You Might Be A Tourist If....

What is a tourist?

The answer to this question seems like a no-brainer, if ever there was one.  Everyone knows what a tourist is!   A tourist carries a big camera and wears ill-fitting shorts, a loud shirt, and tennis shoes or sandals with socks.  He is also likely to sport a big straw hat, a sunburn, and an attitude of entitlement.  We've all seen tourists and there's a very good chance that, at some point in our lives, we've been tourists.  We have seen that tacky clod and he is us!

But when working on Sunshine Paradise, one of the first things I had to do was consider the difference in terminology.  Florida's visitors have been called many things.  "Strangers" was a popular term for non-residents in the 1800s.  Hotels and amusement parks refer to their clients as "guests."  And of course there are "travelers."  That term seems preferable, as it carries with it the whiff of making a journey for a noble cause.  A "traveler" is the kind of person who is sensitive to local customs and experiments boldly with exotic cuisine. She would never pair striped capris with a flowered top.

Technically, a traveler is a person who leaves home for a particular purpose.  She may be conducting business, looking for a job, or scouting for a new residence.  He might be going to an unfamiliar place to study or to do charitable work.  A tourist, however, has no purpose beyond seeking pleasure and diversion.  He's out to have a good time; his trip is unlikely to change his life in any way, nor is he likely to make any positive contribution to his destination, beyond leaving his cash behind.

Yes, that's me, the tacky tourist!

For tourism to flourish, as historian David Sears has noted, certain basic conditions must be met.  First, there must be a population with money and leisure to travel.  Adequate transportation must be available to take tourists where they want to go, and conditions of relative safety and comfort must be assured.  Finally, a body of images and descriptions vibrant and colorful enough to excite the imagination and lure the tourist to the destination must be designed.  Americans in general fit the first condition, and Floridians, throughout their history, have been growing ever better at fulfilling the final requirement, creating a literature that beckons the weary outsider to Florida's balmy shores.

Most Florida tourists fit squarely into a model proposed by sociologist Erik Cohen.  Participants in this "recreational mode" willingly accept make-believe and delude themselves into enjoying contrived situations.  Essentially, they are accomplices in their own deception.  Perhaps that explains some of the forced, rigid smiles one sees in family pictures from Disney World---to have a good time as a tourist, one has to play along with a fantasy...not always an easy job when one realizes, too late, that the fantasy is flawed.

One of my best friends read Sunshine Paradise and told me how funny it was.  Funny?  I really hadn't attempted to write a parody---this was serious academic research!  Perhaps sensing my unease with her review, she elaborated; the source of her amusement was Florida's determination to promote tourism no matter what. Hurricanes, financial depressions, world wars: these are merely setbacks.  Floridians will quickly rally and find yet another crazy scheme for getting people to wear ugly clothes and part with lovely dollars.  I had to admit, she had a point.  And that's exactly what I love about the history of tourism and tourists.  It's built on a foundation of absurdity, yet it is absolutely essential.