The teenage gaze: Teens and tourism in belfast

This article addresses the absence of children in tourism studies by outlining an innovative case study involving teenagers co-constructing a bus tour of Belfast. Seventeen young people, aged 14–16 took part in designing a tour of Belfast that was subsequently facilitated by a major tour company operating in the city. The article outlines how young people’s local spatial knowledge challenges mainstream adult discourses and remains an untapped resource with the potential to contribute significantly to tourism’s understandings of divided cities providing existing tourism frameworks are extended to incorporate young people’s own ways of seeing and experiencing their everyday spatial lives.