Tracing the roots of magical tourism

Magic has a long and complex history and tracing its roots is an awareness of the broader context within which magical tourism takes shape. Every year, magical or magic-themed events and gatherings attract thousands of tourists and ironically, they have never been included in tourism academic discourse. Considering the complex history of magic, our objective in this chapter is to trace the role of magic within influential socio-political structures and happenings spanning across the ancient, medieval and modern periods. Using examples from these broad periods of time, we argue that magical tourism has existed throughout history, tracing a path of green heritage through the ages and yet has been effectively sidelined or trivialized by contemporary tourism scholars. The cultural diffusion and convergences between the Western and non-Western systems of magical thinking is a testimony to the fact that magical tourism has existed long enough but has remained unacknowledged. While ‘magic belongs to modernity’, the chapter reveals that magic can also be a tool to critique modernity and a medium for social change.