Human dignity has experienced limited attention in tourism studies. The interlinked dimensions of dignity in tourism urgently ask for broad avenues of future research, as tourism is both an information-intensive industry and an "experience good" resulting from the relationship and co-creation processes involving hosts and guests in different political, socio-economic, cultural, and environmental contexts. These contexts play a role in how an individual’s values, norms, and experiences may be experienced in tourism.
This edited book is one of the first attempts to apply to tourism a humanistic management approach entailing a re-discovery of the value of human life, dignity, and awareness of the ethical dimensions of work. The book develops awareness of the contemporary relevance of the human dignity concept to interpret and manage the weaknesses of traditional approaches to tourism and cope with the challenges and new scenarios, including the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It presents ethical values and norms as both foundations and vehicles to dignify tourism stakeholders’ vision and mission (policy, strategies, and practices) as well as people/tourist beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. It grounds humanistic education as a pervasive mechanism to innovate tourism management contents and practices by offering to different targets new educational and training formats or framing differently traditional ones. Presenting both a critical and a positive approach to tourism management, the diversity of disciplinary approaches, case studies, and examples makes the book attractive to a variety of readers including tourism scholars, researchers, practitioners, and postgraduate students of management and organization disciplines.
Maria Della Lucia is an Associate Professor of Tourism and Business Management at the Department of Economics and Management (DEM) of the University of Trento.
Ernestina Giudici is a retired Full Professor of Management and Business Communication at the Department of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Cagliari.
From the Preface (pagg. XVII-XVIII)
The edited book “Humanistic Tourism: Values, Norms, and Dignity” is one of the first attempts to apply a humanistic management approach to tourism. This entails a rediscovery of values such as human life, dignity, meaningful work, and the ethical dimensions of working. The book is part of a book series that includes the edited book “Humanistic Management and Sustainable Tourism: Human, Social and Environmental Challenges”, which stands at the nexus between tourism and destination management, and humanistic management. Tourism and destination management is an area of study that has attracted attention in the recent past and has grown significantly, becoming an established business discipline. Humanistic management has been the subject of increased research in the last few decades, and is on the rise, although it is still relatively new. Integrating the two approaches offers a novel and original perspective on tourism that has not yet attracted much research.
This intersection is promising from both theoretical and managerial perspectives. The topic of human dignity, so far, has been given limited attention in tourism studies (Winchenbach, Hanna, & Miller, 2019). While the subject of accounting for human dignity features prominently in many tourism-related national and international policies (Transforming Tourism, 2017; UN, 1948; UNWTO, 2001), a review of tourism academic literature shows that, to date, the contributions of academia have been few. Even those have mostly been recent and had a narrow focus. The reason is that the subject of human dignity is a powerful yet complex concept, which takes on a variety of meanings. Many tourism studies provide some insight into the subject only in passing, while investigating other issues, such as corporate social responsibility and sustainability, among others.
The interlinked micro, meso, and macro levels of human dignity in tourism offer broad avenues for urgently needed research. Tourism is both an information-intensive industry and an “experience good”, resulting from the relationship and co-creation processes involving hosts and guests (Gretzel, Fesenmaier, Formica, & O’Leary, 2006), in different political, socio-economic, cultural, ethnic, and environmental contexts. These contexts have a role in how dignity, values, and norms are experienced in tourism (Baum, 2006; Sayer, 2011), affecting the development and professionalization of humanistic tourism research, practice, policy, and pedagogy. By adopting a humanistic management perspective, the book covers several aspects of tourism management. It presents a number of disciplinary approaches from a critical perspective. It discusses case studies and examples that cover a wide variety of contexts, providing variations and applications of disciplines, concepts, and ethical values. It also offers new educational and training formats or frames differently traditional ones. […]
This promising area of study, teaching, practice, and education sheds some light on the potential and importance of adopting a humanistic management perspective and implementing it more widely in tourism, aiming at the following:
- Developing an awareness of the contemporary relevance of the concept of dignity to manage the weaknesses of traditional approaches to tourism;
- Presenting ethical values and norms as both foundations and vehicles to bolster the role of dignity in tourism management – in tourism’s stakeholders’ vision and mission (policy, strategies, practices) and in the behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs of both people and tourists; and
- Highlighting how humanistic education acts as a pervasive mechanism to innovate tourism management contents and practices at different levels (education formats, professional and business training models, educational experiences).
Courtesy by Routledge.
Routledge has recently published another book edited by Maria Della Lucia and Ernestina Giudici, Humanistic Management and Sustainable Tourism: Human, Social and Environmental Challenges