To reiterate, we argue that tourism spaces are increasingly being
recognised as socio-cultural constructions rather than simply
neutral physical locations or destinations From this perspective
tourist space is viewed as a site through which “power, identity,
meaning and behaviour are constructed, negotiated and renegotiated
according to socio-cultural dynamics” (Aitchison and Reeves,
1998, p. 51). This perspective recognises that space has both material
and symbolic dimensions, which provides a framework for
theorising space as heterotopic in terms of the interplay between
the travel space and the travel experience. Space and travel are both
real and imagined. In this context, we consider the significance of
heterotopic tourist space such as WWOOFing and the subsequent
mediated tourism experience (which we construct as sustainable or
alternative tourism) which sit outside the understanding of the
creation of space through commercial enterprise, while also recognising
the commodifying process that also effects this space
through the tourist's use of it.