Fan Pilgrimage & Tourism: Revisited

This chapter outlines the key practices associated with fan tourism and “fan pilgrimage,” and the pleasures that these offer to fans. It examines practices such as taking photographs at key sites, recreating important moments or scenes, and tracking down locations as part of the acquisition and circulation of knowledge that fans often engage in. Throughout, the chapter explores how tensions between commercialization and “authentic” experience at fan sites can challenge how fan tourism has been understood as well as complicating understanding of how fans engage with these spaces. Furthermore, the increase in a wider cultural and touristic interest in media places is considered to evaluate how sharing of spaces with non-fans, or antagonistic visitors or locals, can impact upon the experience of fan tourism or pilgrimage. Finally, the chapter outlines opportunities for future research by considering how we might understand fan attachments and practices when it is specific places themselves that are the object of fandom (e.g., theme parks, restaurants), what may happen when these cease to exist, and how issues of sustainability and ethical consumption are crucial in ongoing research into fan tourism.