‘Who is a tourist?’

This article discusses the concept of the ‘tourist’ within tourist studies. It critiques the conceptual category of tourist in recent literature on typologies of tourists and tourist experiences. Although greater understanding of the tourist has been identified as one of the principal research issues for tourism research, the focus is on types and forms of touristic experience rather than uses of the concept of ‘tourist’ as a lay category, thereby taking for granted its function within a wider cultural discourse of holidaymaking and travelling. The article raises questions concerning the construct ‘tourist’ and discusses the implications of such ambiguities for theory and empirical analysis of interview data on tourist experiences. This discussion reviews the literature on tourist experience and typologies, a discussion of the use of the concept of ‘tourist’ as a members’ category, and proposes a tentative clarification of the issues as a basis from which to direct future empirical research questions.