ABSTRACT
When The Language of Tourism first appeared in the mid-1990s (Dann, 1996) much of the West, whence the majority of international tourism originated, was still arguably under the political influence of a prevailing modernist ideology. Whether Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Christian Democrat or Communist, many of these tourism-generating societies were rationally organised along managerial lines. Targets were typically set for health, education, the economy, and so on, to the extent that almost every facet of human existence became centralised under the overarching power of the state or, in the case of the European Union, the super-state. In spite of the lip service rhetoric of a ‘me too’ individualism associated with Thatcherism and Reaganomics, and a few cosmetic changes in partisan thinking, such a top-down monological situation in some respects continues today.
