- ASTMed - Mediterranean Association for the Sociology of Tourism

    The Mediterranean Association for the Sociology of Tourism was founded in 1987 in Bologna to favour the sociological debate on tourism in the Mediterranean area. Over the 1970s and the 1980s some economic, political and environmental events weakened the expectations of continuity in the tourist development, at the national and international level. Crisis was particularly evident in the seaside holiday, the “heart” of mass tourism. After the “boom” in the 1950s and 1960s, there is a link between changes in tourist behavior and the ones in the social meaning of tourism: new motivations were emerging, and new approaches are required to understand them. Here the role of sociology emerged. After some international debate, the similarity between Italian and Mediterranean problems was recognized and connected to changes in economic production and to the everyday life of European societies. If we consider the transition from industrial to post-industrial society, local phenomena had to be seen in relation to wider trends in the Mediterranean region. At the end of the 1980s, as a result, the foundation of the Mediterranean Association for the Sociology of Tourism was a try to study these new trends. All the congresses of the Association constantly compared the development of cities and areas interested in tourism in the Mediterranean region, trying to connect them to wider trends of social life, the globalization of economy, culture, and the tourist market.

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