Published: 2012
Price: £5.99
Format: Paperback
84 pages
Size: 10.6 x 14 cm
ISBN: 978-1-908009-67-8
Tags: counter-tourism, heritage, wrights & sites, mythogeography, mis-guide, phil smith

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Counter-Tourism: A Pocketbook
50 odd things to do in a heritage site (and other places) 

​CrabMan (Phil Smith)


A guide for any school, family or student group... to transform a visit to a palace, castle, temple, stately home or any other heritage site.

The subtitle – 50 Odd Things to do in a Heritage Site (and other places) – says it all. This is a book to take with you next time you visit a historic or heritage site. Its 50 'tactics' are designed to transform the way you look at these places and to get you thinking about the way the industry packages 'heritage'. It's also an interesting and provocative present for parents, grandparents and anyone else who becomes a tourist from time to time.

Although you're encouraged to try them anywhere, many of the tactics work best in a castle, stately home or similar 'attraction'. Among the ideas, you'll find 'Photograph all the stains' and 'Visit heritage sites as if you were a member of a bomb disposal team' – some come with more elaborate instructions but others are as simple as that.

The 'tactics' are interspersed with thoughts and commentaries that appear on blue plaques. These soon reveal that the Pocketbook is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a whole radical philosophy underpinning Crab Man's approach to heritage, which has its own 'proper' book (Counter-Tourism: The Handbook).

Counter-Tourism is definitely not about 'sneering at tourism'. While the Pocketbook does collect some of the best 'Heritij' clichés and nonsense (including "Explore England's England" and the fabulous "Hop on one leg in beautiful surroundings"), we're encouraged to "Embrace the cock-ups and the accidental poetry – they may tell us much more... than yet another information board or guide in a three-cornered hat ".

The Pocketbook is an accessible introduction to the headier  Handbook and the deep spaceof Mythogeography.
The Pocketbook was used in one UK university drama department: 
"with our second year students on a module looking at site specific design, and it was fantastic. It really changed how they looked at the campus, and as a result we are making some really significant changes to (hopefully) transform our fairly new building."
Watch one of the hundreds of Counter-Tourism Tactics:

Read more:

About the author
Reviews
Counter-Tourism website

Related titles:

All our books on Walking
Alice's Dérives in Devonshire
Counter-Tourism: Handbook

Readership:

The Pocketbook is a book for anyone between about 8 and 80 interested in getting under the skin of the heritage sites they visit and starting to think sideways about what it means to be a tourist.