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This paper seeks to understand how tourists might reduce their travel distances by better understanding their perception and "performance" of distances to destinations. Travel accounts for 75% of tourism's GHG emissions, the majority from flying. Tourist travel distances are growing rapidly, as are emissions, with little evidence of the reductions required to comply with emission reduction targets. This research used discourse analysis of in-depth interviews with Danish tourists to explore how they understand distance. Respondents rarely referred to physical distance (e.g. kilometres), but instead to scales including cost, time and cultural difference to express relative distances. Some distances were seen as "zonal", (e.g. "away from home" or "sun and sea" or winter sports destinations), others "ordinal", having degrees of difference, time or costs to cross. The desire for distance also resulted from links tourists make between physical distance and reaching cultural dissimilarity. Sometimes travel itself was integral with the holiday experience. While cost and time savings were important, the total holiday price was more important than the journey price. Measures are suggested for reducing the distances travelled and changing the modes used, and so reducing environmental impacts, including changing leave allowances, better marketing of nearby destinations with cultural differences, and promoting slow travel.

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Abstract'Slow travel' and 'slow tourism' are relatively new, but contested, concepts. This paper examines the meanings ascribed to them in the academic literature and websites targeted at potential tourists. It finds concurrence on aspects of savouring time at the destination and investing time to appreciate the locality, its people, history, culture and products, but detects different emphases. The academic literature stresses the benefits to the destination and global sustainability, while the websites focus on the personal benefits and ways of becoming a 'slow tourist'. Food and drink epitomise the immersion in and absorption of the destination and the multi-dimensional tourism experience, contrasted with the superficiality of mainstream tourism. The paper discusses whether tourists practising slow tourism without using the label are slow tourists or not.Keywords: slow travel; slow tourism; discourse. ResumoSlow travel e slow tourism são conceitos relativamente recentes, embora contestados. Este artigo examina os sentidos conferidos aos conceitos na literatura académica e websites dirigidos a potenciais turistas. Encontram-se consistências em aspetos como saborear o tempo no destino e investir tempo para usufruir do local, das pessoas, da história, da cultura e dos produtos, mas detetam-se ênfases diferentes. A literatura académica realça os benefícios para os destinos e sustentatibilidade global, enquanto os websites se dedicam aos benefícios pessoais e formas de se ser um slow tourist. Comidas e bebidas representam a imersão em e a absorção do destino e da experiência turística multidimensional, contrastando com a superficialidade do turismo de massas. O artigo discute se os turistas que praticam slow tourism sem recorrer ao rótulo são ou não turistas slow.Palavras-chave: slow travel; slow tourism; discurso. J. Guiver • P. McGrath |12

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