Although tourism has been neglected – at least by German social science and cultural studies – it is nonetheless one of the most important global cultural practices. Yet it is difficult to determine what characterizes touristic practices themselves. We tend to talk about a demand for the extra-quotidian, the exotic or an antidote to the world of work – a demand that requires a change of location. The everyday infrastructural conditions for this mobility, however, usually remain invisible (at least as long as they do not become a spectacular attraction in their own right) or are regarded as mere means to an end. This talk looks into the materiality of frequently overlooked everyday infrastructures of tourism (for example transport and communication structures). It develops the thesis that the sensory experience of such infrastructures is in fact at the center of the tourist experience.

The talk was given at the conference "Poetics of Infrastructure" in Vienna on December 13, 2014. This extract is part of the Issue Poetics of Infrastructure.