'Time' to explore the theoretical underpinnings of last chance tourism

Abstract

Various terms have been used, sometimes interchangeably, to describe people vis­iting places or objects that are in danger of disappearing. These include, climate tourism and extinction tourism (Leahy, 2008), doom or doomsday tourism (Salkin, 2007), and 'last chance to see' (Hall & Saarinen, 2010). More recently the pre­ferred label that has emerged is 'last chance tourism' (LCT) (Lemelin et al. 2010). To date, most of the research conducted in LCT is descriptive, usually based on one particular species such as polar bears (Lemelin & Wiersma, 2007), or consid­ering tourism in a particular fragile environment i.e. the Polar Regions (Eijgelaar, Thaper & Peeters, 2010). Whilst an important body of literature has emerged, LCT currently lacks theoretical underpinnings, and we also suggest there is more to LCT than disappearing environments or species. Examples could also include the expected change in political regimes, such as Cuba, visiting people before they die, such as friends and relatives, or musical and other performers, and places where social change is occurring due to devel.oping economies, or even seeing a destina­tion before it gets too commercialised or making a point of seeing a show before the run ends. We argue that it is critically important to conceptualise LCT in the context of 'time', which has received little attention in the study of tourism (Urry, 2000). Given LCT is dependent of the belief that time is running out and that tour­ism might facilitate "last chance to see" experiences, an analysis of the way time should be conceptualised in tourism is required in order to advance the theoreti­cal positioning of LCT.