5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Starting from the last few decades, a profound transformation of the tourist experience has begun, affecting both its forms and contents, as well as the number and type of individuals accessing it. On one hand, tourism has increasingly been characterized as a search for experiences and emotions, the authenticity of places and their history, and atmosphere. On the other hand, there has been an expansion and diversification of the desire for travel, now sought after by categories for whom it had long remained a niche experience. Older adults, differently abled individuals, people in temporary non-ability conditions, solo travelers, roots tourists – a list by no means exhaustive – are increasingly demanding access to the tourist experience, even claiming it as a right.

Each of these categories of "new tourists" is characterized by a deep internal differentiation and requires diversified offers through the provision of dedicated and specific packages to avoid isolating experiences.

This change and this complexification of “tourist objects” have profoundly altered the destinations chosen and, within these, the places sought by tourists and especially by travelers.

The session is open to theoretical and/or empirical contributions that present and discuss the new forms of tourism and especially the new types of tourists with reference to the categories of individuals mentioned earlier and to specific experiences carried out in the territories, also, but not only, in a comparative key.