Most days we tend to take part in (or at least, witness somehow) various forms of popular culture such as TV, cinema, fashion, social media, gastronomy, arts, comics, games and sport. These forms of expression constitute instances of what we do in our everyday life and project magnified reflections of our way of life, beliefs and worldviews. As such, they extend to tourism activities inducing travel motivations to memorise and celebrate special acts of reverence, veneration and allegiance to their embodiment of fandom. This practice of secular fan pilgrimage is nowadays more than resonant for tourist actors and destinations but it is less understood how it ensnares with different contexts reshaping tourist behaviours, relationships and affinities. What versions of the world and its cultural change are envisioned, formulated and performed? To start addressing this overarching matter, in this edited collection we bring together work from different disciplinary stances and approaches in order to link contexts as forms of expressive culture – cinema, TV, music, comics, sport, heritage – and their enactment in different geographic locations. Grounded in an inclusive combination of perspectives ranging from functionalist to critical, insights are drawn about how entanglements of placemaking, fandom, neo-tribalism, secular pilgrimage, mediatisation and tourist imaginaries give shape to popular culture tourism and visions of the world at large.

Defining the Terms

Let us define the basic terms that compose the conceptual backbone of this book and more broadly explain our approach to the intersection between popular culture and tourism. Its multifaceted and dynamic nature needs to be clarified and critically appreciated before drawing implications for cultural change. First of all, what is popular culture? No doubt, it is a vexed concept commonly misread as ephemeral vogue, trivial activity or ‘pop vanity’, which delivers profitable but light-minded entertainment for the masses.