Abstract
The expert monograph describes, analyses and interprets anthropology of tourism and its basic topics including historic changes of tourism in the Western world from ancient times to the present. The first chapter focuses on travelling and roots of tourism in ancient times and the middle ages.
A wide-spread form of spiritually oriented travelling in medieval Europe was itinerancy. With the commencement of modern times there was an increase in voyages of discovery and conquest which linked travellers, missionaries, warriors and seafarers.
However, the first forerunners of tourists are considered young aristocrats who set out for their Grand Tours in the 16th-18th century. What can also be regarded as origins of tourism is the use of places offering natural healing resources and places that provided spa services.
What can be seen as absolutely crucial is the advent of tourism in modern times that lasted until the Second World War. This period saw the now traditional forms of holidays as well as incoming forms of tourism such as polar tourism, mountain tourism, dark or virtual tourism.
That is the reason why the second chapter of the book deals with anthropology of tourism seen as a new and developing sub-discipline and with thematic spheres of socio-cultural anthropology that has been establishing and dynamically developing since the 1970s. The book does not neglect social-scientific research and sociology which contributed to the formation of theoretic and methodological approaches developed under anthropology of tourism.
The chapter includes basic thematic spheres and significant representatives of anthropology of tourism who are further discussed in subsequent chapters of the book. The third chapter defines tourism and its typology.
The initial part analyses early approaches to tourism seen as a modern type of searching for the sacred, a ritual or pilgrimage. In this context, tourism is presented as a tool of socio-cultural, economic and environmental change or a form of neo-colonialism and imperialism.
Tourism is also described as a form of establishing ethnical relationships and construction of ethnic identities. Furthermore, tourism is researched as an escape from the everyday (profane) to the extraordinary, holy (sacral) life and as an opportunity for playful and ludic behaviour.
The fourth chapter defines the tourist and changes in his possible classification with emphasis on description of different tourist types and evolution changes of the tourist phenomenon in a historic continuum. The basic tourist typologies from the 1970s were actually, little by little, transformed and reviewed and developed into a formula of a "post-tourist" whose existence presumably leads to relativization of traditional tourist typologies.
The fifth chapter focuses on authenticity and construction of tourist imaginaries. It observes specific approaches to authenticity studies in the form in which they have been elaborated since the 1970s.
Special attention is dedicated to the phenomenon of tourist imaginaries that have been the subject of anthropology of tourism since the 1990s. For this reason, the chapter includes typologies of these categories alongside with elaboration of the category of tourist gaze including its theoretic effort for more accuracy and gradual differentiation.
The sixth chapter presents the destination image that influences tourists' decision-making whether to go to a specific tourist destination, the number of its visitors and tourist behaviour. The concept of the destination image and destination personality are key aspects of a destination branding that started winning its way more significantly at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s.
The seventh chapter is dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of social interaction and relationship between guests and hosts. In the 1960s and 1970s attention was paid rather to anthropologic reflection of negative and socio-cultural impacts that tourism had on host communities.
However, since the 1980s the focus shifted to the analysis and interpretation of the influence of commodification on the meaning and authenticity of a host culture and identity, while the processes linked with tourism started to be considered also positive. This trend continued in the 1990s when positive impacts of tourism on host cultures started to be taken into account more intensely.
The eighth chapter extends anthropology of tourism with the souvenir phenomenon, its typologies, meanings, attributes and behaviour patterns linked with purchasing it. The chapter accentuates commodification of indigenous artistic and artisan artefacts as a consequence of tourism where souvenirs (a commodity) became one of the economic sources of native cultures.
The aim of the monograph is to provide an interpretative framework that allows us to understand basic concepts and approaches in anthropology of tourism. The monograph does not aspire to describe the issues researched in a comprehensive and exhaustive way.
It is rather motivated by the effort to present basic fields and aspirations of anthropology of tourism as relatively new anthropologic sub-disciplines. Last but not least, this work makes use of case studies with a view of pointing to a wider historic and cultural context of the objects and processes linked with the current phenomenon of tourism.