Falling on Deaf Ears: Tourism Research and Audio Methods

This chapter addresses the prospects and implications of audio methods in tourism research. It grows out of a critique of the reliance on textual modes of expression in tourism research, and argues that representations can be enriched by drawing upon emergent research on soundscapes. Subsequently, the chapter comes with three contributions. Firstly, it suggests that the emergence of non-representational theories can inform the development of multimodal tourism and hospitality research. Secondly, through recent ethnographic examples the chapter exemplifies how sonic research emerges in practice. Thirdly, growing out of this discussion, the chapter outlines a heuristic ‘sonic manifesto’ that supports the application and development of sound studies in future tourism and hospitality research.