Destination drinking: Toward a research agenda on alcotourism

Studies of tourism and of alcohol consumption can be fruitfully brought together under the heading alcotourism. Alcotourism refers to the practices of travelling to drink, drinking on holiday, drinking to travel and drinking while travelling that are important but understudied aspects of both tourism studies and alcohol studies. Drawing on a selection of published studies, this paper scopes current research in order to assemble a research agenda for alcotourism. The paper includes discussions of cultural tourism, heritage tourism, party tourism, themed drinking environments, and acquisitive alcotourism. Debates about benefits and problems for both ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ are highlighted, drawing on concepts such as cultural capital and liminality, while alcotourism is also situated in the context of contemporary debates about the regulation or deregulation of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. It ends with a call for more sustained and systematic research, and a caution about straightforwardly reading alcotourism as a social problem; it should instead be understood as a set of context-specific practices often integral to the experience of holidays.