Creating an event out of nothing happening: An exploration of the category 'event' through tourist imagery of the Zuiderzee region (The Netherlands), 1874-1914

Abstract

Taking a 1906 advertising for a tourist trip as starting point, the author explores the possible uses of the term ‘event’ for discussions of tourist imagery at the time of early cinema. On first sight, traveling – be it armchair travel or “real” travel – seemed to be a domain to which the concept of event can be applied, at least insofar as the extraordinary experience and thereby the experience-as-event is highlighted. When looking deeper into the use that is made of the “eventness” and the function the extraordinary plays in tourism, tourist imagery, and tourist events, it becomes apparent that “event” needs to be conceptualized other than when used to describe extraordinary news incidents or ceremonies. “Event” then needs to be conceptualized as a qualitative category rather than a temporal one. If applied to research on tourism and travelogues, a careful conceptualization of the term “event” is needed that renders justice to the repetitive logic of these domains.