Habitus, Capital, and Patterns of Taste in Tourism Consumption

Abstract

Investigating tourism consumption within Bourdieu’s empirical paradigm, this article explores the development of a model of sociological choice in tourism consumption. By operationalizing habitus as sociological choices tourists make in the realm of tourism consumption, this article proposes that oppositional choices tourists make in the realm of tourism consumption are produced and reproduced by and in conformity with their respective class habitus, structured by cultural capital. A questionnaire-based study of Western tourists in Indian setting, using factor analysis and regression analysis, identifies three categories of tourism consumption lifestyles shaped by habitus and capital composition. The “tourists” consume tourism as a mass cultural activity finding “virtue in the necessity”; the “travelers” (with middlebrow taste) rely on off-the-beaten-track “travel” experiences and “intellectualize” tourism; and the “virtuosos” (with highbrow aesthetic taste) consume luxury tourism services taking privilege in appreciating what they see and consume, often with authority and arrogance.