Tourism Evolution: Elitist, Mass, and Sustainable Models

Posted on Jan 27, 2025 in Business Administration and Innovation Management

Elitist Tourism

  • Grand Tour:
    • Purpose: Education and personal development of the traveler.
    • Practitioners: Young men of the English aristocracy.
    • Destinations: European cities with significant historical and cultural heritage.
  • Craft Tourism:
    • Emergence of a new adventurous spirit.
    • Purposes: Education, therapeutic health, and meditation.

Mass Tourism

Fordist Tourism

A model of production and growth within the capitalist economic system, which began in the early twentieth century with the American Ford company and was consolidated after World War II.

Characteristics of Fordist Production

  • Production of standardized consumer goods for the masses.
  • Rigid, Taylorist organization of labor.
  • A welfare state that guarantees access to mass consumption for all segments of the population.
  • Unlimited availability and low cost of natural resources, raw materials, and energy.

Key Factors in the Boom of Fordist Tourism

  1. Economic development and increased welfare and income levels.
  2. The achievement of increased free time.
  3. The ability to travel further, reducing distances and eliminating borders.
  4. Technological advances in computing.
  5. Revolution in mass media and advertising techniques.
  6. The role of hotel chains and tour operators.

Characteristics of Fordist Tourism

  1. Significant spatial concentration.
  2. Consumers with basic needs and motivations.
  3. Mass marketing.
  4. Competition through pricing.
  5. Easily exportable offers.
  6. Market dominance by a small number of producers.
  7. Tourism development model with major environmental and cultural impacts.

Post-Fordist Tourism

Based on:

  • A change in society’s consumer habits (increased standard of living, more specific and diverse needs, demands for higher quality).
  • An increase in the flexibility of production and work, adapting to changes in demand.
  • A change in relation to environmental issues (awareness of environmental degradation and the finite nature of natural resources).

Characteristics of Post-Fordist Tourism

  1. The globalization of tourism.
  2. The role of information and communications technology (ICT).
  3. Changes in business management and organization.
  4. Environmental awareness and the introduction of the concept of “sustainable tourism.”

Tourism’s Impacts and Carrying Capacity

Carrying capacity: The maximum use that can be obtained from a tourist destination without causing negative impacts on the environment, reducing visitor satisfaction, or adversely affecting the host society, economy, or culture of the place.

Types of Carrying Capacity

  • Physical (ecological): Based on biological and physical factors, such as the ability of certain species to withstand disturbance.
  • Psychological or perception: The amount of crowding that tourists perceive as acceptable without affecting their quality of experience.
  • Social (from residents): Determined by unacceptable impacts on the local community or limitations due to the availability of human resources.

Main Environmental Impacts of Intensive Tourism

  • Urbanization: The destruction of natural spaces.
  • Overconsumption of natural resources.
  • Water consumption.
  • Energy consumption.
  • Transport and consumption at the destination, contributing to climate change.

Tourism and the Three Pillars of Sustainability

Economic Sustainability

Generating prosperity at different levels of society and addressing the cost-effectiveness of all economic activity. Crucially, it concerns the viability of enterprises and activities and their ability to be maintained in the long term.

Social Sustainability

Respecting human rights and equal opportunities for all in society. It requires an equitable distribution of benefits, with a focus on alleviating poverty. There is an emphasis on local communities, maintaining and strengthening their life support systems, recognizing and respecting different cultures, and avoiding any form of exploitation.

Environmental Sustainability

Conserving and managing resources, especially those that are not renewable or are precious in terms of life support. It requires action to minimize pollution of air, land, and water, and to conserve biological diversity and natural heritage.