Introduction

Romance tourism involves a very direct kind of host-guest encounter, popularly brushed aside as an unsavoury means for young men and women in a destination to ‘get rich quick’ from love-struck or lusting tourists. Drawing on my research on factors that affect the nature of the interaction between package tourists and ‘bumsters’ (i.e. beach boys) in The Gambia, this chapter illustrates different perspectives of the nature of the host-guest encounters involved in romance tourism. The history, context, and characteristics of these encounters are considered and the concept of the tourist bubble applied to reflect how these encounters are affected by intermediaries and the tourism infrastructure. These encounters are then further examined in terms of their impact on relations with the host community, and on The Gambia as a holiday destination. The intention is to highlight some of the complexities of ‘romantic’ host-guest encounters in The Gambia, to add depth with the voices of bumsters, tourists and tourism industry stakeholders to the existing popular debate about whether they are about money or love. I argue that upon closer inspection such host-guest encounters are not as ‘black or white’ as they might seem, but rather they represent a complex social phenomenon which is unlikely to stop.

By hovering above the tourist bubble mediating between these ‘romantic’ host-guest encounters, and reflecting on the characteristics of these encounters, I aim to show how they are shaped by a number of different variables and intermediary organisations which enable tourists to stay within that home-like culture i.e. the tourist bubble.