engleski

Tourism and Aging: A Sociological Perspective

While both tourism and aging have been subject to extensive elaboration in the social sciences, a specifically sociological connection between the two remains undertheorized. The first part of this paper sets out to lay ground for such theorizations by providing a brief overview of the key problem areas and insights of the sociology of aging, as applied to tourism. The second part of the paper is then devoted to a contextualization of the discussed subject-matter into a specific geographical context. In contrast with approaches focusing on “successful” or “positive aging”, we suggest a return to the earlier “social problems” perspective to discuss the potential social consequences of the senior tourism-related developments in the southern member states of the European Union. The constituents of a “moral economy of aging” are viewed against the backdrop of a new “structured dependency” of youth in these countries, in an attempt to create a “coordinated, integrated and /…/ comprehensive base” (Saxena, 2006) for the discussion of tourism-related aging problems in this context. Likewise, the projected strategic role of tourism in overcoming the crisis in the southern member states is discussed as part of the global North-South divide, as it is played out within the EU. Finally, the paper addresses various “spatial cohabitation” and “educational gap”-generated problems that can be expected as a consequence of the new possibilities for long stay tourism and post-retirement migration opening up in the process of European Union enlargement.

tourism; aging; sociology; social problems

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