘other’ tourists’ behaviours harm the local environment (Chin et al., 2000; Curtin, 2010; Moore and Polley, 2007; Morin et al., 1997). In a study based in Malaysia’s Bako National Park, researchers found that tourists reported that vegetation damage, soil erosion and the provocation of wildlife caused by ‘other’ tourists impacted upon the natural environment and consequently upon their own enjoyment of the park (Chin et al., 2000: 27). The intratourist gaze, therefore, can also be an implied gaze, one where judgements about the behaviour of the ‘other’ tourist are inferred from the supposed results, without first-hand observation. That is to say, gazing upon environmental damage that is deemed to be the result of ‘other’ tourists’ behaviour infers an intratourist gaze. This environmentally focused intratourist gaze is by no means a recent phenomenon. Matless (1995) describes the attitudes of English ‘preservationists’ in the early 20th century. When motorcar and coach tourism became widespread, these stewards of the British countryside deemed that the crowds who filled the rural landscape on country trips represented a disorderly, harmful threat to the landscape. Of particular concern was the noise and litter they carried with them. During this time: Various stock litter-dropping noise making figures emerge; thoughtless upper and middle class ‘motor picnickers’ not clearing their empties, loud working class charabancers. Offenders are

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often labelled ‘Cockney’ regardless of their precise geographical origin (Stedman Jones, 1989). This cultural figure is picked upon as a grotesque, to be celebrated in its natural urban habitat but labelled out of place in the country. (Matless, 1995: 95)

This early critique of other tourists is based on the romantic gaze, a gaze where tourists prefer to visit relatively pristine and isolated landscapes. However, as with today’s tourist gaze, it is also a multidimensional gaze where the tourist gaze is also focused upon ‘other’ tourists within the landscape.

Grey nomads and the intratourist gaze The original research for this paper is based on four months of ethnographic fieldwork carried out with grey nomads touring rural and remote Australia. Due to the peripatetic nature of the grey nomad lifestyle, the fieldwork entailed spending time on the road and staying at multiple sites. These sites included caravan parks, camping areas in state and national parks, tourism sites and designated (and non-designated) campsites such as roadside stopover sites and unofficial campsites – in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. Grey nomads are a highly visible group of tourists, often to be seen towing their caravans or driving their motor homes along the city roads and regional highways of Australia. Their visibility draws the eye of other, usually younger, tourists. The Australian outback is awash with ‘Grey Nomads’; some of whom are in their sixties – but many of them are in their seventies and eighties!!!! In cars, Kombis, 4wd’s, plush tour buses, blitz wagons – even planes. It’s surreal! (WhyBother, 2004)

As a highly visible group of tourists, grey nomads are often objects of a disciplinary intratourist gaze. They are viewed by some as pathetic or pitiful travellers who clog up the highways with their slow moving vans. So much so, that an alternative, everyday term for grey nomads is SADs: ‘See Australia and Die’ (Holloway, 2007). In this sense grey nomads, as with most tourists, are both the subjects and objects of the intratourist gaze. As tourists in remote and rural areas of Australia, grey nomads enjoy a romantic tourist gaze, visiting relatively pristine and isolated landscapes. As such, some grey nomads gaze on other tourists who engage in environmentally harmful behaviours in a critical manner. The actions of these other tourists are often constructed as representing both a threat to the natural world and to people’s peaceful, harmonious communion with nature. For example, grey nomads Pat and Steven, in recalling one of the most memorable parts of their travels at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, implied that the presence of other tourists at Kakadu’s Ubirr Art Site tainted an otherwise idyllic romantic tourist gaze. (All names are changed and identifying characteristics obscured within the quotes that follow.) Pat: That’s part of the National Park and that’s where all the Aboriginal paintings are and you can climb over the rocks with 150 other people [spoken as an aside] and watch the sunset which is across all the wetlands. Mainly the paintings, they were really good there. Kakadu was good all around. Steven: Just spectacular views, that’s all.

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Data from interviews and field observations in this study demonstrate that grey nomads often express their own moral code about responsible touring via their descriptions of the transgressive behaviours of others – their disciplinary intratourist gaze. Our fieldwork also revealed that many grey nomads feel a degree of custodial responsibility, albeit transient, when visiting various destinations. They are aware of the damaging practices of some local operators and are mindful that their tourist dollars are supporting local businesses and communities. This mindfulness carries through to opinions regarding environmentally responsible ways of being a tourist. The following examples, and discussion about the grey nomads’ gaze, are used to exemplify and theorise the intratourist gaze, and lay no claim to the frequency with which the intratourist gaze takes place.

Leaving no trace Many grey nomads make repeat visits to the same area each year, either to caravan parks or bush camps, and develop a strong sense of community and a connection to place within these destinations (Davies et al., 2009; Holloway, 2010). Thus, instead of simply feeling like transient interlopers, these grey nomads can feel a sense of stewardship for their holiday environment (Davies et al., 2009; Holloway, 2010). Although they are often considered by researchers and environmentalists as a threat to the conservation of pristine areas, grey nomads frequently adopt their own informal conservation systems, especially in more isolated camping sites. Davies found that grey nomads who bush camp are ‘likely to instigate measures to reduce their ecological footprint. Such measures could include ad hoc agreements about limiting water consumption and not fishing in certain areas’ (quoted in Laugerud, 2009). Experience bush campers Anna and Jan (below) use a ‘leave no trace’ approach to camping and readily notice others who transgress this. In this extract, Anna and Jan were asked if they had any advice they would like to give to other grey nomads. Anna: Stay home. We need the space [joking]. No it’s great, it’s great, I understand the impact on the environment and we’ve come across an awful lot of bread clips, an awful lot of ties and plastic and ... Interviewer: Oh the little bits. Anna: Little bread clips, they’re everywhere, you know the little due by [dates] on them, everywhere you stay you find half a dozen around your camp site. Every little last one. And those rings on the tips of bottles, birds put their heads in them and ... just be really careful what you leave behind.

Anna’s joke about other people staying home (and not doing any bush camping) is a reminder that many grey nomads, especially those who enjoy bush camping as Anna and Jan do, enjoy a romantic tourist gaze that privileges the solitude and quietness of the natural environment. In saying that she understands the impact of tourists on the environment, Anna implies that she acts responsibly when camping while unknown others do not. Her description of the harmful rubbish items that others leave behind and the

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effect these have on the local wildlife further illustrates the immoral or bad behaviour of others, thus positioning herself as a good bush tourist with the other, unspecified, bush tourists implicated as bad. Accordingly, bad campers who transgress the moral order are differentiated from the moral self via the disciplinary intratourist gaze. Anna recounts a specific incident involving an individual camper within a recently visited national park in the Northern Territory of Australia. Anna: We also saw a bloke doing his washing in the waterhole, complete with detergent. I guess he thought it would be good for the environment. Interviewer: In the water hole? Anna: In the water hole, oh no he had a, I lied, he had one of these little basin things but I was wondering how he was going to rinse it because he came back with it rinsed. So I assume it went in the water [hole].

Implied here is that this particular person was a bad camper – although perhaps unintentionally. In contrast, a good camper will know the right things to do (and not do) to help maintain the local environment in a pristine state. Again, the intratourist gaze is used to differentiate the moral self from the other, less virtuous tourist. The disciplinary intratourist gaze was sometimes directed at two of us during fieldwork (Donell Holloway and David Holloway) and in some instances turned into instructive, face-to-face encounters. For example, we endured a few well-meaning reprimands for our own environmental transgressions while carrying out (in situ) fieldwork. On one occasion we visited an isolated bush camp located on the north coast of Western Australia. The site is accessed by crossing a tidal river and is visited annually by a group of about twelve retired couples who winter there for about three months. These grey nomads have maintained an ongoing social network built on their shared interests in fishing, crabbing and living in a fully self-sufficient manner within a natural bush environment. They carry in their own water and firewood, use solar panels and gas bottles for their energy requirements, and leave no footprints at the site they visit. We turned up with enough battery power, water, gas and food to last a few days but were soon chastised for not bringing along a porta-potty (portable toilet). This isolated site has self-containment requirements that include bring-your-own (BYO) toilets. This is because the campsite is adjacent to an intertidal zone of mangrove plants, which is susceptible to seepage from uncontained toilet waste and other pollutants. We were also told stories about another camper who, while carrying a shovel and toilet paper, waved cheerfully as he walked past the bush camping collective on a daily basis. The grey nomads found this abhorrent – not only because the camper was being environmentally irresponsible but also because he was shameless about it all. Having received our own reprimand, and the story about the other transgressor, we apologised. We were then given the benefit of the doubt as we were ‘newbies’ (new to bush camping). Nonetheless, the disciplinary gaze, along with the inference of chastisement and the feeling of being censured, was evident. As highlighted in the previous story, the disposal of toilet waste was a common theme in our discussions with grey nomads – both as an everyday topic of conversation and in the context of recorded interviews. Their interest in this topic is understandable when put

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Figure 1.  Grey nomads on a tag-along wildflower tour in the midwest of Western Australia.

in the context of outdoor camping. Tourists who use motor homes, caravans and tents have to deal with the rudiments of toilet waste disposal themselves, as they have limited access to present-day sewerage systems that manage and conceal this process for them. Discussants made statements about the irresponsible dumping of toilet waste, as well as commenting on the condition of toilet facilities in towns, rest areas, camping grounds and caravan parks. Len and Denise (below) voiced their opinions about the dumping of black water (toilet waste) from tourists’ portable toilets. Black water waste disposal is carried out by removing the toilet cassette, which catches waste, and dumping it, hopefully in a suitable dump point (see Figure 2), which is usually supplied by local councils or the Department of Main Roads. Len and Denise describe first their own ethical practices relating to the dumping of black waste and then situate their stance in a broader context by describing (via their intratourist gaze) the unethical practices of other tourists. Len: I mean I’ve got all the [environmental] chemicals. I’ve got chemicals for the water to put into it .... Denise: We’ve got the shower tent, we can put it in but I mean if you haven’t got … if you’re in the National Park and you’ve got to go outside and then find a dump point … Len: Some … some of the rotten caravans or some of the … or whoever they are, they go into these … these tippin’ … they don’t care how they distribute it. I mean it’s all down [the river bank]. It’s a real eye opener.

The disciplinary intratourist gaze demonstrated by grey nomads interviewed in this paper is not restricted to pristine areas such as state and national parks, and other undesignated

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Figure 2.  A black waste dump point at an isolated 24 hour rest area in the Gascoyne area of Western Australia.

bush camping areas. When discussing the lack of free ablution facilities for tourists, Yvonne (below) blamed the unethical behaviour of other tourists for the closing down of some existing facilities. In contrast to most other interviewees, she clearly identifies the tourist ‘other’ as young people or families with small children. Yvonne: They had one before there, just before Karratha. But people vandalised it, so it’s closed. And it also had toilets and showers. Interviewer: Sad, isn’t it. Yvonne: And it’s all for free. And people just wreck it. ... it’s more the younger ones. Not the older ones because, like in Cable Beach [Broome, WA], there is not one little bit of dirt in the caravan park or on the beach. Everybody takes his own rubbish home. If you’re peeling a pear, you do it in a plastic bag and you put it straight in your car. And nobody has to clean the beach there. It’s all clean. ... Then you have, before the school holidays, the toilets and the showers are clean, very clean. But then come the families with little children and they throw the paper everywhere.

Yvonne clearly identifies the object of her intratourist tourist gaze as families with small children. During our in situ fieldwork, and outside the context of the recorded interviews, we were privy to many of these types of conversations – conversations that identify the transgressive behaviours of other tourists (and sometimes the particular transgressor).

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Mutability of the intratourist gaze The intratourist gaze is a gaze that frequently results in a moral judgement about other tourists’ behaviours. However, these moral judgements are not always consistent and can vary according to the tourist’s own transgressive behaviours. Some interviewees in this study expressed a mutable ethical stance with regard to sustainable ecological practices when touring. Put simply, they regarded suitable or unsuitable ecological practices as a matter of degree, justifying their own transgressions as less damaging than others they had seen. For example, Paul and Rhoda (who tour the north of Western Australia each winter) took a somewhat ethical stance against those recreational fishermen and women who over-catch – beyond their personal needs. This is despite the fact that Paul is an enthusiastic angler who freezes his own catch to take back home. Paul admits to previously catching what he now feels were ‘too many’ fish. Nowadays, he is conscious that over-fishing has had a significant effect on breeding stocks along the Western Australian coast. Notwithstanding his continued fishing practices – which involve freezing his catch for later consumption – he feels it is the practices of some other anglers that are negligent: Paul: There’s a lot of people here and even if they’ve got freezers they used to catch that many that they would just take the sides off and just chuck the rest away. Well it’s a wicked waste. All the heads and backbones and the meat that was on them. Gee, you’d get a truck load of meat out of … probably get as much what they’d waste as what they’d take off on the sides. Especially the schnappers [inaudible] they’ve got a bit of meat on them, a fair bit, but they don’t weigh it.

Paul situates his own recreational fishing practice as more ethical in comparison to ‘others’ – the ‘lot of people here’. While acknowledging that he freezes the fish he catches while up north, for consumption later in the year, he cites and criticises the practices of other fishermen and women who waste the flesh of fish when stocking their freezers. This fine line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fishing practices seems a mutable or changeable one that is dependent (to some degree) upon one’s own behaviours. Thus, Paul’s intratourist gaze is as focused on defending his own tourist behaviours as it is upon criticising those of other tourists. Paul and Rhoda also have a small dog. They went on to volunteer negative comments about irresponsible dog owners who let their large dogs roam in national parks, despite the fact that they tour with their own dog. When asked whether they had anything to say regarding government agencies or local councils, Paul and Rhoda commented that they were unhappy that the presence of their little dog restricted their entrance into national parks, since visitors with dogs and cats are not allowed. Rhoda, while explaining that their Chihuahua was no threat to native wildlife, joined Paul in recounting incidences about other small dog owners losing their pets to wedge tailed eagles, pelicans and such. This mutable stance, of categorising the harmfulness of dogs (to the bush environment) according to the animal’s size, and whether it is allowed to roam, is characteristic of most peoples’ ethical identities, which are ‘complex, mutable, and sometimes ambiguous … in relation to the various others referred to over time and space’ (Holloway, 2002: 2068). Paul and Rhoda’s conversations about ‘bad’ tourist behaviour situate their own, less than perfect, behaviour as ‘better’ or more ethical than others. Compared with

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some other tourists who allowed their dogs to roam free, they felt they were responsible dog owners who toured with only a small (harmless) toy dog, and by implication did not let it roam. In this sense, the intratourist gaze can work towards qualifying the gazer’s own behaviour as virtuous, in relation to the other tourist, even when their own behaviour may transgress conventions associated with responsible touring.

Conclusion The intratourist gaze is a tourist gaze in which tourists are both the subject and object of the gaze. It is present whenever and wherever two or more tourists gather, and as such is a significant element of the tourist experience. Tourists tend to use the intratourist gaze to appraise other tourists’ behaviours, and to differentiate the self from other tourists. This gaze can be an exotic gaze where tourists gaze upon tourists from other cultures. It can also be used to differentiate the self from other tourists in a more nuanced manner. Backpackers, for example, envision the self as different from conventional tourists. They often gaze upon the behaviours of other, usually older, tourists as more transitory and superficial. The intratourist gaze has the tendency to be a disciplinary gaze in which the behaviour of other tourists is judged. The interviews and social exchanges carried out for this study comprise descriptions about the actions of other tourists – and sometimes the self – while touring. These intratourist gazes were frequently encoded with ethical or moral positions about touring behaviours. Thus, the intratourist gaze can position the tourist as being more moral or ethical than other tourists. However, this disciplinary gaze is carried out within a loosely associated cultural group (tourists) whose moral positions are not fixed: rather they are dynamic and mutable, as illustrated by the interview transcripts. The senior tourists involved in this study chose to tour in relatively remote areas of Australia, immersing themselves in the visual (and corporeal) consumption of the natural environment. In this sense, they engage in a ‘romantic tourist gaze’, one which privileges solitude, privacy and communion with a pristine natural environment (Urry, 1992: 9). This privileging of the natural environment ‘feeds into and supports attempts to protect the environment’ (Urry, 1992: 9). It is no surprise, therefore, that these tourist gazes sometimes focus on other tourists with a disciplinary edge that privileges and safeguards the natural environment. The intratourist gaze contributes to the construction of everyday knowledge and discourse regarding the behaviour of other tourist groups. The gaze is usually authorised and authenticated by routine, word-of-mouth social interactions with other, similarly minded, tourists. Nowadays, however, new communication technologies allow for the rapid dissemination of tourists’ stories, and the intratourist gaze, via user-generated online content. Social media platforms allow tourist stories and opinions to be ‘shared on an increasing number of social platforms by means of photo, video, audio and text’ (Mansfeldt et al., 2008: 124). This paper has indicated that investigation into ethical touring practices should not be limited to specialised eco-tourist groups or destinations, but rather extend across the wider tourism market in order to understand how all tourists integrate an ethical stance while touring. Research that investigates how the presence of other tourists has a bearing

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Donell Holloway is an adjunct lecturer and researcher with the School of Communications and Arts at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia. Address: School of Communications and Arts, Edith Cowan University, Bradford St, Mt Lawley, 6050 WA, Australia. [email: [email protected]] Lelia Green is Professor of Communications at Edith Cowan University. Address: School of Communications and Arts, Edith Cowan University, Bradford St, Mt Lawley, 6050 WA, Australia. [email: [email protected]] David Holloway is an Associate Professor in Accounting in the Murdoch Business School at Murdoch University. Address: Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, South St Murdoch, 6150 WA Australia. [email [email protected]] All authors have a research interest in tourism, culture and communication.