Nearly everyone wants to escape their everyday and take a holiday, including working people with small budgets and limited time. Does that mean they, and those who cater to them, are terrible people?
Jim Butcher doesn’t think so. In his third “Good Tourism” Insight, Dr Butcher paints mass tourism in a progressive light and defends the much-maligned mass tourist.
Fordism refers to modern manufacturing that leverages the technology of the production line and benefits from economies of scale and scope. In this context, Henry Ford himself wrote of the Model T, the exemplar of the 20th century’s earliest production lines:
“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.’’ _ Ford, H (1922) “My Life and Work”
Colour didn’t matter. The Model T was affordable to so many more people than previous motor cars had been. Thus mass consumption, including more colour options, naturally followed from mass production.
This hardly sounds very touristy. As tourists, we want to explore our individuality and ‘find ourselves’. Yet the principles of Fordism have long been applied to tourism. And, far from a stultifying sameness, they have contributed greatly to individual freedom ... For the full "GT" Insight and free access to many more, please visit https://goodtourismblog.com/2021/08/in-praise-of-holiday-fordism-why-it-is-misanthropic-to-malign-mass-tourism/