This paper lists and discusses the fundamental characteristics of tourism, suggesting it is essentially a semiotic activity. In this respect, it deals with works such as Dean MacCannell's The Tourist and Roland Barthes's Empire of Signs. Considering the relationship between tourism and postmodern theory, it contrasts the everyday and the exotic, discusses Baudrillard's theories on simulations and hyperreality as they relate to tourism, and compares modernist and postmodernist perspectives on tourism, critiquing the widely held notion that tourists always seek authenticity and situating tourism within consumer culture.