Tourism and Intimacy Transnationalization in the Global Tropics

Abstract

The text provides a brief global mapping of the tropical destinations where the sun and beach mass tourism is connected with the constitution of intimate transnational relationships. Considering the touristic experiences and the intimacy configurations that emerge there, the main objective of the reflection is to question the pertinence of the sex tourism notion as hegemonic concept in almost all exercises of analysis and conceptualization of these contexts. Although recognizing the presence of strong passional expectations linked to the touristic mobility for many destinations of the global tropical belt, a critical distance to the idea of sex tourism is established. The aim is to show that this designation is entangled in stereotypes, denotes a great epistemological inconsistency and is deeply reductive, unable to translate the complexity and the dynamics underlying the framework of expectations, practices and relationships that constitute the transnational intimate meetings between visitors and locals.