Around the world, tourists are drawn to visit murals painted on walls. Whether heritage asset, legacy leftover, or contested art space, the mural is more than a simple tourist attraction or accidental aspect of tourism material culture. They express something about the politics, heritage and identity of the locations being visited, whether a medieval fresco in an Italian church, or modern political art found in Belfast or Tehran.

This interdisciplinary and highly international book explores tourism around murals that are either evolving or have transitioned as instruments of politics, heritage and identity. It explores the diverse messaging of these murals: their production, interpretation, marketing and – in some cases – destruction. It argues that the mural is more than a simple tourist attraction or accidental aspect of tourism material culture.

Murals and Tourism will be valuable reading for those interested in cultural geography, tourism, heritage studies and the visual arts.

Jonathan Skinner is Reader in Social Anthropology in the Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton, UK.

Lee Jolliffe is Professor of Hospitality and Tourism in the Faculty of Business at the University of New Brunswick, Canada.