TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL TOURISM by cohen

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL TOURISM Author(s): ERIK COHEN Reviewed work(s): Source: Social Research, Vol. 39, No. 1, POLITICAL ECONOMICS (SPRING 1972), pp. 164-182 Published by: The New School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40970087 . Accessed: 08/01/2013 09:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The New School is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Research. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL TOURISM1 BY ERIK COHEN X n recent years, there has been an enormous rise in both the num- ber of people traveling for pleasure and the number of countries and places visited regularly by tourists. Sociologists, however, seem to have neglected the study of tourism as a social phe- nomenon.2 Here I should like to propose a general theoretical approach to the phenomenon of international tourism, one which includes a typology of tourists on the basis of their relationship to both the tourist business establishment and the host country. Varieties of Tourist Experience "After seeing the jewels at Topkapi, the fabled Blue Mosque and bazaars, it's awfully nice to come home to the Istanbul Hilton" (Advertisement in Time magazine) Tourism is so widespread and accepted today, particularly in the Western world,3 that we tend to take it for granted. Travel- i This paper was first written while I was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Urban Environment, Columbia University, New York. Thanks are due to the Institute as well as to Dr. R. Bar-Yoseph, Prof. Elihu Katz, and Dr. M. Shokeid, for their useful comments. 2 There exist very few full-length studies of tourism. One of the most com- prehensive studies is that by H. J. Knebel, Soziologische Strukturwandlungen im Modernen Tourismus (Stuttgart: F. Enke Verl., 1960). By far the most incisive analysis of American tourism has been performed by D. Boorstin, The Image, (New York: Atheneum, 1962), pp. 77-117. There is a chapter on tourism in J. Dumazedier, Towards a Society of Leisure (New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 123- 128, and in M. Kaplan, Leisure in America: A Social Inquiry (New York: Wiley, 1960), Ch. 16. **or tne contemporary tourist Doom see a. k. waters, ine American lounst, The Annals of the American Academy of Social Science, 368 (November 1966), pp. 109-118. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOCIOLOGY OF TOURISM 165 ing for pleasure in a foreign country by large numbers of people is a relatively modern occurrence, however, dating only from the early nineteenth century.4 It seems that mass tourism as a cultural phenomenon evolves as a result of a very basic change in man's attitude to the world beyond the boundaries of his native habitat. So long as man re- mains largely ignorant of the existence of other societies, other cultures, he regards his own small world as the cosmos. What lies outside is mysterious and unknown and therefore dangerous and threatening. It can only inspire fear or, at best, indifference, lacking as it does any reality for him. A tremendous distance lies between such an orientation and that characteristic of modern man. Whereas primitive and tra- ditional man will leave his native habitat only when forced to by extreme circumstances, modern man is more loosely attached to his environment, much more willing to change it, especially temporarily, and is remarkably able to adapt to new environ- ments. He is interested in things, sights, customs, and cultures different from his own, precisely because they are different. Gradually, a new value has evolved: the appreciation of the ex- perience of strangeness and novelty. This experience now excites, titillates, and gratifies, whereas before it only frightened. I be- lieve that tourism as a cultural phenomenon becomes possible only when man develops a generalized interest in things beyond his particular habitat, when contact with and appreciation and en- joyment of strangeness and novelty are valued for their own sake. In this sense, tourism is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. An increased awareness of the outer world seems to lead to an increased readiness to leave one's habitat and to wander around temporarily, or even to emigrate to another habitat. Although we have little real knowledge of the way in which this awareness grows, it would seem that the technological achieve- ments of the past two centuries have been prime determinants. * Dumazedier, op. cit., p. 125w. For the scarcity of tourists even as late as 1860, see Boorstin, op. cit., p. 84. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 166 SOCIAL RESEARCH While the invention of increasingly effective means of communi- cation and the increasingly widespread availability and use of these means helped make man more aware of the outside world, at the same time a parallel phenomenon occurred in transpor- tation, making travel less arduous, less dangerous, and less time- consuming. Also, the creation and growth of a monied middle class in many societies made traveling for pleasure a possibility for large numbers of people, whereas even as recently as the early nineteenth century only the aristocracy could afford the necessary expenditure in money and time. Though novelty and strangeness are essential elements in the tourist experience, not even modern man is completely ready to immerse himself wholly in an alien environment. When the ex- perience becomes too strange he may shrink back. For man is still basically molded by his native culture and bound through habit to its patterns of behavior. Hence, complete abandonment of these customs and complete immersion in a new and alien en- vironment may be experienced as unpleasant and even threaten- ing, especially if prolonged. Most tourists seem to need some- thing familiar around them, something to remind them of home, whether it be food, newspapers, living quarters, or another person from their native country. Many of today's tourists are able to enjoy the experience of change and novelty only from a strong base of familiarity, which enables them to feel secure enough to enjoy the strangeness of what they experience. They would like to experience the novelty of the macroenvironment of a strange place from the security of a familiar microenvironment. And many will not venture abroad but on those well-trodden paths equipped with familiar means of transportation, hotels, and food. Often the modern tourist is not so much abandoning his ac- customed environment for a new one as he is being transposed to foreign soil in an "environmental bubble" of his native cul- ture. To a certain extent he views the people, places, and culture of that society through the protective walls of his familiar "en- This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOCIOLOGY OF TOURISM 167 vironmental bubble/' within which he functions and interacts in much the same way as he does in his own habitat.5 The experience of tourism combines, then, a degree of novelty with a degree of familiarity, the security of old habits with the excitement of change.6 However, the exact extent to which famil- iarity and novelty are experienced on any particular tour depends upon the individual tastes and preferences of the tourist as well as upon the institutional setting of his trip. There is a continuum of possible combinations of novelty and familiarity. This con- tinuum is, to my mind, the basic underlying variable for the sociological analysis of the phenomenon of modern tourism. The division of the continuum into a number of typical combinations of novelty and familiarity leads to a typology of tourist experiences and roles. I will propose here a typology of four tourist roles.7 The organized mass tourist. The organized mass tourist is the least adventurous and remains largely confined to his "environ- mental bubble" throughout his trip. The guided tour, conducted in an air-conditioned bus, traveling at high speed through a steaming countryside, represents the prototype of the organized mass tourist. This tourist type buys a package-tour as if it were just another commodity in the modern mass market. The itin- erary of his trip is fixed in advance, and all his stops are well- prepared and guided; he makes almost no decisions for himself and stays almost exclusively in the microenvironment of his home country. Familiarity is at a maximum, novelty at a minimum. The individual mass tourist. This type of tourist role is similar to the previous one, except that the tour is not entirely preplanned, the tourist has a certain amount of control over his time and itiner- ary and is not bound to a group. However, all of his major arrange- s Knebel speaks, following von Uexkull, of a " touristische Eigenwelt," from which the modern tourist can no longer escape; op. cit., p. 137. •For a similar approach to modern tourism, see Boorstin, op. cit., pp. 79-80. 7 For a different typology of tourist roles ("travelers"), see Kaplan, op. cit., p. 216. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 168 SOCIAL RESEARCH ments are still made through a tourist agency. His excursions do not bring him much further afield than do those of the organized mass tourist. He, too, does his experiencing from within the "environmental bubble" of his home country and ventures out of it only occasionally - and even then only into well-charted territory. Familiarity is still dominant, but somewhat less so than in the preceding type; the experience of novelty is somewhat greater, though it is often of the routine kind. The explorer. This type of tourist arranges his trip alone; he tries to get off the beaten track as much as possible, but he neverthe- less looks for comfortable accommodations and reliable means of transportation. He tries to associate with the people he visits and to speak their language. The explorer dares to leave his "environ- mental bubble" much more than the previous two types, but he is still careful to be able to step back into it when the going becomes too rough. Though novelty dominates, the tourist does not immerse himself completely in his host society, but retains some of the basic routines and comforts of his native way of life. The drifter. This type of tourist ventures furthest away from the beaten track and from the accustomed ways of life of his home country. He shuns any kind of connection with the tourist estab- lishment, and considers the ordinary tourist experience phony. He tends to make it wholly on his own, living with the people and often taking odd-jobs to keep himself going. He tries to live the way the people he visits live, and to share their shelter, foods, and habits, keeping only the most basic and essential of his old customs. The drifter has no fixed itinerary or timetable and no well-defined goals of travel. He is almost wholly immersed in his host culture. Novelty is here at its highest, familiarity disappears almost completely. The first two tourist types I will call institutionalized tourist roles; they are dealt with in a routine way by the tourist estab- lishment - the complex of travel agencies, travel companies, hotel This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOCIOLOGY OF TOURISM 169 chains, etc., which cater to the tourist trade. The last two types I will call noninstitutionalized tourist roles, in that they are open roles, at best only very loosely attached to the tourist establish- ment. The Institutionalized Forms of Tourism: The Organized and the Individual Mass Tourist* "Where were you last summer?" "In Majorca." "Where is that?" "I don't know, I flew there." (Conversation between two girls, reprinted in a German journal) Contemporary institutionalized tourism is a mass industry. The tour is sold as a package, standardized and mass-produced.9 All transportation, places to be visited, sleeping and eating accommoda- tions are fixed in advance. The tourist establishment takes com- plete care of the tourist from beginning to end. Still, the package tour sold by the tourist establishment purportedly offers the buyer the experience of novelty and strangeness. The problem of the system, then, is to enable the mass tourist to "take in" the novelty of the host country without experiencing any physical discom- fort or, more accurately, to observe without actually experiencing. Since the tourist industry serves large numbers of people, these have to be processed as efficiently, smoothly, and quickly as possi- ble through all the phases of their tour. Hence, it is imperative that the experience of the tourist, however novel it might seem to him, be as ordered, predictable, and controllable as possible. In short, he has to be given the illusion of adventure, while all the risks and uncertainties of adventure are taken out of his tour. In this respect, the quality of the mass tourist's experiences ap- proaches that of vicarious participation in other people's lives, 8 For a general description of the trends characteristic of modern mass tourism, see Knebel, op. cit., pp. 99ff. » See Boorstin, op. cit., p. 85. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 170 SOCIAL RESEARCH similar to the reading of fiction or the viewing of motion pictures. The tourist establishment achieves this effect through two inter- related mechanisms that I will call the transformation of attrac- tions and the standardization of facilities. Every country, region, or locality has something which sets it apart from all others, something for which it is known and worth visiting: scenic beauty, architecture, feasts or festivals, works of art, etc. In German there is a very appropriate term for these features, SehenswiXrdigkeiten, or "things worth seeing," and I will call them "attractions." Some attractions are of world renown, and become the trademark of a place; these attract tourists nat- urally. In other cases, they are created artificially - they are con- trived "tourist attractions." 10 The main purpose of mass tourism is the visiting of attractions, whether genuine or contrived. However, even if they are genu- ine, the tendency is to transform or manipulate them, to make them "suitable" for mass tourist consumption. They are sup- plied with facilities, reconstructed, landscaped, cleansed of un- suitable elements, staged, managed, and otherwise organized. As a result, they largely lose their original flavor and appearance and become isolated from the ordinary flow of life and natural texture of the host society.11 Hawaiian dancing girls have to be dressed for public decency - but not too much, so that they re- main attractive; natural sights have to be groomed and guarded until they look like well-kept parks; traditional festivals have to be made more colorful and more respectable so tourists will be attracted but not offended. Festivals and ceremonies, in par- ticular, cease being spontaneous expressions of popular feelings and become well-staged spectacles.12 Even still-inhabited old quarters of otherwise modern cities are often turned into "living 10 Ib id., p. 103. ii In Boorstin's language, they become "pseudo-events." 12 "Not only in Mexico City and Montreal, but also in the remote Guatemalan Tourist Mecca of Chichecastenango, out in far-off villages of Japan, earnest honest natives embellish their ancient rites, change, enlarge and spectacularize their fes- tivals, so that tourists will not be disappointed." Ibid., p. 103. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions dy 高亮 SOCIOLOGY OF TOURISM 171 museums" to attract tourists, like the old town of Acre in Israel, Old San Juan, and Old Town in Chicago. While the transformation of attractions provides controlled novelty for the mass tourist, the standardization of facilities serves to provide him with the necessary familiarity in his immediate surroundings. The majority of tourists originate today from the affluent Western countries, the U. S. and Western Europe, and increasingly from Japan. Hence, whatever country aspires to attract mass tourism is forced to provide facilities on a level com- mensurate with the expectations of the tourists from those coun- tries. A tourist infrastructure of facilities based on Western standards has to be created even in the poorest host countries. This tourist infrastructure provides the mass tourist with the protective "ecological bubble" of his accustomed environment. However, since the tourist also expects some local flavor or signs of foreignness in his environment, there are local decorations in his hotel room, local foods in the restaurants, local products in the tourist shops. Still, even these are often standardized: the decorations are made to resemble the standard image of that culture's art, the local foods are made more palatable to unac- customed tongues, the selection of native crafts is determined by the demands of the tourist.13 The transformation of attractions and the standardization of facilities, made necessary by the difficulties of managing and satis- fying large numbers of tourists, have introduced a basic uniformity or similarity into the tourist experience. Whole countries lose their individuality to the mass tourist as the richness of their culture and geography is reduced by the tourist industry to a few standard elements, according to which they are classified and presented to the mass tourist. Before he even begins his tour, he is con- ditioned to pay attention primarily to the few basic attractions and facilities advertised in the travel literature or suggested by "Boorstin, talking of the Hilton chain of hotels, states: "Even the measured admixture of carefully filtered local atmosphere [in these hotels] proves that you are still in the U.S." Ibid., pp. 98-99. This content downloaded on Tue, 8 Jan 2013 09:08:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions dy 高亮 172 SOCIAL RESEARCH the travel agent, which are catalogued and sometimes even as- signed a level of "importance." u This induces a peculiar kind of selective awareness: the tourist tends to become aware of his environment only when he reaches spots of "interest," while he is largely oblivious to it the rest of the time.15 As a result, coun- tries become interchangeable in the tourist's mind. Whether he is looking for good beaches, restful forests, or old cities, it becomes relatively unimportant to him where these happen to be found. Transportation by air, which brings him almost directly to his destination without his having to pass through other parts of the host country, contributes to the isolation of the attractions and facilities from the rest of the country - as well as the isolation of the tourist. And so mass tourism has created the following para- dox: t