Consumer specialization and the Romantic transformation of the British Grand Tour of Europe

Andreas Chai

Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography

Abstract: This paper posits that significant changes in 19th century British recreational travel patterns resulted from a change in the manner in which tourists used entertaining stimuli in order to attain pleasure. Consumers no longer merely viewed arousing stimuli, but attempted to use them to produce emotional states of being which they could partially modify to intensify pleasurable feelings (Damasio 2003). The impetus for this modification stemmed from an increasing awareness that emotional responses could be to some degree self-cultivated, as embodied in the Romantic ethos that become popular at the time via the emergence of the paperback novel and magazine industry (Campbell 1987). By learning how to manipulate and modify mental images in a way that may not necessarily correspond with objective reality, Romantic tourists learned to elicit pleasure through engaging of their imagination. Such a change in the mode of pleasure seeking had important long run economic consequences for tourist regions throughout the European continent.

Keywords: Consumer specialization; Emotions; Tourism; Romanticism Length 27 pages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D13 O12 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-mkt and nep-tur
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Consumer specialization and the Romantic transformation of the British Grand Tour of Europe (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esi:evopap:2010-08

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