Cultures of Mass Tourism

With more than 230 million international tourists a year, the Mediterranean region is the largest tourist destination in the world. Indeed, it is now less united by olive, grain and vine cultivation than the fortnightly pulse of the package tour, the circulation of resort types and the shared culture of sun-seeking tourism. This book argues that its economic importance is matched by its significance as cultural and aesthetic phenomena. Mass tourism has brought about new social and cultural formations that mix global, national and local influences. There has, as yet, been little analysis of these new cultural formations. This book offers a series of insights into some of the key sites of mass Mediterranean tourism, including the beach, the island, the tourist resort and the coastal hotel. It also focuses on the 'mass' element and reflects on the 'banal' experiences of the package tourist, as well as the serial and depthless spaces that are mushrooming along the coast and the enchantments, dissolutions and dreams that saturate them. Moving away from the notion of authentic places corrupted by mass tourism, it examines new forms and spaces created, co-produced by locals and tourists, seeing them as postmodern with reworked meanings such as the recoding the ancient with irony and kitsch. It also develops an approach which is sensitive to social practices and embodied performances such as photography, hotel activities and nightlife. Finally, the book looks at the complex materilities of mass tourism, as well as the many networks that make it possible. All in all, this volume provides an up-to the minute key reference on the cultures of mass tourism.