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This paper seeks to define the nature of the anthropology of tourism, seeking to distinguish it from approaches to the topic by other social scientific disciplines. It thus traces the emergence of the field from the early days, suggesting ways in which it is rooted in, and related to, larger fields of anthropological interest in travel, mobility of various kinds, and practices (such as hospitality) that are an integral part of most kinds of travel. Considerable emphasis is given to five seminal ethnographic monographs that focus on tourism, the aim being to identify their common points of focus. It follows this by looking at a select collection of recent anthropological work in the field on a variety of subjects ranging from studies of land and landscapes, tourist related maps, objects, images, and the body, in order to speculate about the present state of the subject as well as some of its possible future directions. The principle theoretical and analytical tool throughout is the notion of enchantment. Part of aim of the paper as a whole is to consider how the anthropology of tourism contributes to the body of anthropological work on the theoretical uses of this notion. However, processes of enchantment are always found in politico-economic contexts: a fact that is held in mind throughout.

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