Competing hospitalities in Japanese rural tourism

An increasingly important theme in the study of tourism is its variability. Through a case study of a Japanese mountain village area popular with urban tourists, this article focuses on the way that tourism varies within a single locale. The concern is not however, with differences among the tourists directly, but with the variable, contested nature of tourism on the host side. It demonstrates how tourist hosting may be marked by a double tension: first, with respect to the different definitions of tourism within the tourism sector; and secondly, in relation to the social divide between the existing sector and those outside of it.