1st Edition
From Pilgrimage to Package Tour Travel and Tourism in the Third World
When people in First World countries think of tourists in the vast expanses of the Third World today, they typically think of pampered westerners, filling up the luxury hotels and imposing their Orientalist gazes on the teeming masses. As David Gladstone shows us in this fascinating and provocative book, such preconceptions are wrong. Coupling incisive and colorful ethnographic accounts of tourism in India and Mexico with sharp analysis, Gladstone demonstrates the amazing complexity of this industry, which now comprises close to ten percent of the world economy. As he also shows, the vast majority of tourists in the Third World are indigenous people with few resources-often making pilgrimages to religious shrines.<br>From Pilgrimage to Package Tour is a fresh and entirely original account that stands tourism studies on its head and proves that this industry is far more complicated than it initially appears.
Biography
David Gladstone is Assistant Professor of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of New Orleans. He also serves as the Director of their Ph.D. program in Urban Studies.
"...this is the best book on Third-World tourism produced thus far." - Dennis Judd, Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois - Chicago, and co-editor of The Tourist City
'Gladstone excels in his style of writings often touching dramatic heights. He creates tourism scenarios and fills them with native hue, noise and colour that the desination comes alive in the imagination of the reader... The strength of the book lies in its faithful account of the places and people in the Third World. It is ably documented with useful references for students of sociology of tourism, geography and anthropology of tourism. Planners and resource managers will also benefit from the innovative ideas introduced in the book for achieving much sought-after sustainibility.' Tourism Recreation Research, Vol 32(2), 2007
