From escape to seeking: understanding drug tourists

Bingöl S.

Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, cilt.20, sa.4, ss.583-599, 2022 (SSCI) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 20 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/14766825.2021.1960853
  • Dergi Adı: Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, ABI/INFORM, CAB Abstracts, Hospitality & Tourism Complete, Hospitality & Tourism Index, Sociological abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.583-599
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Drug tourists, escape, neo tribal theory, neo tribe, pursuit of happiness, seeking
  • Bilecik Şeyh Edebali Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Studying the relations between travel, daily life, and drugs will help understand why these tourists use drugs. Hence, the article aims to explore the social behaviors that shape the reasons and causes tourists to use drugs while traveling to a destination. For this purpose, unstructured interview and participant observation techniques were used in the study, applying the ethnography research approach. In this context, data were collected in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey as drug destinations between 2016 and 2020. Accordingly, while drug use in daily life is for escaping from daily life and recreational purposes, drug use while traveling occurs within the pursuit of happiness. As a result of their pursuit of happiness, drug tourists (as neo tribes) engage in social behaviors such as building strong social relations, feeling a sense of freedom, being in an entertaining atmosphere, and living the local culture. As a result, drug tourists see travel as a process from escape to seeking.