“This is the only tour that sells”: tourism, disaster, and national identity in New Orleans
2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14766820903026348
ISSN1747-7654
Autores Tópico(s)Religious Tourism and Spaces
ResumoAbstract For many, New Orleans, LA, USA, was an ideal vacation destination, with the commercial tourist industry providing one-third of the municipal budget. This changed on 29 August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina made landfall and, due to a series of events, the majority of the city was submerged underwater. In December 2005, the multinational tour operator, Gray Line, announced that its business in New Orleans would re-launch featuring "Katrina tours." Controversy immediately arose, particularly as neighborhoods previously outside commercial tourist imaginaries now were on tourists' itineraries. Drawing on secondary debates and participant observation of the tour performances, the author argues that tourist practices at sites of disaster offer a compelling mode to negotiate the social drama of nationhood through challenging tourist imaginaries of space and belonging. Although exploitation, catharsis, and mourning can occur, touring extreme calamity also offers opportunities for education, civic identification, and cultural change. Gray Line's Katrina tours help remind tourists that the rebuilding necessity will continue to require federal aid, volunteer labor, and tourist revenue. The controversy surrounding Katrina tours also provides an opportunity to consider the ethics and the efficacy of commercial and noncommercial tourist practices in the aftermath of an unjust environmental disaster. Keywords: nationalismsocial and cultural changedisasterenvironmental justiceNew OrleansKatrina Notes By March 2007, seemingly all tour operators in New Orleans advertised a Katrina tour: Tours by Isabelle (which was the first), Van from New Orleans, Dixie Tours, Airboat Adventures, Celebration Tours LCC, Big Easy Tours, Viator, Cajun Encounters, SightseeingWorld, City Tours, and, on screen, the Entergy IMAX Theatre. I am grateful to the Department of Communication Studies, Louisiana State University, for hosting me as a Visiting Scholar, as well as Indiana University's Office of the Vice Provost for Research for funding assistance. Gray Line's New Orleans office did not respond to requests to be interviewed. Four of the five employees I observed appeared European American; three of the five were men. This use of superlatives is indicative of a broader trend; for example, Mayor Nagin (2005 Nagin, C. R. 2005, September 2. Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses', Transcript of radio interview with New Orleans' Nagin. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript [Google Scholar]) notably declared: "let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country." On the tours I attended 4 months later, most residents had stopped waving. This desire by some to have their lives and their stories witnessed also is evident in a news story from another Katrina tour: "At one stop in the Ninth Ward," a tourist named Dudley reported, "a man ran up to the van and knocked on the window, saying, 'I just had to tell this story to somebody.' Dudley said the man told them about finding his mother's remains in his house after police assured him many times there were no bodies there" (Filosa, 2006 Filosa, G. 2006, January 5. SIGH SEEING: Some guides are giving visitors a tour they'll never forget, surveying Katrina's damage and learning how it happened. The Times-Picayune, : 1 [Google Scholar]; McConnaughey, 2006 McConnaughey, J. 2006, January 7. Hurricane aftermath: Few hotel rooms, but tourists trickle back to New Orleans. Houston Chronicle, Retrieved January 11, 2007, from http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3571497.html [Google Scholar]). Since 2008, for example, the tour also notes Hollywood superstar Brad Pitts' Make It Right Foundation.
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