Power and tourism - A Foucauldian observation

Tourism outcomes are often regarded as driven by the tourist. The influence of tourism on society is often anticipated to be negative. This conceptual paper extends the power vocabulary of Michel Foucault to challenge the exclusivity of this view. Power is conceptualized as omnipresent in a tripartite system of tourists, locals, and brokers. The Foucauldian framework reveals that the tourist-like the madman and the incarcerated criminal-is frequently vulnerable to the composite gaze of others. Further, the framework shows that productive power generates touristic knowledge. This orientation to touristic power recommends increased analytical attention to the role of brokers prominent in tourism development. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.