Commentary: Gazing, Performing and Reading: A Landscape Approach to Understanding Meaning in Tourism Theory

Urry's classic treatise The Tourist Gaze has sparked more than a decade of development of tourism theory. While his research raises important issues about the nature of tourism and the social relations of tourism, the focus here is on the implications of his research for issues of meaning. It is argued that use of landscape literature in geography and, particularly, its focus on 'reading the landscape' substantially clarifies issues of the meaning of tourist objects raised by Urry's formulation of 'the gaze'. Key Words: The gazereading the landscapeheterotopiadiscourse Acknowledgement The authors wish to thank two anonymous referees for comments that substantially improved the argument. Any remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the authors.