Publication Details |
Category | Text Publication |
Reference Category | Journals |
DOI | 10.1177/1468797620905786 |
Licence | |
Title (Primary) | Speed tourism: The German Autobahn as a tourist destination and location of “unruly rules” |
Author | Gross, M. |
Source Titel | Tourist Studies |
Year | 2020 |
Department | SUSOZ |
Volume | 20 |
Issue | 3 |
Page From | 298 |
Page To | 313 |
Language | englisch |
Keywords | automobility; drive tourism; Germany; mobility; niche tourism; space; speed tourism |
Abstract | The German Autobahn has inspired many people’s imagination with its lack of a general speed limit, the quality of its road surface as well as its allegedly well-behaved drivers. One of the consequences of this positive reputation has been the emergence of a phenomenon I would like to call “speed tourism.” In this article, I treat speed tourism as a special form of tourism that involves viewing the driving experience as an opportunity for either testing the capacity of one’s own car or driving it at high speed as a way of experiencing the native culture at firsthand. I explore speed tourism as an alternative way of getting to know the real Germany as a tourist. Based on an analysis of several of its peculiarities, I argue that the Autobahn can be understood as a location where tourists can mix with “locals” while keeping a distance from them, since the interaction is restricted to learning and obeying the country’s rules of the road. The Autobahn then becomes a time-bound “dream location” created by the ideal of limitless driving freedom on the one hand and the paradoxical requirement of unruliness in relation to strict rules on the other; together, these are believed to offer an “authentic” driving experience according to local cultural customs. |
Persistent UFZ Identifier | https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=22849 |
Gross, M. (2020): Speed tourism: The German Autobahn as a tourist destination and location of “unruly rules” Tour. Stud. 20 (3), 298 - 313 10.1177/1468797620905786 |