Project Description
Increasingly, urban tourists turn their back on the commercial mass tourism product in search of unique, authentic experiences. They want to experience the local way of life and get away from overcrowded tourist sights. Therefore, there is a need to explore touristic alternatives in order to meet the changing, and increasingly differentiated, demand of tourists. This thesis is focused on the experience of alternative guided walking tours, which assessed through the application of a qualitative case study. Two examples of alternative guided walking tours in Amsterdam are investigated in order to answer the following research questions: How do tourists experience an alternative guided walking tour? How do tour guides experience an alternative guided walking tour? Data is collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. It was found that alternative guided walking tours represent opposition to mass tourism activities, characterized not only by the visited sights and the narrative content but also by the personal, unique nature inhabited in the experiences and by the generation of a more holistic perception of the city. Alternative guided walking tours furthermore appear to potentially diversify the urban tourism product of Amsterdam and might facilitate reimagining of the city.
Author: V. Theweleit (2014)
