Postmodern Society and Tourism

The purpose of this paper is to indicate that in today’s circumstances of time and space compression, diversification of the tourism product, and diversity and multiplicity of tourist experiences, it is necessary to move away from the traditional typologically rigid and narrow theoretical framework towards more flexible conceptualisations. The paper brings a theoretical overview of theorists who have been meritorious for such a shift of opinion and associated with the emergence of the postmodern thought in the contemporary tourism theory. The abandonment of tourist typologies, the shift of attention towards the existential authenticity, and the admittance that tourism is a multisensory and physical experience bear witness to the recent theoretical shift in the study of the tourist experience which stresses the importance of the individual and his/her role in the tourist industry. New forms of tourism have been emerging, which have the potential to replace or at least change the already existing forms and fundamental tourism structures. A new type of tourism demand has significantly changed the nature of tourism offer. The alterations in the tourism offer and demand and the mere nature of the tourism product are usually associated with the concept of the post-tourist. By focusing on the effects of increasing mobilities of people and objects and new ways of sensing a touristic world, this work is a contribution to new directions in tourism analysis providing an account of various tourists’ performances that help to constitute tourist destinations. 

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