Overcoming Economic Pragmatism: Redefining the Limits of Tourism Using a Spatial Framework

Abstract

Tourist activities today possess global dimensions which make many places
previously not thought of as having much potential conducive to this activity. Also places do not have to be "distant" from the tourist's social reality to have potential but can be “close” space, i.e. part of the urban and/or nearly rural environment. This kind of tourist space currently receives considerable attention from tourism promoters and is part of the process whereby the sector continuously generates new tourist realities. In contemporary forms of tourism it is increasingly difficult to define physical limitations to tourism because the activity is far more dynamic than rigid theories and policy established for the sector. The activity frames and imposes its movements and symbols on tourist destinations independently of the length of time tourists spend there. Thus, from a critical perspective of geographical space, which according to Santos (2002) would see tourism as an indivisible and united whole, albeit contradictory system of objects and systems of actions, this article analyzes the relationship between tourism and space, understanding that, while tourism is a social practice, it can be practiced in different geographical scales and is not confined by rigid and standardized spatial boundaries.