What Begins at the End of Urban Tourism, As We Know It?

Abstract

Amidst the “overtourism” debate going on in Europe, one question pops up routinely. Namely, how much tourism do cities bear? This issue is a thought-provoking starting point to reconsider the interrelation of tourism and the city beyond the container-like idea of cities as destinations. Drawing on two examples from Berlin, this piece reflects upon tourism not as an isolated activity but as contested momentum co-producing urban places. The distinct controversies related to tourism at Checkpoint Charlie (a must see) and the Admiralbrücke in Berlin-Kreuzberg (an off-the-beaten track sight) prompt to frame these places as unbounded and continuously remade. Conceptually approaching tourism “beyond binaries,” it is exemplified that ideas of fixed container-like tourist places (sights), mutually exclusive doings (consumption/production) and distinct types of people (tourists/locals) fall short. It rather seems to be revealing to deepen research on urban tourist places as co-performed socio-material hybrids emerging where trans-/local processes intersect. This means, for instance, to further elaborate on, firstly, the interplay of visitors and materiality at tourist places and, secondly, the sociality to be found there. As a result of this, tourism appears not as something external, which is getting too much (“overtourism”), but as constituent of cities.