Social/Cultural Distance and its Reflections on Tourism

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Developments in the tourism industry increase the flow of people with different social and cultural structures to tourism destinations, and different groups such as domestic and foreign tourists, local people and resident foreigners, and tourism workers and tourism enterprises are formed in touristic destinations. Thus, it can be experienced social and cultural positive and negative interactions between these groups. This situation affects cultural and social distances between people. Hofstede defines cultural distance as the degree to which norms and values in one country differ from norms in another country. Social distance is the degree of understanding that exists between individuals, between groups, and between a person and groups. The groups mentioned in the definition of social and cultural distance can refer to a range of entities. The most important of these are nations and organizations. In this respect, in this book section, social and cultural distance will be examined in terms of tourism in the context of Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions and social distance scale developed by Bogardus, as it is one of the most widely used classifications in the relevant literature. In this chapter, it is aimed to reveal the reflections of the social and cultural distance in tourism and to offer suggestions to tourism destinations, businesses and organizations related to tourism to eliminate the negative aspects of these reflections.