Students will learn about the fundamental geographical aspects of tourism as a geographical phenomenon par excellence, with particular reference to its historical evolution, typologies, and the socio-economic and environmental impact that the tourism phenomenon has in different geographical areas and at different scales. Finally, it will offer the tools to identify the unexpressed or consumed tourism potential of cultural and natural landscapes.
The course has four main training objectives
- to offer a critical viewpoint on the geography of tourism by addressing with a critical/analytical approach some of the main topics related to the dominant narrative of the tourism phenomenon (distinction between tourist and traveller; mass tourism etc.)
- to impart the fundamental geographical aspects of world tourism as a total geo-social fact
- to contextualise in time and space the methodologies and themes relating to the geography of tourism, with reference to the contemporary world and to different scales, from local to global and vice versa
- to deepen the relationship between the media and the geography of tourism with particular attention to tourism representations through the media;
The expected learning outcomes include
- refinement of individual perceptions and sensitivity with respect to the tourism phenomenon as a geographical and social fact;
- knowledge and contextualisation of the main territorial dynamics of a political, economic and socio-cultural nature, on a global and local scale;
- ability to detect and analyse territorialisation processes resulting from touristisation and de-touristisation;
- ability to critically interpret representations and narratives of tourist destinations, understanding what effects they may have on territorial evolution.