The Aesthetic Paradox of Tourism

Everyday Aesthetics is known to be beset by a dilemma: how is it possible to reconcile the detached attitude that typically characterizes aesthetic appreciation with the nature of everyday routine? In this paper, the dilemma is addressed by considering cultural tourism as a paradigmatic case of aesthetic appreciation of the ordinary. By examining the aesthetic motivations that animate cultural tourism, the study shows that, while seeking authenticity in the ‘un-touristed’, tourists remain trapped in their own, detached, ‘tourist gaze’. The analogy between the dilemma of everyday aesthetics and the aesthetic paradox of tourism allows for the application to the latter of the strategies that have been put forward to solve the former. What emerges is that, whereas approaches that rely on aesthetic detachment reproduce the dilemma, those that insist on the aesthetic value of the ordinary ‘as such’ offer tourists a way out of the paradox. Nonetheless, effective as they seem in mitigating the risk of frustration that may derive from touristic activities, these approaches appear to reduce the aesthetic to an extremely thin notion, thereby weakening their own theoretical strength.