91658 - Sociology Of Tourism And Territory Development

Learning outcomes

The student acquires theoretical and empirical elements for the sociological analysis of the rise, diffusion and change of tourism, as well as on the relation between tourism and local development. In particular, the student acquires theories and techniques for the analysis of the tourist: his motivations, his attitudes, and his behaviors. He also acquires elements about the models of use of territorial resources, services and tourist products.

Course contents

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 transition 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

A. Savelli, Sociologia del turismo, Hoepli, Milano, 2012.

Further material uploaded on Virtuale.

Teaching methods

The course is based on lectures and seminars with guests. It also includes the use of Powerpoint slides as well as videos that will be discussed at class.

The lessons will be recorded via Teams. The recording will be available in the Teams chat and it also will be uploaded on Virtuale platform (ATTENTION: The link to download the registration expires after 60 days)

Assessment methods

As regards students who attended the lessons, the assessment method consists on an written exam in the last lesson of the course about the material mentioned in the "Readings/Bibliography" section (3 open questions, 60 minutes).

The written exam is based on the topics presented at class. Therefore, any aspect of the textbooks not considered at class will not be asked and, vice versa, examples or other contents presented at class and not mentioned in the textbooks may be requested.

Students who do not take the written exam will have an oral interview on the same program in one of the sessions after the end of the course. If they have attended the lessons, please the info above as regards the contents of the exam.

Students can also present class works in groups of 3-5 people during the course, on topics related to the course and agreed with the teacher. This part will receive an evaluation from 0 to 2 points, which will be added to the mark obtained in the exam.

A lesson and the end of September 2021 will be focused on group works. The groups must be formed directly by the students and communicated to the teacher by October 15 by e-mail, together with an abstract (1500-2500 characters including spaces) on the topic, the aim, the research tools and three bibliographical references. The work will be presented in one of the lessons in the second half of November (15-20 minutes per group plus 10-15 minutes of debate); all the students of a group must be present and make a part of the presentation. The slides used for the presentation will be given to the teacher who will upload them on Virtuale to make them available to all the students.

NB: If the average note results with decimals, it is rounded upwards (Example: 27.5 becomes 28).

Office hours

See the website of Gabriele Manella