This work historically analyses the infrastructural dynamics of the North American railway system and proposes a connection between the concepts of space, materiality and institutional dynamics which can be used for tourism management studies. The theory-building case study (in a grounded theory approach) is based on a BBC travel documentary on the Appleton’s General Guide of 1879. Starting from the concepts of “production of space” and “sociospatial relations”, the introduction of the specific material infrastructure dimension allows us: i) to pinpoint a theoretical framework over four levels (territory, place, scale, networks) in order to study the “institutional dynamics of markets”; (ii) and suggests a possible practice-based turn in destination marketing studies.
