Tropism, the Biggest Myth of Tourism in the Tropics

Abstract

Taking the term, tropism as a basis, borrowed from the biological sciences and used by the Geography of Tourism in the figurative sense, meaning data derived from an elementary relation to an external cause, it is used as an approach to enable an understanding of the phenomenon of incorporation of the developing countries into touristic activity. Based on the bibliography constructed from the end of the 1960s up to more recent works, a significant group of researchers have exerted and exert effort in the sense of discerning motivational elements for the amplification of the touristic flows on an international scale and its unfolding in the tropics. In the widest sense, there are two main approaches which are called here the “socio-economic and technological” approach and “symbolic” approach. These approaches allow the phenomenon of touristic consolidation in developing countries to be understood. First, the socioeconomic and technological approach, based on understanding the transformations which took place in developed countries, specifically in the social, economic, and technological domains, to justify the institution of mass tourism in developed countries, based on its amplification on an international scale, and its unfolding in the tropics. Second, the “symbolic” approach focuses the analysis on the level of representations, giving evidence of a change of mentality of westerners regarding coastal spaces, responsible in turn for giving new meaning to the tropics as a touristic destination. In summary, two different kinds of approaches are presented and paradoxically, both take as a starting point the maxim that they are a phenomenon derived from external forces coming from developed countries and strongly affecting the tropics, developing countries. Based on this study, we intend to ponder this unanimity. Supported by the bibliography related to the theme, a complex scene is presented in which tourism is another result of socioeconomic, symbolic transformations which have occurred at the local level. Thus, a characteristic image is indicated of countries which are less affected by the flow of international tourists, in relation to which the national tourist flow is preponderant. In a broad sense, a reflection is presented to revisit the greatest myth of the Geography of Tourism, tropism. In virtue of the modernization process of developing countries, understanding the dynamic of international tourism as simply linked to the socioeconomic, technological and symbolic transformations which occurred in developed countries means a reduction in the size and amplitude of the problem. In the case of Brazil, the issue is viewed as extremely concerning.