There is a wealth of scholarship on tourism from a variety of different disciplines, but few attempts to synthesize its broad themes into a coherent analytical framework. This book addresses this problem by analyzing tourism in light of contemporary social theory. By focusing on tourism in terms of consumption, commodification, and the political and cultural economy, the relationships between tourism, globalization, people, and place are explored in an empirically grounded but theoretically informed analysis.

In a world undergoing rapid change, this essential collection discusses why consumption has become so important, and what role, if any, it plays in underpinning social, economic and political transformation.

The consumer ethic is ubiquitous. Everything we do, see, hear and even feel appears to be connected in some way to our experience as consumers. This volume considers topics concerning this subject.

This book addresses the practices of consumption in tourism, a major theme in the sociology of tourism. To date, most tourism analysis has tended to concentrate on the production of tourist space, and assume that tourism consumption simply mirrors the intentions of the producers. By focusing on a number of relevant sub-themes, such as age, gender, religion and sexual orientation, the chapters within this book critically examine such assumptions in terms of the interplay between the production and consumption of tourist spaces, and how patterns of tourism consumption are negotiated on an...