Passioni turistiche. Semiotica ed estetica del fare turistico

Abstract

This essay provides a definition of «tourism», describing its changes through the analysis of the literature on the subject from a sociosemiotic perspective. An aspect of the tourism-making is dealt with that is deeply rooted in modern social practices, where it is possible to identify a working time and a free time. In the new tourism practices we are interested in, actants look for an experiential value which is subjective and immaterial. This value, however, is especially visible when a cultural value meets the tourism-making. At the basis of a semiotic analysis of tourism we find this specific meeting, which is also a starting point in order to highlight a system of signification involving tourism-making as opposed to everyday-making. This binary opposition, indeed, sets up a system of sense-relations depicted in a semiotic square, showing the tension suffered by the tourism-actant: indeed she/he feels a motivation to a tourism-making, which is always grounded is her/his touristic passions.