The host should get lost - Paradigms in the tourism theory

Among various substantive contributions to the general, theoretical study of tourism. three of them-the host-guest paradigm, tourism as nonordinary behavior, and the theory of the lifecycle of attractions-are commonly seen as the mosi fertile. This paper reviews the host-guest paradigm. It argues that this framework, initially developed by anthropologists and applied later by Martian scholars and postmodern critics, does not meet the challenges of explaining mass tourism, nor does it fully address the complex interactions between modern societies and pre-modem communities. The paper contends that this paradigm should be discarded and new conceptual venues explored. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.