Running and tourism: A practice approach

This chapter discusses how practice theory can help us to connect running and tourism, and explains how, and why, what it might term 'running tourism'. It argues that practice theory and tourism studies can enrich each other, as everyday practices and tourism practices increasingly overlap. The chapter focuses on developing a practice approach to running and running events in three-fold of research questions. First, it discusses how can we understand running as a differentiated practice? Second, why does running now attract so many practitioners? Thirdly, how do practices of running connect with practices of tourism? The chapter draws together marathons and tourism by discussing the literature on sport/running tourism and by briefly discussing the ongoing tourism research on the two running events: the Berlin Marathon and Etape Bornholm. Practice theory is yet to make a sustained impact on tourist studies where economic models and cultural theories about representation, discourses and gazing prevail