TOURISM

Tourism is an economic phenomenon with important sociocultural implications that acquired a fundamental significance in the last decades of the twentieth century. It is one of the economic sectors with the highest rates of growth, together with transportation, communications, and the computer industry, with which it works in a synergitic way.

According to a classic definition, tourism can be identified in the complex of relations and manifestations that rise from the travel and stay of foreigners when the stay is temporary and is not motivated by a lucrative occupation (Hunziker and Krapf 1942). ”Foreigners” are persons who do not reside habitually in the zone in which the tourist activity is carried out; depending on wether the zone of residence is in the same state, one can distinguish between internal tourism and international tourism.

Other elements have to be considered in distinguishing fully-fledged tourism from similar activities. First, two ”fundamental actors” have to be dealt with. On one side, there are tourists (active tourism), who decide to undertake this activity because of several motivations. This is one of the primary topics in the sociopsychological analysis of tourism. On the other side, there is passive (or receptive) tourism constituted by the technical and socioeconomic structures that exist in the zones of reception with the aim of hosting tourists. In modern tourism, a third actor, consisting of agents of tourist intermediation (travel agencies, tour operators, carriers, etc.), has assumed greater importance by connecting the demand for and the supply of tourism. The tourism described here is essentially a mass phenomenon that exists alongside elite tourism, which was the first type to appear.

Merchant writers such as Marco Polo, traveler-explorers, and missionaries, often accompanied by anthropologists and ethnologists, were the forerunners of tourists, but only after the ”Grand Tours” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can one speak of the emergence of the tourist phenomenon. The grand tour was considered a fundamental stage in the formation of young aristocrats and later of the children of the emergent high bourgeoisie. It consisted of a visit to the more centers of the culture of the age, with a predilection for southern Europe, in particular Italy and its remnants of classic culture.

Toward the end of nineteenth century, with the inauguration of the first seaside resorts, tourism began to acquire mass characteristics, a phenomenon that was facilitated by the improvement of transportation systems, especially the extension of the railway network (Urry 1990).

The transformation of elite tourism into a phenomenon that involved wide strata of the population did not occur until after the end of World War II and, in the more economically developed countries, the possession of the automobile as an individual and family means of transportation and the expansion of transcontinental and transoceanic flights.

Tourism is therefore facilitated, in addition to the elevation of individual incomes and better tariff conditions, by technical, political, and social factors. It also involves a psychological evolution in society, especially in the richer countries, where it provides an escape from the stresses of city life and the daily routine. A stronger desire for social intercourse has grown along with a desire for physical activity to compensate for a sedentary lifestyle.

Certain forms of travel have a demonstrative scope, since ”to tour,” in particular elite tourism but also mass tourism, may be thought of as an expression of one’s prestige and social position.

Urry (1990) introduced the concept of the ”tourist gaze,” stating that ”part at least of that experience is to gaze upon or view a set of different scenes, of landscapes or townscapes which are outside of the ordinary” (1990, p. 1). As Urry describes it:

1. ”tourism is a leisure activity which presupposes its opposite, namely regulated and organized work, . . .

2. tourist relationships arise from a movement of people to, and their stay in, various destinations. This necessarily involves some movement through the space, that is the journey, and a period of stay in a new place or places,

3. the journey and stay are to, and in, sites which are outside the normal places of residence and work. Periods of residence elsewhere are of a short-term and temporary nature, . . .

4. the places gazed upon are for purposes which are not directly connected with the paid work and normally they offer some distinctive contrasts with work (both paid or unpaid);

5. a substantial proportion of the population of modern societies engages in such tourist practices, new socialized forms of provision are developed in order to cope with the mass character of the gaze of tourist (as opposed to the individual character of ”travel”)

6. places are chosen to be gazed upon because there is an anticipation, especially through daydreaming and fantasy, of intense pleasures, either on a different scale or involving different senses from those customarily encountered, . . .

7. the tourist gaze is directed to features of landscape and townscape which separate them off from everyday experience. Such aspects are viewed because they are taken to be in some sense out of the ordinary, . . .

8. the gaze is constructed through signs, and tourism involves the collection of signs,. . .

9. an array of tourist professionals develop who attempt to reproduce ever-new objects of the tourist gaze. . . (Urry 1990, pp. 2-3 passim).

THE DIMENSIONS OF THE PHENOMENON

The modern growth of tourism has been referred to ironically by Lodge (1992) as the ”new global religion,” and a work on this phenomenon is entitled ”The Golden Hordes” (Turner and Ash 1975). Prosser also supplies some data on a ”phenomenon” that he describes by using the metaphor of the tsunami: By the mid-1990s, the tourism sector constituted 6 percent of world gross national product and 13 percent of the money spent for consumption and could be defined as the fastest-growing industry. According to the forecasts of the World Tourism Organization, in the year 2005, the tourist industry will involve 40 million persons.

Taking into account only persons who cross their state borders for tourism (perhaps equally important is the internal tourist movement), more recent data show, in approximately a decade, a near doubling of the phenomenon and also indicate that total revenues have increased to three times their original amount (Table 1).

The distribution of tourism in a wide range of countries has occurred in time span of only a few years. Tourism in the industrialized countries, while declining in relative terms, accounts for ever 50 percent of the total, but the share of the developing countries has grown and now accounts for almost a third of the total. The countries of central and eastern Europe still suffer from the backwardness of decades of relative inaccessibility, but after the fall of the Berlin wall, their proportion of the world tourism has grown (Table 2).

Table 1:Arrivals and Revenues in International Tourism

France is the leader in tourist presence, followed by the United States and two countries of Mediterranean Europe, Spain and Italy. In fifth place is China, a country only recently opened to international tourism that has a large potential that bas been limited by a deficiency of infrastructure and receptive structures.

The forecasts of an increase of tourism are plausible because some countries of the former communist bloc already play an important role. Other developing countries (e.g., Brazil and South Africa), apart from China, have potential and will be able to play a more important role in international tourism if they stabilize their political and/or economic situation.

There currently is a remarkable concentration of tourist destinations in which the top ten countries together account for over 50 percent of tourism and top twenty countries account for over two-thirds (Table 3).

These figures suggest that the market for tourism will grow and become more differentiated, that there will be more specialization and segmentation of that market, and that organized travel packages will become more personalized to cope with the desire for greater individual freedom through a modular design of the product (Schwaninger 1989).

Table 2:Percentage Distribution of Tourist Presences

THE NATURE OF TOURISM

Mass tourism is the main concern of this article inasmuch as the current growth of the tourism industry essentially has resulted from it. Mass tourism is a ”fickle” market in which status-elevating motivations are important. ”If people do not travel, they lose status: travel is the maker of status” (Urry 1990, p. 5). The concept of conspicuous consumption (Veblen [1899] 1970) is operative here because in choosing a vacation, one takes into account the attributions of status defined on the basis of the place one visits and the characteristics of the other visitors.

One therefore is dealing with a market that is very sensitive to fashion and changes in values. The relative loss of importance of seaside resorts, which were the preferred destinations at the beginning of mass tourism, can be cited in this regard:

In the post-war period it has been the sun, not the sea, that is presumed to produce health and sexual attractiveness. The ideal body has come to be viewed as one that is tanned. This viewpoint has been diffused downwards through the social classes with the result that many package holidays present this as almost the reason for going on holiday. . . . Seaside resorts have also become less distinctive because of the widespread de-industrialization of many towns and cities so that there is less need to escape from them to the contrasting seaside. As the everyday has changed, as towns and cities have become de-industrialized and many have themselves become objects for the tourist gaze, with wave machines and other features of the beach, so seaside resorts are no longer extraordinary. (Urry 1990, pp. 37-38)

Tourism is therefore a fashion phenomenon that goes through all the typical phases of a product of that type, from discovery and emergence, to increasing popularity, saturation, attenuation of its appeal, and eventually decline. It is sensitive to the relationship between demand and supply, based the on perceptions, expectations, attitudes, and values of people, and therefore is subject to cultural filters:

The various contents and destinations of tourism, from the nineteenth Century to our days, seem to follow a standardized route . . . They are invented by individuals that live in conditions of originality and marginality in relationship to the ‘world.’ Subsequently they are consecrated by the notables: the monarchs and their families, followed by the artists and the celebrities . . . Finally they are diffused through the capillary imitation of the behavior of one social layer by the immediately inferior one. As soon as a place or a tourist fashion is known, there begins an emulation process that leads quickly to congestion; processes of distinction are then activated by groups that address to other places and invent other activities, reopening a new cycle. The succession of dissemination and invention cycles leads to the need for distinction to introduce more and more far and unusual goals. (Savelli 1998, pp. 92-93).

One can speak of the ”pleasure periphery,” as in the case of the increase of Antarctic tourism (Prosser 1994, p. 22). For this aspect, the model of Plog (1973) is relevant. Plog analyzes the personality of the tourist: Along a continuum, one can go from psycho-centered, expectant subjects preoccupied with the small daily problems and escaping to adventures, to subjects who are as allocentered, confident in themselves, curious, and adventurous. The places visited by these varied subjects are obviously very different. In the survey conducted by Plog among the inhabitants of New York, while the psychocentered subjects do not venture beyond Coney Island, the midcentered travel to Europe and the allocentered do not dare to face the Pacific or Africa.

In dealing with tourism from a socioeconomic point of view, the ”positional goods” concept (Hirsh 1978) can be used. This term refers to social goods, services, jobs, positions, and other relations that are scarce or subject to congestion and/or crowding. The competition is zero-sum: When someone consumes these kinds of goods in excess, someone else is forced to consume less. The supply is limited because quality would lessen as a result of quantitative growth.

Table 3:International Arrivals by Country, 1996

One also can trace a conflict of interest between the actors described in the first part of this article (tourists, agencies, and the tourism industry in the hosting countries) and environmentalists. Since natural and cultural resources may be irremediably spoiled, there is thus a conflict of interest between present and future generations (Mishan 1969).

Another peculiar characteristic of tourism is that ”almost all the services provided to tourists have to be delivered at the time and place at which they are produced. As a consequence the quality of the social interaction between the provider of the service, such as the waiter, flight attendant or hotel receptionist, and the consumer, is part of the ‘product’ being purchased by the tourist. If aspects of that social interaction are unsatisfactory (the offhand waiter, the unsmiling flight attendant, or the rude receptionist), then what is purchased is in effect a different service product” (Urry 1990, p. 40). Production of services for the consumer, in fact, cannot be done entirely behind the scenes, far away from the tourist gaze. Moreover, tourists have high expectations about what they will receive, since the search for the extraordinary is an essential aspect of the choice to travel.

”Spatial fixity” is a crucial characteristic of tourist services (Bagguley 1987), and customers are more mobile and now consume tourist services on a global scale. This means that ”part of what is consumed is in effect the place in which the service producer is located. If the particular place does not convey appropriate cultural meanings, the quality of the specific service may well be tarnished” (Urry 1990, p. 40).

Since the services offered are intrinsically labor-intensive, employers try to diminish the costs. However, this may undermine the extraordinary character of the tourist experience (Urry 1990, p. 41).

TOURISTS AND THEIR MOTIVATIONS

In an attempt to grasp the features that distinguish tourists from other kinds of travelers, Cohen (1974) singles out certain dimensions that are thought to be essential: duration of the travel, voluntariness, direction, distance, recurrence, and purpose. On the basis of these elements, a tourist may be defined as a traveler who moves voluntarily and for a limited period of time to obtain pleasure from the experience of novelty and change, following a relatively long and non-recurring route.

For the sake of clarity, distinctions are introduced in the form of a dichotomy. However, one can assume that in many cases there are different degrees of distance from ”full-fledged tourism.”

When the duration of the travel and stay is short (less than twenty-four hours in the definition of the UN Conference on International Travel and Tourism), there are trips and excursions. There is also an upper limit, more difficult to determine, beyond which one can speak of permanent travelers (wanderers, nomads).

When the element of voluntariness is lacking, one is dealing with the exile (sometimes voluntary), the slave, the prisoner of war, or the political refugee. The pilgrim also can be considered a type of traveler who differs from the full-fledged tourist inasmuch as in many cases there is a lack of voluntariness. This is the case because social expectations can determine the decision to travel and the stay (e.g., pilgrimages to Mecca by Muslim believers).

In terms of direction, tourists return to their countries of origin, while immigrants make a oneway trip. There are also intermediate categories that are less easy to classify, such as ”tourist immigrants” and ”permanent tourists.” These people leave home as tourists but decide to stay for a longer time span in a foreign country. Persons such as the ”expatriates” (e.g., the many foreign artists who reside in cities such as Paris) are also difficult to define. They decide to live in a foreign country for indefinite periods without completely cutting their ties with the country of origin.

If the distance is short, one can speak of excursionists and hikers, while if the distance is much longer, one could have spoken in the past of explorers. Today, nearly all the possible destinations on the face of the earth seem to be within the reach of the tourist. If the distance implies crossing a national border, there is the already mentioned distinction between internal tourism and international tourism.

When travel and stay have a season or weekend regularity (recurrence), one is dealing with the the habitue, who often is the owner of a summer house. This person is not properly a tourist, because the elements of novelty and change are lacking.

Finally, the purpose for the tourist does not have to be instrumental but can involve the seeking of pleasure. If the purpose is instrumental or has another specific nature different from the search for novelty and change, one is dealing with students, old country visitors, conventioneers, business travelers, tourist employees, and the like.

However, this criterion is not as precise as it might appear at a first glance. The noninstrumental character of the purpose and the search for novelty and change has to be considered from a social point of view. When an individual takes a vacation for reasons of prestige, this travel is socially defined as a pleasure trip even if that individual will not enjoy the experience. More likely, there will be the opposite case: The purpose is declared as instrumental, but other instrumental (and not) purposes are also relevant (Savelli 1998, p. 57).

Tourists’ motivations also can be analyzed by distinguishing the push factors that lead to the desire to go on vacation from the pull factors that the various areas of attraction exercise on the tourist (Savelli 1986, p. 2269).

To show the ”versatility” of the tourism phenomenon, a relationship can be seen between some of its forms and the fundamental needs listed by Maslow. Therapeutic tourism satisfies physiological needs, while the needs of security and belonging are satisfied by familiar and ”identity” tourism. The need for social recognition is catered to by tourism a raconter, (The French expression a raconter refers to a tourist who leads you to extraordinary places where extraordinary things happen that one is very pleased to narrate to friends, thereby obtaining social status.) and people satisfy the need for self-esteem through sport and cultural tourism (Kovacshazy and people 1998, p. 58).

To describe the psychological and social situation experienced by the tourist, some authors propose an interesting analogy between the tourist and the pilgrim. Both move from a familiar place to a distant one and then come back. In faraway localities, they dedicate themselves—although in different ways—to the ”worship” of sacred places. These can be described as ”liminoid” situations in which daily obligations are suspended (Turner and Truner 1978): ”There is license for permissive and playful ‘non-serious’ behavior and the encouragement of a relatively unconstrained ‘communitas’ or social togetherness” (Urry 1990, p. 10). The purpose of a vacation thus consists of overturning the daily routine: Middle-class tourists try to be a ”peasant for a day,” while tourists with a lower social rank try to be ”king/queen for a day” (Gottlieb 1982).

In a survey carried out in Italy (Isnart 1997) by interviewing only persons who go on vacation habitually, only the expenses for food and daily living were judged ”more necessary” than those for traveling. The expenses for car use and maintenance and those undertaken to dress were lower than those for the consumption of vacations.

There often exists a link among subjective motivations, perception of the visited localities, and the objective connotations of those localities. Some connotations are always valid (effectiveness and efficiency, a proper quality-price ratio, a satisfactory environmental quality, the hospitality and warmth of the residents). Other connotations assume a nearly cyclical course: They gain a special reputation for one or two seasons and then fade out.

However, five major categories of motivations more or less summarize what this article has described so far:

1. Subjectivity: the sense of curiosity, interest, discovery, opportunity, and ”digression” of the vacation

2. Security: the sense of confidence that vacation places must transmit and the possibility of relaxing (nearly the opposite of the insecurity of large cities)

3. Transgression: the willingness to have a good time, to push the limits, to have ”extraordinary” and ”sensual” experiences

4. Budget: the search for something that does not divert too many resources from other needs and opportunities

5. Status: the idea that travel is first of all social gratification, something to show, a reached goal (Isnart 1997, p. 16)

Among these categories of motivations, subjectivity prevails, with status and transgression not far behind. Obviously, budget is much more a concern of the elderly (who also appreciate security) and young people (who do not care much about status). Some of these differences are related to socioeconomic class.

THE IMPACT OF TOURISM

The tourist’s role is a total one: ”He cannot hide his own externality from the local population and all his relations are imprinted and denoted, in the first place, by the tourist role. In the same way, he is recognized as such from other tourists, regardless, in some manner, of his social condition, nationality, origin and race” (Savelli 1998, pp. 129-130).

The tourist’s presence therefore cannot pass unnoticed, and the increase of tourism can carry, besides the obvious economic advantages, some negative consequence in the countries that receive tourist flows. In this regard, there are pessimistic visions that are valid, especially for developing countries. These are the countries in which tourism can be expected to show steadily increasing rates of growth and in which there is more to earn from this development.

Tourist destinations are vulnerable, and one can even speak about economic colonialism, because investments and the largest part of demand are controlled by the developed countries. Exploitation can be not only economic but also social and environmental, inasmuch as community displacement, societal dislocation, and cultural transformation may occur (Ryan 1991): ”Village farmland is appropriated, there is inter-generational stress as younger groups succumb to the ‘demonstration effect’ of tourist material wealth and behavior, intra-family stress as male-female role balance shifts, and community disharmony as religious ceremonies and artforms are commercialized” (Prosser 1994, p. 29).

Therefore, it is necessary to foster a sustainable tourism that tries ”to sustain the quantity, quality, and productivity both of human and natural resources systems over time, while respecting and accommodating the dynamics of such systems” (Prosser 1994, pp. 31-32). This alternative form of tourism must ”search for spontaneity, enhanced interpersonal relations, creativity, authenticity, solidarity, and social and ecological harmony” (Pearce 1989, p. 101).

The social relations between tourists and indigenous populations are complex and can lead to conflict as a result of several factors. Among the more important ones are the number of tourists who visit a place in relation to the size of the hosting population, the type of organization of the tourist industry, the effects of tourism on preexisting agricultural and industrial activities, economic and social differences between the visitors and the majority of the hosts, and the degree to which visitors demand particular standards of lodging and service, that is, the expressed desire to be locked in an ”environmental bubble” for protection from the ”disappointing” characteristics of the hosting society (Urry 1990, p. 90).

As a counterbalance of these potential dangers, one has to consider that the cost of a new workplace in the tourist sector has been estimated at £4,000, compared with £32,000 in the manufacturing industry and £300,000 in mechanical engineering (Lumley 1988, cited by Urry 1990, p. 114). These are older figures, and therefore are not necessarily still valid, but the ratios probably continued to be valid. The ”tourist prescription” therefore can be recommended particularly for countries that do not have many financial resources.

For tourism to be sustainable and respectful of the natural and social environment, the attitudes and behaviors of the three main actors must change:

• The attitudes of tourists must change. Tourists tend to believe that other tourists are the problem. Thus, their attitudes remain elitist and short-term.

• The destination areas must assume a longer-term attitude. An equilibrium between optimization of the revenues and protection of the resources must be found. Populations must be involved in all phases of development: ideation and planning, construction and implementation, conduction and management, and monitoring and modification.

• The tourist industry must find an equilibrium between opposing requirements. There is an unavoidable push for environmental control from foreign investors and operators in order to obtain greater profits that can be detrimental to local populations and governments. At the same time, the tourist industry feels the need to appear to be ecologically responsible (Prosser 1994, p. 32).

It has been proposed that tourism should be considered only a preliminary stage in which resources are obtained, that can be used later for ”true” development through investment in other sectors. That is reasonable, because diversification is a key factor in economic security and stability, especially if tourism can be defined as a fashion industry. However, one may question whether the impact of other industrial initiatives is less harmful and more sustainable than that of tourism. This opinion results from a dated attitude characterized by an ideologically rooted prejudice that is disappearing: ”In the last few years in Britain many Labour councils have enthusiastically embraced local tourist initiatives, having once dismissed tourism as providing only ‘candy-floss jobs”’ (Urry 1990, p. 115).

POSTMODERN TOURISM

While the countries that receive tourist flows need to find a balance between the advantages and disadvantages and search for a sustainable ”receipt,” the benefits for tourists seem to be without shortcomings. Krippendorf (1987) speaks about ”travel” that represents recuperation and regeneration, compensation and social integration, escape, and communication, intellectual expansion, freedom and self-determination, self-realization, and happiness.

The fact that the tourist industry continues to grow indicates that it is able to give a satisfactory answer to tourists’ expectations; otherwise there would be frustration, and the phenomenon would recede. One can ask why tourists continue to travel and their numbers continue to increase in spite of the ”alarm bells” that call attention to the problem of overcrowding and the relative nonauthenticity of the tourist experience.

This article has dealt with the problem of overcrowding in its characterization of the tourist product as a ”positional good.” This pessimistic thesis has been criticized by Beckerman (1974), who raises two interesting issues. First, the concern about the effects of the mass tourism is basically a ”middle-class” anxiety (like many other environmental concerns) because the really rich ”are quite safe from the masses in the very expensive resorts, or on their private yachts or private islands or secluded estates” (Beckerman 1974, pp. 50-51). Second, most people who are affected by mass tourism benefit from it, including the ”pioneers,” who, when they return to a place, find services that were not available when the number of visitors was small.

One also can criticize the applicability of the scarcity concept to the tourist industry. The implicit scarcities in the tourist industry are complex, and strategies can be adopted that allow the enjoyment of the same object by a greater number of persons. Thus, one must distinguish between the ”physical capacity” and ”perceptive capacity” of a tourist place (Walter 1982).

One also has to consider that in addition to the ”romantic” tourist gaze, which emphasizes solitude, privacy, and a personal, quasi-spiritual relation with the observed object, there is an alternative ”collective” gaze with different characteristics. The collective gaze demands the participation of wide numbers of other people to create a particular atmosphere: ”They indicate that this is the place to be and that one should not be elsewhere.” (Urry 1990, p. 46). This is the case for major cities, whose uniqueness lies in their cosmopolitan character: ”It is the presence of people from all over the world (tourists in other words) that gives capital cities their distinct excitement and glamour” (Urry 1990, pp. 46).

Some people prefer to move around in compact formations because otherwise they will not enjoy themselves, while others prefer to travel in solitude. Therefore, Hirsh’s (1978) thesis on scarcity and positional competition should be applied mainly to tourism characterized by the romantic gaze. When the collective gaze is more important, the problem of crowding and congestion is less marked. Moreover, the scarcity thesis would be totally applicable only if one maintained that there are severe limits to the number of ”objects” worthy of the admiration of the tourist. However, ”if Glasgow can be remade as a tourist attraction, one might wonder whether there are in fact any limits to the tourist, or post-tourist, gaze” (Urry 1990, p. 156).

Another issue refers to the nonauthenticity of the tourist experience. Turner and Ash (1975) describe a tourist who is placed at the center of a rigorously circumscribed world (the ”environmental bubble”). Travel agents, couriers, and hotel managers are described as surrogate parents who relieve the tourist of every responsibility, protect the tourist from harsh reality, and decide for the tourist which objects are worthy to be admired.

Various types of tourists exist, and they are pushed by various needs and motivations for which various means are available to realize the tourist experience. In an age that is being defined as postmodern, the posttourist also is being redefined.

The post-tourist knows that they are a tourist and that tourism is a game, or rather a whole series of games with multiple texts and no single authentic tourist experience. The post-tourist thus knows that they will have to queue time and time again, that there will be hassles over foreign exchange, that the glossy brochure is a piece of pop culture, that the apparently authentic local entertainment is as socially contrived as an ethnic bar, and that the supposedly quaint and traditional fishing village could not survive without the income from tourism. (Urry 1990, p. 100).

The post-tourist knows that ”he is not a time-traveller when he goes somewhere historic, not an instant noble savage when he stays on a tropical beach, not an invisible observer when he visits a native compound. Resolutely ‘realistic,’ he cannot evade his condition of outsider” (Feifer 1985, p. 271). This means that many travelers appreciate the ”not-authenticity” of the tourist experience and ”find pleasure in the multiplicity of tourist games. They know that there is no authentic tourist experience, that there are merely a series of games or texts that can be played” (Urry 1990, p. 11).