Implications of Cultural Tourism for Host Communities - Essay Example

were and there are societies where the idea of tour is practically unknown. Generally speaking holidaymaking and travel has become an important social phenomenon in most societies today. Often modern tourism is based on the pseudo-event. Most tourists find pleasure in the stage-managed events. Often The English race has been inveterate travelers. However the motive for travel till the dawn of renaissance was usually pilgrimage, ecclesiastical business, diplomacy, or commerce. With the delightful discovery of antiquity, increasing numbers of young men were lured to the monuments of ancient Rome.

The flowering of renaissance first came about in Italy and the humanist education at an Italian university, especially in Padua was the dream of many English gentlemen of resources. In spite of the cleavage of Christendom to Catholicism and Protestantism the inter course between nations continued and it produced profound results for England. Before the invention of package tours the most popular form of travel to Italy was by The Grand Tours. Watching the extant antiquity and the prevailing culture of the peninsula provided a finish of culture and style to the young man.

The Grand TourTravel as the finishing school of a cultured English gentleman is an idea that was in the British psyche for many years. Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, a bold attempt, to string a number of tales in the backdrop of a pilgrimage is a monumental document of the English predilection towards travel. The travel in which monk and friar, captain and doctor, cook and scholar rubbed shoulder in hilarious camaraderie presents colourful vignettes of medieval social life. Francis Bacon in his aphoristic essay, On Travel reflects on the salutary aspect of travel as one that enriches the mind and completes the education of a gentleman.

The Grand Tour as it developed later seems to have accepted the guidelines set by Bacon. He has recommended in the 16th century itself that young men should go abroad under the guidance of a tutor. He has enumerated the items that the young man should look for in his travel and what they must avoid. The first sentence of the essay itself declares travel as the inseparable component of a gentleman's education. TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a