Conference Thematic

People, things, capital, information, ideas, and technologies are constantly evolving in contemporary society. It is precisely within this context that the “real” is being restructured and re-realised. Rather than ‘stabilizing’ or ‘positivizing’ our existing realities, however, mobility constantly shakes it up to create new realities. Based on this observation, Urry and Sheller advocate the idea of ‘the social as mobility’, arguing that the social is shifting from ‘society’ (which is based on immobility) to ‘mobilities’ (Urry and Sheller 2006).

Of course, Urry and Sheller’s argument requires more thoughtful examination. For example, we ought to think carefully about whether it is appropriate to contrast ‘society’ and ‘mobilities’. If we suppose that what ‘society’ encompasses—that is, ‘the connotation of society’—now includes mobilities, which exhibit new, dynamic renderings, then ‘society’ and ‘mobilities’ ought to be understood to be closely intertwined, rather than opposed to each other.

Taking all of this into account, a more detailed critical analysis of Urry and Sheller is needed now and in the future. If we follow Urry and Sheller’s line of reasoning, however, then the social must appear most clearly in tourism, particularly in the context of mobility. One can no longer consider mobilities in the contemporary world without thinking about tourism and traveling.

Even though tourism numbers sometimes fall due to a variety of events, such as terrorist attacks around the world; infectious diseases like COVID-19 or SARS; natural disasters like the Great East Japan Earthquake; and economic conditions like the financial crisis of 2008, hundreds of millions of people continue to travel. Tourism has become a social phenomenon that creates mobilities and transforms the very foundations of our societies and cultures. This is spelled out explicitly in the concept of ‘tourism mobilities’.

In spite of recent conflicts around the world, contemporary societies continue to be on the move. Tourism is the topos upon which mobile contemporary society comes sharply into view, and as such, research on tourism mobilities has the potential to revolutionise existing discussions in the human and social sciences. Tourism mobilities research must urgently be reflexive in an era of complex entanglements of the global and the local. The significance of research on tourism mobilities lies in its ability to capture societal shifts, and much of this work begins with critical reflection on how we can better shape our collective futures.