Professional travellers and tourist practices

This study analyses to what extent conventional tourism is part of the experience of professional visitors. Following the literature on mobilities, this paper assumes that leisure and work increasingly intermingle in time and space. Empirical work based on a survey of conference attendants in Barcelona confirms this stance, and invites to reframe professional life ‘in mobility’ as performed as part of a wider package of everyday activities. Public transport and mobile communication are analysed as facilitators of such convergence, highlighting how professional travel is situated in flexible spaces and flows. These findings provide insights for urban (tourism) policy, insofar as they demonstrate that planning for specialised spaces is not sufficient to reduce visitor pressure on the main tourist ‘sights’.