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Itineraries of consumption: Co-producing leisure shopping sites in Rimini

Journal of Consumer Culture

Published online on

Abstract

This article proposes a spatial approach to tourism and consumption as it emerges through leisure shopping. The notion ‘itineraries of consumption’ is offered to underline the emergence of tourists’ multiple shopping patterns in a single tourist destination. Itineraries of consumption produce, connect and transform shoppingscapes and tourismscapes. Tourism consumption research has expanded over the past 15 years in the social sciences and humanities. This article continues previous debates on consumer culture and tourism studies by debating about the nexus between shopping and tourism as a co-productive realm. In particular, the joint performances of tourists, retailers and tour operators in Rimini (Italy) are considered as a way to understand leisure shopping in a location that used to be primarily associated with seaside-oriented mass tourism. The geometries and geographies of power evident in emerging tourism networks are also discussed.