Dr Jim Butcher

Dr Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher is a lec­turer and writer who has writ­ten a num­ber of books on the soci­ology and polit­ics of tour­ism. Dr Butcher blogs at Polit­ics of Tour­ism, tweets at @jimbutcher2, and is the founder of Tour­is­m’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions.

Jim has also writ­ten for The “Good Tour­ism” Travel Blog.

Digital nomadism: the perfect life?

July 6, 2026

Does digital nomadism represent the perfect life, or does it merely uproot people? A Gemini-generated image.

Is the digit­al nomad life­style the per­fect, bound­ary-break­ing exist­ence it appears to be on social media? Or does the free­dom to live as a ‘cit­izen of the world’ mask a deep­er dislocation? 

Jim Butcher exam­ines the cul­tur­al and polit­ic­al trade-offs of hyper­mobil­ity, and ques­tions what is lost when we walk away from the con­cepts of com­munity, cit­izen­ship, and ‘home’.

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

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A matter of taste: Travellers, tourists, and ‘tourism for peace’

November 4, 2024
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Travellers, tourists, and tourism for peace ... Picture of flat tyre with peace sign hub cap by Charles Pickrell (CC0) via Unsplash.

Does being a ‘trav­el­ler’ or a ‘tour­ist’ have any­thing to do with ‘tour­ism for peace’? Jim Butcher ques­tions Fabio Car­bone’s cari­ca­ture of arrog­ant tour­ists and his claim that only trav­el­lers hold the keys to world peace.  A grand claim Fabio Car­bone, glob­al ambas­sad­or of the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Peace Through Tour­ism (a notion endorsed by the United Nations […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices, 'Tourism's Horizon: Travel for the Millions' book
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Regenerative tourism’s myths and realities

June 11, 2024
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Regenerative tourism: Myth and reality. 'Regenerative Reliquary' stem cell image by Monika Robak (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/regenerative-reliquary-amy-karle-2744729/

Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is great for des­tin­a­tions that choose to focus on it, and for the few who can afford it. But what about the rest of us? It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight by Jim Butcher. ‘Regen­er­at­ive’ is the latest eth­ic­al pre­fix to accom­pany ‘tour­ism’, fol­low­ing a well-worn path from ‘eco’, ‘sus­tain­able’, ‘green’, ‘com­munity’, ‘respons­ible’ et cetera. […]

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Prof Dimitrios Buhalis on ‘overtourism’ and the ‘democratisation of tourism’

February 29, 2024
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Professor Dimitrios Buhalis on the ‘democratisation of tourism’ vs ‘overtourism’ ... “[T]here is no such thing as overtourism!”

There’s always a ten­sion between rights and respons­ib­il­it­ies; the prom­ise of free­dom for one­self and the poten­tial to infringe upon oth­ers.  This is play­ing out in debates about travel & tour­ism, and about what ‘pro­gress’ looks like.  For Dimitri­os Buhal­is, prag­mat­ic prob­lem-solv­ing is key to achiev­ing win-win out­comes … for the bil­lions who won’t be denied […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices, 'Tourism's Horizon: Travel for the Millions' book, Insight Interviews
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Prof Julio Aramberri on freedom, progress, and academia’s ‘scissors crisis’

February 20, 2024

Julio Aramberri. Picture (c) by Antonio Heredia for an 'El Mundo' article, May 22, 2020. https://www.elmundo.es/opinion/2020/05/22/5ec7cd5f21efa0e55b8b45b0.html

Julio Ara­m­berri reck­ons con­tem­por­ary tour­ism aca­demia tends to focus on either “point­less prag­mat­ism” or “shrill reproof”; the excesses of ‘Right’ and ‘Left’. But ‘pro­gress’ is nuanced and can be poin­ted to in amus­ing ways: “Little could Marx ima­gine that the wish­ful ‘work­ers of all lands, unite’ carved in his Highg­ate grave would come true … […]

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Posted in Insights & Best Practices, 'Tourism's Horizon: Travel for the Millions' book, Insight Interviews
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Prof Michael Hall on inspirations, fears, and tourism studies’ legitimacy problem

January 25, 2024

Prof Michael Hall on inspirations, fears, and tourism studies’ legitimacy problem. He reckons there's "probably less genuine debate than ever before" in tourism studies.

There is much to fear about the future of travel, accord­ing to Michael Hall, includ­ing the risks that attend its growth, and the rise of intol­er­ance. He also wor­ries about a lack of “genu­ine debate” in tour­ism stud­ies.  Pro­fess­or Hall par­ti­cip­ated in a Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­view. For this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Jim Butcher sum­mar­ises the highlights. […]

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