The true journey home: transformations of the long-term traveller

Abstract

Why do people travel, and in what ways does it affect them? Perhaps there are as many answers as there are travellers. For although tourism literature is continually evolving endless categories, segments and typologies to reduce and simplify the tourism phenomenon into models and frameworks of a predictive nature, the essential characteristics of the individual traveller are still elusive. Tourism literature is focussed almost solely on interpreting tourism as an economic growth strategy for nation states, corporations or individuals. Travel then is measured in tourist flows by the million, overnight bed capacities, airline ticket sales and expenditure per capita, per day, per nationality. The tourism satellite account and multiplier become more important indicators than a smile or human contact between strangers. The societies travellers encounter have become merely contexts within which to consume tourist experiences. Each home society in turn is a consumable context to another set of travellers. The possibility of realigning tourism and travel as a more satisfying connection between stranger and host society is a key theme of this thesis. Society is more than a context, it is the breathing, sweating world of humanity in which we live.