Bookstore tourism (2003– ) is a type of cultural tourism that promotes independent bookstores as a group travel destination. It started as a grassroots effort to support locally owned and operated bookshops, many of which have struggled to compete with large bookstore chains and online retailers. The project was initiated by Larry Portzline, a writer and college instructor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who led "bookstore road trips" to other cities and recognized its potential as a group travel niche and marketing tool.
In 2007, The New York Times argued that the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts, is the " most author-saturated, book-cherishing, literature-celebrating place in" the United States. In particular, it discussed three bookshops in the region, Amherst Books in Amherst, Massachusetts, Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, Massachusetts, and The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
In 2008, USA Today listed nine top bookstore travel destinations in the United States as: Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida, City Lights Books in San Francisco, The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa, Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado, That Bookstore in Blytheville in Blytheville, Arkansas, and the Strand Book Store in New York City.
Read more about this topic: Independent Bookstore
Famous quotes containing the words bookstore and/or tourism:
“I went to the bookstore and God was not there.
Doctor Faustus was baby blue with a Knopf dog
on his spine. He was frayed and threadbare
with needing.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.”
—Robert Runcie (b. 1921)