Tourism involves the perception and collection of signs upon which the much quoted ‘gaze’ is constructed, and tourists look for signifiers or pre-established ideas which originate in different discourses. These discourses are particularly significant in understanding the ways that visitors experience places. This is very successfully illustrated on the book's cover, which carries a photograph of a woman taking a photograph of a mounted photograph of the interior of Agia Sophia in Istanbul. It could not be a better introduction to a book about ‘tourist photographs’ and ‘photography of tourism’. The book is based on the idea that images produced by tourists, or intended to be consumed by them, become representations of the world. A second reading removes them from the innocent act of holiday shots and sees them as socially, culturally and institutionally constructed meaningful representations.