Packaging Dreams: An Anthropological Analysis of Tour Operators

Abstract

<p>This thesis addresses the general question of how tourism is generated. More specifically it is a qualitative analysis of how the tour packaging industry interacts with the travel market in Canada. The industry provides the means of tourism, linking tourists with destinations, the subject and object of tourism respectively.</p> <p>Three dimensions of the considered: process, cuIture, tourism system are and history. These perspectives allow for a more holistic understanding of the operations, relationships, and effects of tourism. Research into the factors involved in generating a tourist flow contributes an insight into Canadian social/cultural reality and change. For the destination areas, it may be impossible to understand completely the host-guest interactions without reference to the generating situation.</p> <p>The results of the analysis show package tour operators to occupy an important brokerage position in the tourism process. As well, tourism is determined to possess significance as a culturally constituted good which the tour operator is able to package into vacation 'dreams.'</p>