Passing through Pangnirtung

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Abstract
Tourism studies have long been interested in the relationship between the tourism experience and tourists’ perceptions of the destinations they visit. More recent studies have explored tourists’ reflexive engagement with the tourism experience. This article argues that tourists’ reflexivity is best seen as emerging within what Henri Lefebvre would call a social space. The conceptualization of the tourism destination as social space draws attention to the practices involved in its (re)creation. In particular, the article argues that the circulation of rumour is an important practice through which the tourism space is (re)created. The analysis of tourists visiting Pangnirtung, Nunavut shows that perceptions are not something which tourists ‘consume’ from tourism marketing and then ‘possess’. Instead, perceptions often have the quality of rumour. The conceptualization of touristic knowledge as rumour shows how perceptions are continually open to contestation and, potentially, change. However, circulating rumours is not simply a question of what tourists ‘believe’ or ‘disbelieve’, but something they do. An engagement with rumours reflects tourists’ engagement with the tourism space and, hence, rumours must be continually (re)created at the level of practice. The article explores this process by looking at some of the rumours that circulated among tourists passing through Pangnirtung.

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