Tourism is a site where difference is consumed, celebrated, and marginalised. This paper examines how queer men of colour navigate tourism and Grindr as interlocking contexts in which desirability is continually recalibrated. Drawing on interviews with thirteen participants and auto-ethnographic reflections, we bring intersectionality into dialogue with sexual field theory to conceptualise racialised digital embodiment and touristic erotic repositioning. Findings highlight the volatility of erotic capital: travel may generate visibility and validation, yet this is often tethered to fetishisation, objectification, or exclusion. By foregrounding how digital infrastructures mediate racialised desire, the paper advances intersectional approaches in tourism by centring queer men of colour and unveils how tourism and digital platforms together may recalibrate erotic capital across shifting sexual fields.
Volatile desirability in tourism: A multi-method intersectional analysis
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.118, 104170
05/2026
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- Volatile desirability in tourism: A multi-method intersectional analysis
- Xudong Qiu (Author) - University of East LondonJonathan Skinner (Author) - University of Surrey, Surrey Hospitality and Tourism ManagementScott Allen Cohen (Author) - University of Algarve
- Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.118, 104170
- Elsevier; OXFORD
- 13
- 19/03/2026
- 05/2026
- 10/03/2026
- CinTurs, UID/04020/2025, The Foundation for Science and Technology (United Kingdom, London) - FST
- Scott Cohen is financed by National Funds provided by FCT- Foundation for Science and Technology through project UID/04020/2025 (CinTurs) with DOI https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/04020/2025.
- 991112295002346; WOS:001722117200001
- © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Surrey Hospitality and Tourism Management
- English
- Journal article
- The data that has been used is confidential.