Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust

Explore the complex relationship between tourism and intimacy in this new book with a worldwide perspective

With a unique combination of academic and personal accounts, Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust takes you behind the scenes with motel owners, adventure travel guides, backpackers, and others working on all sides of the international tourism industry. The editors have created a model that views the situation from three different perspectives: tourist, tourism provider, and nature of the encounter. Unlike other related volumes, this book is not just about the sex trade, but also about the role of tourism in love, marriage, and relationships.

The global focus of Sex and Tourism will introduce you to:

• off-season romance on the island of Crete
• sex tourism in Cambodia
• a South Korean museum dedicated to women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military
• the sexual aspects of adventure travel in Canada
• cross-cultural marriage in Thailand
• gentleman''s clubs in New Orleans
• Australian river guides and their potential liaisons with clients

People who travel to escape their day-to-day lives often become involved in situations they would never find themselves in at home. Good or bad, many of these situations are examined in Sex and Tourism. You''ll learn about the illegal trafficking of girls in Nepal, worldwide programs for combating child sex rings, and the lethal combination of AIDS and tourism, but you''ll also find accounts of love and romance far from home. You will see how the tourism industry can act as a facilitator of human intimacy and what happens when different cultural realities collide.

Anyone involved in recreation, leisure, anthropology, social science, or tourism will be interested in this book. Sex and Tourism is an enlightening guide to the complex world found at the crossroads of sightseeing and sex.

Kaye Sung Chon, Thomas Bauer, Bob Mckercher