Are Slow Travel and Slow Tourism Misfits,Compadresor Different Genres?

At first glance, differentiating slow travel from slow tourism might appear to be predominantly a question of semantics, or at best an opinionated debate about minor differences between the two qualitative conceptualizations. We beg to differ, and hope to provide more substantive points of note that will advance the theoretical discourse that surrounds these two alternative, sustainable tourism genres. Both ideas arise out of the Italy-born, Slow Food Movement's emergence as an antithesis to the 'fast life' of modern society. Beyond this commonality, the two are offered as alternatives to mass tourism, though their rationales for doing so diverge theoretically and practically. There is also a parallel concern about how these alternative genres are ecologically sensitive and how they fit, or do not fit, the tenets of sustainable tourism, in which the best interests of human-environmental relations in the nearand more distantfuture are not compromised.