In mid-twentieth-century America, mass tourism became emblematic
of the expanding horizons associated with an affluent, industrial
society. Nowhere was the image of leisurely travel more visible
than in the parade of glossy articles and advertisements that
beckoned readers from the pages of popular magazines. In Richard K.
Popp's The Holiday Makers, the magazine industry serves as a window
into postwar media and consumer society, showing how the dynamics
of market research and commercial print culture helped shape ideas
about place, mobility, and leisure.
Magazine publishers saw travel content as a way to connect
audiences to a booming ad sector, while middlebrow editors believed
sightseeing travel was a means of fostering a classless society at
home and harmony abroad. Expanding transportation networks and free
time lay at the heart of this idealized vision. Holiday magazine
heralded nothing less than the dawn of a new era, calling it "the
age of Mobile Man -- Man gifted, for the first time in history,
with leisure and the means to enjoy distance on a global scale."
For their part, advertisers understood that selling tourism meant
turning "dreams into action," as ad executive David Ogilvy put it.
Doing so involved everything from countering ugly stereotypes to
tapping into desires for "authentic" places and
self-actualization.
Though tourism was publicly touted in egalitarian terms,
publishers and advertisers privately came to see it as an easy way
to segment the elite free spenders from the penny-pinching masses.
Just as importantly, marketers identified correlations between an
interest in travel and other consumer behavior. Ultimately, Popp
contends, the selling of tourism in postwar America played an
early, integral role in the shift toward lifestyle marketing, an
experiential service economy, and contributed to escalating levels
of social inequality.
General
Imprint: |
Louisiana State University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2012 |
First published: |
May 2012 |
Authors: |
Richard K. Popp
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 23mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards / With dust jacket
|
Pages: |
232 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8071-4284-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Business & Economics >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8071-4284-0 |
Barcode: |
9780807142844 |
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