The Imagination of Place and Tourism Consumption: A Case Study of Lijiang Ancient Town, China

Tourism consumption has been conceptualized either as a free pursuit of pleasure and escape or a highly rationalized activity. Based on questionnaire surveys of 483 tourists and personal interviews of 18 tourists concerning Lijiang Ancient Town, a World Heritage site in China, this article contends that tourism consumption neither draws on freedom of choice nor conforms to the rigidities of predetermined norms. Instead, evidence suggests that tourism consumption dwells in the endless negotiations between tourists' imagination, their economic and cultural capital, and the norms and values embedded in their destinations. Following Ateljevic's work on circuits of tourism, this paper has two objectives. First, it will analyse the touristic imagination of Lijiang Ancient Town and examine how this imagination shapes tourists' practices of consumption. Secondly, the paper will explore the multi-sensory practices of consumption and how these practices transform Lijiang's heritage landscapes. The paper argues that imagination and consumption together help to build a socio-spatial connection between destinations and the wider consumer society, which enables tourists to become an active group to shape the production and representation of tourism landscapes.