"This is the only tour that sells": tourism, disaster, and national identity in New Orleans

• Published in: Journal of tourism and cultural change 2009-06, Vol.7 (2), p.99-114
• Main Author: Pezzullo, Phaedra C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cultural Change; disaster; environmental justice; Katrina; Nationalism; Natural Disasters; Neighborhoods; New Orleans; social and cultural change; Social Change; Tourism; United States of America
• ISSN: 1476-6825; 1747-7654
• DOI: 10.1080/14766820903026348

For many, New Orleans, LA, USA, was an ideal vacation destination, with the commercial tourist industry providing one-third of the municipal budget. This changed on 29 August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina made landfall and, due to a series of events, the majority of the city was submerged underwater. In December 2005, the multinational tour operator, Gray Line, announced that its business in New Orleans would re-launch featuring "Katrina tours." Controversy immediately arose, particularly as neighborhoods previously outside commercial tourist imaginaries now were on tourists' itineraries. Drawing on secondary debates and participant observation of the tour performances, the author argues that tourist practices at sites of disaster offer a compelling mode to negotiate the social drama of nationhood through challenging tourist imaginaries of space and belonging. Although exploitation, catharsis, and mourning can occur, touring extreme calamity also offers opportunities for education, civic identification, and cultural change. Gray Line's Katrina tours help remind tourists that the rebuilding necessity will continue to require federal aid, volunteer labor, and tourist revenue. The controversy surrounding Katrina tours also provides an opportunity to consider the ethics and the efficacy of commercial and noncommercial tourist practices in the aftermath of an unjust environmental disaster.