TOURISM UNPACKED: Leisure Travel and the Making of Modern America (in production)
A NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE SURPRISING HISTORY OF AN ELITE PASTIME THAT BECAME THE WORLD’S LARGEST SERVICE INDUSTRY — AND MADE US WHO WE ARE TODAY.
Synopsis
This film will tell the astonishing story of how leisure travel started in the U.S. as a pastime for the elite and developed into one of the largest industries on the planet until the pandemic scaled it way back. TOURISM UNPACKED, a one-hour documentary, will look at some of the implications of this explosive growth of tourism for host communities, the environment and society, while exploring striking paradoxes at the heart of the practice.
On Screen Personalities
ERIC ZUELOW - Historian, University of New England
"We all want to be tourists. We love to travel. We need the revenue of tourism and yet that comes with a cost."
TIFFANY GILL - Historian, Rutgers University
"Tourism reflects the inequalities in our society when it comes to race and gender and the economic inequalities in terms of who is doing the work ... who gets to be the ones that serve the tourist..."
MARGUERITE SHAFFER - Historian
"Tourism is the epitome of the new American Dream. It’s really the embodiment of American consumer culture."
ELIZABETH BECKER - Journalist/Author ("Overbooked")
"People are starting to realize that the travel and tourism industry is at the center of a lot of the problems that have created climate change."
JONATHAN TOURTELLOT - Journalist (Future of Tourism Coalition)
"We now have an opportunity - and when I say we, I mean humanity in general - to think about ways to do tourism better."
On The Set of "Tourism Unpacked"
DEVELOPMENT FUNDING FOR THIS FILM PROVIDED BY THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES: DEMOCRACY DEMANDS WISDOM
(Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this {article, book, exhibition, film, program, database, report, Web resource}, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.)
