Browse results
Abstract
Tourism and ocean cruising, which is an increasingly important kind of tourism and travel, can be considered forms of popular culture. Tourism is now the largest industry in the world and every year more than a billion people undertake travel to foreign lands. In addition, there is an enormous amount of travel within the borders of many countries. This study deals with topics such as what is it that motivates people to travel, what psychological benefits they get from travel, whether there is a difference between being a traveler and a tourist, what theories tourism scholars offer to explain the different kinds of tourists and why ocean cruising has become so popular? The preface has material on the devastating impact of the Covid-19 virus on the cruise industry and tourism, in general. These are some of the topics that Smooth Sailing deals with in an ethnographically informed socio-semiotic analysis of tourism and ocean cruising.