Ver artículo

To speak of tourism as a phenomenon involves a journey through several varieties of meanings. While the economic dimension dominated the conceptualization of this phenomenon during the 1930s, and its measurement in economic terms since the 1960s, the subsequent sociological awareness of tourism as a total social occurrence signified an influence on all society and its institutions, thereby involving changes in the macroeconomic, social, and political processes (Lanfant 1995).

The relative newness and development of the notion of “phenomenon” in tourism studies from the 1970s affected the systemic conceptualization of tourism and post-tourism, as well as the controversy of its disciplinarity and indiscipline (Panosso 2008). There were also the additional associated visions of the inter-and multidisciplinary studies and the critical turn in tourism studies (Ateljevic et al. 2007), all leading to the vital question: What exactly is the phenomenon of tourism?