O‘zbekiston respublikasi xalq ta’limi vazirligi samarqand viloyati xalq ta’limi xodimlarini qayta tayyorlash va ularning malakasini oshirish hududiy markazi tillarni o‘itish metodikasi kafedrasi

SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO TOURISM
Sociologists have been slow in realizing the growing significance of tourism. Early commentators tended to disparage rather than analyze the phenomenon. Once its study was initiated, the principal issue of concern became the relationship between tourism and modernity (and, later on, post-modernity). Dean MacCannell (1973) proposed a distinctly sociological perspective on tourism, by conceiving of the tourist as a modern individual who, alienated from his own society, travels in quest of authentic experiences in other places and other times—in pristine nature, unspoiled, simple communities, or the traces of great civilizations of the past. In MacCannell’s view, however, this quest is thwarted by the locals at the destinations, who stage“authentic”tourist settings for the visitors’consumption.
Though influential as a paradigm for the sociological study of modern tourism, MacCannell’s approach was also much contested. Critics argued that he essentialized“the tourist,”disregarding the empirical variety of touristic phenomena; while a quest for authenticity might be a modern cultural ideal, not all tourists are believed to pursue it to the same extent. Typologies of tourists and touristic experiences were proposed (Cohen 2004). Authenticity was shown to be a socially constructed concept, rather than a given fact. Ning Wang (2000) distinguished between three kinds of authenticity: objective, constructed, and existential—the latter being a state of exaltation, of“really living,”virtually independent of the nature of the tourist’s surroundings. Wang’s concept may help explain the attractiveness of otherwise overtly contrived attractions, such as theme parks.
The emerging discourse of postmodern tourism, or the“post-tourist”(Urry 1990), moved away from MacCannell’s paradigm. In a world allegedly devoid of originals, and dominated by simulacra (Baudrillard 1988), the quest for authenticity becomes senseless. The growing interpenetration of cultures in the twin processes of globalization and“glocalization”blurs the distinction betweenhomeandaway, and between ordinary leisure and tourism. Sophisticated and reflective post-tourists are said to travel in quest of enjoyment of experiences that, while familiar, are of a higher quality, more abundant, more varied (and cheaper) than those available at home. They are particularly attracted to the“world cities,”such as London, Paris, or New York, which are the pacesetters in contemporary music, art, fashions, and cuisine, but they may also derive fun from visits to such contrived attractions as technologically highly sophisticated theme parks, of which the Disneylands are the prototype. Some researchers argue that the alleged fragmentation of the postmodern worldview, and of individual identities, is reflected in the post-tourists’tendency to mix diverse experiences on the same trip (Uriely 2005), thus thwarting the possibility of constructing typologies of post-tourists.
In the contemporary world, tourism often merges with other institutional domains, such as education (study tours), religion (pilgrimage-tourism), sports (extreme tourism), and recently even medicine.Medical tourism, combining vacations with medical services, emerged in the last years of the twentieth century as a rapidly expanding phenomenon, with growing numbers of people from developed countries seeking a variety of treatments and checkups in developing ones. They are pushed by the escalating costs of private medicine, and the lengthening of waiting lists for socialized medical services, in their countries of origin, and attracted by the high quality and relatively low costs of treatments offered by top hospitals in several developing countries, such as Brazil, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Turkey. Popular vacationing destinations, such as the islands of southern Thailand, offer package tours, combining vacations with medical checkups, cosmetic treatments, and even surgery. The phenomenon has led to an internal brain drain of qualified physicians from local to foreigner-oriented medical establishments, but it has also encouraged some who emigrated to the developed West to return to their home countries.