Over the recent decades, tourism ha

Over the recent decades, tourism has been intensified worldwide due to low travel
expenses and higher incomes in the Western world. While travelling was reserved for
the wealthier classes in society in former times, it has now become possible for almost
everyone in Western countries to travel. The emergence of mass tourism after the
Second World War stands for this development. In post-modern times, the tourism
industry has become more complex. Possibilities for destination choice, transport, and
form of vacationing have become endless, and the tourists themselves have become
more experienced in travelling. Between mass tourism, backpacking, eco-tourism,
ethno-tourism to old-fashioned pilgrimages, everything is possible in the travel industry.
Along with the growth of the tourism industry and its diversification, research in the
field of tourism has become more and more important. Nowadays, not only economic
and market research is conducted in the field of tourism; it has become relevant in the
context of sociology, political science, anthropology and many more scholarly
disciplines and is at many universities developed as a discipline of tourism studies itself.
In the context of the growing interest in tourism as a social phenomenon, questions as to
why people want to spend time and money on vacationing have been raised, such as
what is sought after by whom in terms of experiences, what happens between host and
guest as well as guest and attraction, and many more.
The topic of this thesis, the complex concept of authentici