music tourism

Within contents tourism research, music has assumed one of two main positions. First, it is one media/cultural format among many inducing tourism under the umbrella term of ‘contents tourism’. This is similar to the position of ‘music tourism’ within ‘media tourism’ in English. Second, it is treated more as a ‘creative element’ within a narrative world that triggers contents tourism. In this article, a performance of the Bakumatsu Opera The Woman Who Loved Toshizō is used as a starting point to consider how music fits within contents tourism research in the latter conceptualisation of music as a creative element. There are three main lines of discussion: 1) music within the varied categorisations of tourism studies, 2) contents tourism by performers/creators of musical works, and 3) music tourism’s connections with theatre tourism and other forms of live event tourism. This article offers some preliminary discussion regarding music-related contents tourism as a sub-genre of research within contents tourism studies.