In his work, Dean MacCannell, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Davis, explores the concepts of authenticity, elite, and popular culture. These concepts are related to the construction of social reality around the phenomenon of tourism, which captivated the Western world in the second half of the 20th century. MacCannell shows interest in the relationship between individual behavior and social relations, studying "the behavior of tourists and the places they visit to better understand the hidden structures and meanings of life at the end of the modern era."

The idea of "The Tourist" originated and developed within the field of sociology. However, like the phenomenon it studies, the book has transcended its original discipline and spread far beyond its boundaries. First published in 1976, the book, along with the essay collection "Empty Meeting Grounds: The Tourist Papers" (1992), which established MacCannell's reputation as an outstanding tourism researcher, remains invaluable to both scholars and interested observers.