Revisiting the Sociology of Consumption in Tourism

This chapter has certainly addressed the negative view of founding parents of sociology on industrialism. These pejorative beliefs over industrial ethos were influential in modern sociologists as Dean Maccannell, John Urry even Kevin Meethan, all who concerned on the aftermaths of mobility and globalization in cultures. One of the aspect that coadyuvated to form a negative view of consumption and tourism was related to the fact that sociologists (in tourism) did not pay attention to ancient history. For them, in sharp contrast to archaeologists, tourism is modern issue which was never present in other ancient civilizations. Needless to say this is a big problem for them to see beyond the boundaries of Middle Ages. The term feriae which was used for ancient Romans to give a relief to their citizens by 3 months still is an example old forms of tourism were precedent than modernity. Even, it mutated to the modern terms ferien (German) and feriaes (Portuguese) which denotes “holidays”. Important archaeological evidence suggests that ancient empires as Assyrians, Romans, Sumerians and Babylonians developed mechanism of escapement like “tourism”. Imperial structures need from expansion to survive. This process not only indexes another cultures and territories but also concentrates a lot of resources in its core. In order not to collapse, temporal leave should be conferred to citizens to return to their homes. That way, their daily frustrations not only are revitalized but also they renovate the trust in the imperial power. This explanation suggests that we have to mind in tourism as “the maiden of empires”; a social institution older than sociologists of tourism preclude. Most certainly, the role of history was trivialized by English literature because of two main reasons. One of them is the lack of interests for Anglo-Saxons in ancient history which is useful to explain the current function of contemporary World. Secondly, they are subject to Middle Age which was a period of low-mobilities, and therefore no further efforts to see ancient history are done. It is safe to say that current tourism is resulted from the surge of Anglo-Saxon Empire (initiated by UK and continued by US). This does not mean that other similar forms of tourism and consumption were enrooted in the past.