by Leo Quick

Appellations can sometimes be crucial. To say that the UK is a democracy is to forget that it is a liberal democracy. In just the same way, it is lacking to say that the Costa del Sol profits from tourism, when really it profits from mass tourism. The mass changes everything, indicating a mass influx of tourists and a corresponding frenzy of mass consumption in the destination. In fact the ‘mass’ is a fairly recent styling, whereas the word ‘tourism’ has a lineage travelling back to the Ancients. It comes from the Greek ‘tornos’ which denoted the lathe used to inscribe a circumference, the same root as ‘turn’, and indeed the first recorded tourists seem to have been medieval noblemen setting off on treks before eventually turning back to the estate.

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