New trends in tourism? From globalization to postmodernism

Abstract

Tourism, as any other massive phenomenon has suffered a deep change tightly linked to social change, where internet and social media are playing an important role. Tourism has changed both in form and contents. While in the past tourism was some kind of elitist activity (high cost and culture) nowadays it has become a mass tourism/entertainment (low cost and culture) that, though fragmented, is presenting new trends within the tourism/travel industry and leisure activity all over the world where Europe is not an exception. From a quantitative perspective, an overview of the international new and traditional tourism trends are presented in this article. This new tourism is turning into a new social phenomenon in complete transformation, where outbound travel market is offering new possibilities for emergent countries, and where new forms of tourism are appearing, supported by a flourishing tourism/travel industry. From the qualitative point of view, this paper brings into consideration some of the conceptualization trends that were and are present all along tourism history: Post- Fordism, Globalization, New Age, Internationalization, Post-Modernism, Ecotourism, Sustainable Tourism, MICE, amongst others, where some values like authenticity, hyperreality, ephemerality or sustainability must be taken into account.