Rethinking Mass Tourism

Abstract

For decades, mass tourism has been a widely used term in tourism research, and it still has no clearly agreed definition and content. There has been growing interest among scholars to address mass tourism from fresh viewpoints. This article aims to analyse theoretically and reconceptualize the discursive practice of mass tourism as a socially constructed idea and its implications. Deterministic and flexible discourses of defining mass tourism were identified within the discussions on mass tourism. The first is grounded on the idea of homogeneous mass, while the latter concentrates on alternative interpretations of the phenomenon complementing its heterogeneity. Ideas of further directions of mass tourism research are discussed.