Individualism and the ‘new tourism’: a perspective on emulation, personal control and choice

Abstract

Changes can be identified in patterns of Western tourism over recent decades. The changes are linked with the theorized cultural shift from modern to postmodern. The discourse of change points to a shift in emphasis from the designated resort environment to a proliferation of individuated experiences. Analysts are apt to link these changes to a growth in individualism and individualistic expression. This study argues that the new tourists' real needs are to discover a new form of the collective. The argument is constructed drawing on the work of Veblen and Bourdieu. The final diagnosis draws on the work of Foucault.

Tourism Lobbying in Bavaria: Between Ignorance, Parochialism and Opportunism

“…Particularly, the existing asymmetries resulting from the divergent interests of the makers of tourism policy and the tourism business itself make it difficult to position a destination successfully. The consequences of the transformation process from modern to postmodern tourism include increasingly complex challenges for those attempting to position a destination successfully and sustainably, challenges that can only be mastered by means of concerted efforts in the tourism value chain (Kachel & Jennings, 2010;Voase, 2007).…”

Tourism as connectedness

“…The 1980s in the UK, for example, saw a rise in a political and economic ideology based on the individual rather than society (Voase 2007). In line with political and economic developments, welfare states were dismantled, and power rendered over to companies or removed from the State, as globalized production also made workforces increasingly global.…”

“…There has also been growth in the availability and popularity of volunteer tourism to pursue goals of self-development or self-actualization (Sin 2009). As Voase (2007) suggests, growth in individualism is also evident in individuated experiences, facilitated in particular by the Internet.…”

“Berlin Does Not Love You”

“…a "new tourism" (cf. Poon 1989;Voase 2007), and de-differentiation because of wider changes in leisure, consumption, and mobility patterns in advanced capitalist societies that make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between tourism and other forms of migration and mobility, as well as other forms of leisure and (place) consumption (cf. Urry 2001;Hall et al 2006;Novy 2011).…”