Paper short abstract:

Tourists are always some ‘‘others’’ not ‘‘we’’, “we are travellers”. This distinction is activated at different levels in an attempt to locate “ourselves” (as travellers) through “others” (who are tourists). In order to substantiate this point, I shall discuss consumption models and other practices, among groups of Greeks travelling abroad.

Paper long abstract:

One aspect of the late modernity was the expansion of tourist activities among less wealthy groups of people. Most research held in Greece focused on the impact of mass tourism in Greek society. However, there is no ethnographic research on Greeks as tourists, despite the fact that the number of Greeks travelling abroad has been increased since the 80's. Until then, the Greek tourists were seen as distinct and privileged groups of people who enjoyed high status compared with those who had never left the country for leisure activities outside Greece.

In this paper, based on first hand material for my PhD thesis, I argue that this old distinction, between Greeks who travel and Greeks who do not, has been transformed to a different one: drawing mostly on activities of consumption the distinction is constructed between those who identify themselves as travellers and the 'others', the 'tourists'. This distinction is activated as a key concept of identification in more than one level. Those who travel independently call tourists those who travel in groups and they attribute to them tourist stereotypes, such as indifference for the host society, shallowness and conspicuous consumption. Nevertheless, people who travel in groups through agencies are also self-designated as travellers defining tourists those who behave as mere consumers having no cultural interests at all. Decisions concerning destination sites, shopping tastes and other cultural activities are called forth in their attempt to forge their own superiority in comparative and hierarchical terms and to create difference through similarity.