COLONIAL TOURISM: DEVELOPMENT, TYPES, CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the history of the development of colonial tourism in the second half of the 19th – at the beginning of the 20th century in the countries of the East. The relationship between the formation of the colonial system, the new needs of the capitalist development of European countries in the 19th century, and the emergence of tourism as an important tool for the study of colonized territories and peoples is revealed. It is emphasized that gradually the market of impressions and recreation became an important factor in the economic and cultural exploitation of the colonies. It is proposed to define colonial tourism as a type of travel organization that involved visiting colonially dependent territories to get to know the history, culture, historical and cultural heritage, everyday life of local residents, as well as for the purpose of health and recreation. Colonial tourism is characterized as internal (trips by representatives of the colonial community to the country of their stay) and as external (visiting by residents of metropolises and colonial dependent territories for tourist purposes). This type of tourism is characterized by a special elite social and ethnic composition of tourists. The connection between tourist trips and the formation of transport infrastructure, in particular rail and sea transport, which significantly increased the possibilities for the mass movement of people and goods, is analysed. Such forms of colonial tourism are characterized as trips with sightseeing and educational purposes, colonial cruises, colonial hunting, and organization of rest places in the form of “stations on the hills”. Attention is focused on the distribution of such popular types of information about colonial territories as postal (colonial) postcards during the researched period. It is emphasized that the relevance of this topic is because in the modern tourism of many countries there is a historical injustice, which is manifested in exploitation, abuse of images of the past, fascination with colonial nostalgia, the illegal transformation into a commodity of the cultural and ethnic heritage of once colonial dependent peoples.