Abstract
This article focuses on the role of stories in tourism from the perspectives of tour guides and visitors who participate in popular culture inspired tourism. In drawing on Walter Fisher’s ‘narrative paradigm’ and his understanding of humans as ‘homo narrans’ or storytelling animals, the article introduces the concept of ‘story-weaving’ to capture the collaborative process in which biographical stories, places, and histories become entwined. We argue that stories go beyond being packaged and sold to visitors by tour guides and that stories are at the heart of experiencing tourism for both the storyteller (a guide) and the story-receiver (the visitor). Through interviews with Scotland-based tour guides who run Outlander tours, visitors and participant-based observations we unpack the dynamic nature of stories and examine how visitors and tour guides participate in a process of ‘story-weaving’ as a way of engaging with and in tourism.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 637 - 652 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | International Journal of Cultural Studies |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 11 Dec 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Scottish Higher Education Digital Library (SHEDL)Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme project SPOT-Social and innovative Platform On cultural Tourism and its potential towards deepening Europeanisation (grant number: 870644).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| European Union’s Horizon 2020 | 870644 |
Keywords
- popular culture
- stories
- tourism
- homo narrans
- story-weaving
- historical narrative
- biography
- Outlander