The value of products and services in tourism: the case of viral society

Abstract

In contemporary times, tourism constitutes a fundamental part of global economies, societies and cultures (Andrade, 2020a, 2020b). However, Covid-19 virus pandemic turned this situation on its head. Therefore, it is also necessary to put reflection and action conducted by Social Sciences upside down. The present text aims to discuss the different types of value of tourism goods and services, in the context of the current ‘viral society’. This unprecedented emerging paradigm of virulent social formations, can be understood and defined in terms of societal processes such as the confinement and lack of confinement in what regards social spaces and times. In sociological terms, such social clash may be translated as an opposition between the two following concepts: ‘social demobilities’, which is associated with the lack of freedom in what regards social and physical movements; and ‘social mobilities’ (John Urry, 2007) who argues that ‘everything is on the move’: capital, labor, means of production, goods, services, etc. ‘Social remobilities’ is another idea that the sociologist may use, in order to overcome this demobililities situation, in articulation with the participatory remodeling of social activities and discourses by citizens. In fact, today a ‘viral culture’ is also emerging, founded on cultural activities undertaken within a novel ‘viral public space’, where new dialectics of demobililities and remobilities’ occur. Viral public space means a public sphere conditioned by the characteristics of the viral society, which leads, for example, to cultural events developed more frequently and deeply in cyberspace and cybertime, especially within digital social networks (Web 2.0) and inside Web 3.0’s socio-semantic networks. In the context of tourism, the model of ‘viral tourism’ is designed as an unprecedented way of traveling, which inherits some of the characteristics of viral society, such as the preponderance of virtual travel on the internet, and a greater development of locative tourism driven by mobile phones.