Erik Cohen: the foundations of tourism studies

This chapter provides a narrative of Erik Cohen&s;s academic development, while along the way accounting for some of the key milestones in his professional life, stretching from youth to Emeritus status to the time of writing, before finally reflecting further on his contributions to the development of tourism studies. Erik was involved in several research projects in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University during his doctoral studies, some of which bear mentioning for the significance they had on his academic development. Erik&s;s intuition that tourism was a promising topic had proven correct, and in 1982, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recognized his contributions by promoting him to Professor. Most recently, Erik has taken interest in Thai spirit houses, roadside memorials, bus paintings, tattoo tourism, and further aspects of human/animals interactions in Thai society, travelling up and down the country in his continued fieldwork, despite supposedly having “retired” more than 12 years ago.