07564 - Sociology of Tourism

Learning outcomes

This course offers theoretical and methodological tools to interpret the birth and development of tourism, which is experiencing a deep change over the last years. Today, tourist behaviours and attitudes seem no more related to a fixed interpretation model. Tourist meanings are constanly changing; so, sociology is required to re-discover the historical aspects of tourism: where it was born, how it changed, how tourism and society influence each toher.

At the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Analyze travel in its symbolic aspects, considering it as a change of personality and social relations;
• Manage classical approaches about sense of belonging and exclusion in the community, and about meeting and exchange between individuals and groups;
• Know the development of modern tourism, focusing on the change in the relation between individual and society, and the social representation of spare time (in particular, the passage from pre-industrial to industrial and post-industrial society will be a key-concept of the course);
• Individuate dominant and emerging tourist motivations, and the current trends of the images of holiday;
• Planning research about seaside tourism, with particular attention to tourist motivations and entrepreneurial strategies;
• Analyse iconography on the relation connection between tourism and territory in Romagna, considering the evolution of the meaning of holiday.

Course contents

In particular, the following topics will be considered:

• Travel as a change in personality and social relations;
• Sense of belonging and exclusion, of meeting and exchange among different groups;
• The birth and developmnet of modern tourism; the change in the relation between individual and society, and the change of social representation of spare time (in particular, the passage from pre-industrial to industrial and post-industrial society will be a key-concept of the course);
• Sociologial interpretations of tourist behaviour;
• An emerging connection between work and spare time, and new meanings related to travel;
• Travel motivations and holiday images today;
• Seaside tourism, its history and social meanings;
• Research methods and techniques for the sociology of tourism (motivations, entrepreneurial strategies) ;
• Iconography about the connection between tourism and territory.

Readings/Bibliography

Basic reading:

1. A. Savelli, Sociologia del turismo, Hoepli, Milano, 2012.
2. A. Savelli, Sociologia del turismo balneare, FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2009;

For further information, the following books are recommended:

1. A. Corbin, L'invenzione del tempo libero , Marsilio, Padova, 1995.
2. E. Leed, La mente del viaggiatore , Il Mulino, Bologna,1992.
3. D. MacCannell, Il turista. Una nuova teoria della classe agiata , Utet, Torino, 2005.
4. J.-D. Urbain, L'idiota in viaggio, Aporie, Roma, 1995.
5. J. Urry, Lo sguardo del turista, Seam, Roma, 1995.
6. S. Williams, Tourism. Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences, Routledge, London, 2004.

Teaching methods

This course is divided into two parts; each of them has its evaluation tools.

The first part focuses on the definition of some basic concepts, with particular attention to classification criteria, the birth and evolution of tourism, and its connection with social relations and stratification models.

The second part focuses on current seaside tourist trends, with particular attention to motivations, behaviours and meanings; new challenges for local communities and for the organization of communicative strategies will be considered too.

Assessment methods

The evaluation consists in two multiple choice tests and an oral exam. Students are required to pass both tests in order to be admitted at the oral exam. They may also accept the arithmetical mean of the two evaluations received in the written tests, if both the evaluations are fair.

The first test will be focused on some basic concepts of this discipline, sociological approaches about tourist phenomena in relation to emerging trends of social production and stratification. The second test will be fucused on tourist behaviour and attitudes, the re-organization of tourist offer and communication at a local level.

Students are required to pass each one test to be admitted at the oral exam. Students who have not attended lectures can do the tests in the same day of the oral exam.

Teaching tools

Overhead projector, PC.

Office hours

See the website of Asterio Savelli