Teoría de las Representaciones Sociales aplicada al estudio del turismo

Abstract

Despite the fact that tourism is a globally important phenomenon, much of the research carried out on local perceptions and attitudes towards tourism and its impacts has been without theoretical foundation, and those that have made use of some theory have remained at a conceptual level only, without contributing significantly to its understanding and interpretation. Particularly in this type of study, Social Representation Theory (SRT) has proven to be useful in understanding both perceptions and attitudes towards tourism; However, it is considered that there has been little interest in knowing how it has been applied and, from this, to identify its limitations in the study of tourism. In this sense, the objective of this research is to answer both questions; to this end, articles published in both Spanish and English that used the SRT were considered. All the publications were reviewed and analyzed to account for the uses and limitations of the Theory. In this sense, the objective of this research is to answer both questions; to this end, articles published in both Spanish and English that used the SRT were considered. All the publications were reviewed and analyzed in order to achieve the objective. Among the main findings, it was identified that TRS has been applied mainly as a conceptual support in studies on local perceptions and attitudes towards tourism and its impacts. However, in recent research, a leap from the conceptual to the comprehensive (hermeneutic) in the use of this theory was observed.