ABSTRACT
In recent decades, tourism has suffered a great metamorphosis, at the least, if we take attention to the classic sun and beach products. In fact, one of the aspects that coadjuvated for a radical transformation of tourism was technology. Today´s tourism involves risky activities as war-tourism or nostalgic ones as dark or doom-tourism without mentioning the possibilities to generate new host–guest encounters in the so-called creative tourism. This chapter discusses critically the original thesis formulated by John Urry respecting the disappearance or the end of tourism. Per Urry´s viewpoint, the technological breakthrough, which was historically adjoined to the expansion of tourism, is today leading towards a labour precaritization. Based on Urry´s account, tourism not only is tended to this disappearance, but it evolves in the midst of economies and spaces where the power of sign configures the means of production, as well as commodity circulation. In this respect, Urry witnesses a rapid industrial decomposition, which is affirmed in the rise of new evocative forms of consumption. In a nutshell, innovation and creativity were two key factors that evince the economic deceleration capitalism is gradually facing. This conceptual chapter deals with a critical review of Urry´s concerns but focuses on the grey zones that tourism shows for the years to come.
