Inspiring the visitor? Landscapes and horizons of hospitality

• Published in: Tourist Studies
• Main Authors: Olafsdottir, Gunnthora, Huijbens, Edward H., Benediktsson, Karl
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Deleuze; Gadamer; Iceland; glancing; horizon; landscape; nature-based tourism; play; scenery
• Online Access: https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/inspiring-the-visitor-landscapes-and-horizons-of-hospitality; https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797613490378

This article will discuss the ways in which landscapes have been conceptualised in current literature building on notions of escape to and well-being with nature, and how the tourist has been placed in that context. Drawing among other things on Gadamer’s understanding of the concept of the horizon, as well as Deleuzian understandings of relationality, we argue that landscape is simultaneously an effect of gathering deep-seated emotions and experiences and an open-ended and forever unfinished story. Due to the irreducibility of the landscape to its terms, a landscape is something that can be shared. We will outline how current practices of tourism marketing and promotion in Iceland could in effect mediate landscape experiences in a way that recognises the tourist as an author of his or her own experiences, rather than a predefined stereotype as in much tourism literature. Recognising the tourist as potentially inspired by landscape, we argue, commands the attitude of respect that is a necessary precondition to any ethical notions of hospitality, altering the preconditions of marketing practices using the landscape to their ends.