John Ruskin has never been a presence in Tourism Studies. His continuing invisibility is signalled by his absence from the list of ‘Giants of Tourism’ in a book intended to promote awareness of tourism’s history by highlighting the contribution of ‘historic’ figures. Apart from a chapter on ‘early significant figures’ such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, the only biographies to reach back beyond the 20th century are those of Beau Nash, Baedeker (but not Murray), Thomas Cook and John Muir (Butler & Russell, 2010). The Grand Tour has a central place in the abbreviated, conventional versions of tourism history that are briefly fed to students, but Ruskin’s important role in the Victorian development and refinement of what to see, and how to see it, is by-passed. Coverage moves straight on to Thomas Cook and his alleged invention of popular tourism and the ‘package tour’. The influence of Ruskin’s writings and ideas on tourist routes, destinations and above all perceptions is discussed in works of literary history and criticism, by (for example) Fussell, Buzard and Pemble, but this seems not to have passed across into Tourism Studies.

It is arguable that the absence of any previous serious consideration of Ruskin in Tourism Studies is indicative of a wider neglect of the Humanities, brought about by the focus of the discipline on business rather than culture, except where the latter can be instrumentalised for commercial purposes. Sociological approaches such as that of Urry have largely proved complicit in this restricted focus: ‘Commerce and culture are indissolubly intertwined in the postmodern’ (Urry, 2005: 77). Our study suggests that the incorporation of awareness of the extensive body of work on guidebooks and travel writing, viewed from a broadly historical and literary perspective, would significantly deepen and enrich the field; that Ruskin’s influence would form an important dimension of this process; and that understanding of literary, historical and aesthetic research would gain equally, in its turn, from such an interdisciplinary leavening.