Abstract: | In this paper the interactive nature of touristic encounters in enclavic spaces is explored. Drawing on concepts of tourism as performative practice, it examines tourist experience as a form of productive consumption in which holidays are shaped by interactions with both those working in tourism and other tourists. The discussion draws on data gathered in semi‐structured interviews carried out with 39 solo female tourists from the UK. The findings of this study suggest that the sexualised performances of tourism employees and of different groups of tourists in the physical, temporal and social contexts of the holiday have the power to render such spaces inclusive or exclusionary. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. |