Mass tourism and alternative tourism: motivations and experiences

Mass tourism, the traditional package of tourism, has fewer responsibilities than alternative forms of tourism toward the environment and the socio-cultural concerns. Nowadays, people realize the long term impacts of the tourism industry; it takes a while to distinguish the privilege from the poor impacts on tourism destinations. Travelers started searching for better and practices forms of tourism. In short, the need for alternative tourism is popular these days. A very accepted growing alternative form of tourism is voltourism, where people achieve enjoyment and noble goals (Wearing and Neil, 2000)

Mass tourism, the group packaging style of experience of tourism activities, in general started to develop after the industrial revolution, although it existed before that for the aristocratic classes of urbanized European countries. Mass tourism was facilitated by the development of transportation and technology along with extra leisure time in those countries, generally Mediterranean coastal areas in destinations like France and Italy. Certainly, mass tourism was directed to destination sites which had the “three Ss” (Sun, Sea and Sand) It was also less concerned about the environmental and the cultural impacts on destinations. 

On the other hand, many people realized the need for other travelling options equivalent with more sustainable forms and practises. Alternative forms of tourism came out after the emergence of the negative impacts of the mass tourism (figure 2).  According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO/ 2010), around 1 billion travelers is the estimated number of tourists for 2010 and 1.6 billion for 2020. This mixture (mass and alternative) expansion indicates a huge growth rate, exceeding 4% yearly growth. Although there are no separate statistical indicators for alternative tourism, it looks like the awareness level of tourists toward sustainable travel and tourism is increasing. Many countries are working on developing varied alternative forms of tourism to sustain their share of the tourism market, since there is more demand on the friendly forms of tourism like voltourism.