Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities (New Directions in Tourism Analysis)

By: Pau Obrador Pons

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Synopsis: With more than 230 million international tourists a year, the Mediterranean region is the largest tourist destination in the world. This book outlines that its economic importance is matched by its significance as a cultural and aesthetic phenomenon. Through a series of ethnographic insights into some of the key sites of mass Mediterranean tourism, it focuses on package tourists' experiences of the serial, banal and depthless spaces that are mushrooming along the coast and the enchantments, dissolutions and dreams that saturate them. Moving away from the notion of authentic places corrupted by mass tourism, the book shows how new forms and spaces are made and remade by the mobilities and performances of locals, workers and tourists. Finally, the book looks at the complex materialities of mass tourism and the many networks that make it possible.