Tourism, American Style (110.011)

Course Description

For this section of the Blugold Seminar I propose that we investigate the topic of tourism, but I am open to other suggestions.  Why tourism?

• Tourism is the world's largest industry (to the tune of about $3 trillion each year).
• It is the largest employer in the U.S.
• It is the main economic engine for many U.S. cities, states and regions.
• Tourism is an interdisciplinary field, pertaining to sociology, anthropology, geography, business(hospitality, marketing, etc.), art/literature/humanities, economics, and others.
• There are many different kinds of tourism: ecotourism, adventure tourism, nature tourism, cultural heritage tourism, historical tourism, gay tourism, music tourism, ethnic tourism, medical tourism, and global tourism, to name a few.
• Tourism raises many questions and issues for our local communities, our country, and our world: who does tourism serve, who might tourism harm, what are or should be the purposes of tourism, what are the environmental effects of tourism and how should those be weighed against other possible benefits, why do people visit certain places and not others, what all could be identified as tourism destinations, how does tourism shape our sense of history—our sense of who we are and who we aren't?
• Tourism works well for a Domestic Intercultural Immersion Project (spring 2012).
• The topic provides a broad and potentially interesting focus for our work this semester (readings and individual research projects).