How does tourism affect culture

In this respect, it is very important to keep in mind that, fundamentally, tourism involves the merchandising of fantasy. For the tourist, San Francisco is cable cars and Fisherman's Wharf too expensive for locals and Spain is bullfights and flamenco music local stations carry rock and Spaniards much prefer to watch soccer. In Amsterdam "sex tours" are organized to fly men to Bangkok. In common with all package tours, payment was in advance; but this particular arrangement included the chance to act out scenarios of dominance in suitable "Oriental" environments.

Much more typical is the situation of tourists in a Senegal resort who are offered the opportunity to "fish in the native style" and cheerfully lend a hand helping the natives haul in the nets.

What the visitors don't know is that the authentic local fishermen have been ordered away from this part of the coast; in fact, the people they help are employed by the hotel to give the requisite degree of native flavor. Whatever these scenarios may achieve in satisfying the variety of needs of the tourist, this fabrication of cultural images for mass consumption is disturbing.

Tourism in its present form can carry prohibitive cultural costs for the so-called host societies. Tourism places the whole of the visited culture on sale, distorting its imagery and symbolism, turning its emotions loose, transforming a way of life into an industry A culture I quote Smith because of the linkage he makes between imagery and fantasy on the one hand and economic and social forces on the other. There is, of course, nothing inherently destructive about fantasy.

What matters is how such fantasies are played out and how they reflect the relative power of the actors. In Amherst, Massachusetts, where I live, I do not have to worry about uninvited strangers entering my kitchen to photograph me as I prepare supper. I would enjoy no such privacy if I were an Eskimo butchering a seal behind my house when tourists were in town. My private world, my private affairs, respected by my fellow villagers, become public property, open to public scrutiny.

In a small but significant way, my culture and my tranquility have been disturbed. The tourist, no doubt told that he will be free to record the everyday life of the natives, is unaware of the intrusiveness of his behavior.

It should come as no surprise that when the pressure of the external world gets too high people react by closing off their life to outsiders, sometimes by erecting physical barriers. Because modern tourism carries both economic and cultural consequences, it is inevitable that it will also have repercussions of a political nature.

How people respond to tourism depends a great deal on the control they have over it, in the developed as well as in the poorer countries. Thus, some small tourist enterprises in the United States are reacting to the power of industry giants with much the same anguish as similar businesses in the less-developed world. A San Francisco tour-bus operator phrased the problem this way: "What we want to break through is a multinational monopoly that keeps a grip on the Japanese tourist and his money from the time he leaves Tokyo to the time he returns".

Natural resources and their utilization constitute another area of possible contention. In recent years, for example, there have been several episodes in Wales of nationalist militants setting fire to the houses of English summer residents, outsiders seen as unfairly buying up a shrinking supply of farm land. In the village of Cap Lloc in Catalonia, northeastern Spain, a confrontation lasted several years between local fishermen and summer residents, who planned to transform what was left of the town beach where the fishermen keep their boats into a yacht basin and club.

Each tourism destination should identify and sustain an acceptable level of visitation, as a management tool for tourism planning and development. Depending on the nature of the tourism product — whether a heritage or archaeological site, a natural reserve, or a historical neighborhood, town, or city — there are comprehensive methodologies and tools that can be utilized to determine carrying capacity and limits of acceptable change.

Based on that, management systems, guidelines, and design solutions are introduced in the tourism product development process to mitigate negative impacts on built and natural heritage, intangible heritage, and indigenous local communities. From there, methods can be deployed to:. One example of how to apply these elements to a tourism activity can be found in Jordan. A local entity, Al-Marj Development and Training Company, launched and championed an agri-tourism initiative in the suburbs of As-Salt city, aiming to support local farming communities by offering visitors unique tourism experiences in an authentic rural setting.

As interest in agri-tourism in As-Salt region continued to grow, the planning process deployed the above three elements. For each farm, visitation capacity was defined in terms of frequency of tours and maximum number of participants per tour group.

Additionally, visitor numbers are in line with the household capacity for experience delivery and food production, negating the tendency for commodification of local offerings. To maintain authenticity, the project designed experiences and activities showing daily affairs of the farm in its original modest ambiance.

As a guiding principle, the project secured the buy-in and involvement of the hosts at the very initial stages of the process, following comprehensive awareness campaigns on the agri-tourism concept. Adopting this balanced approach instigated local community interest in engaging in agri-tourism activities and encouraged other entrepreneurs and community-based organizations to follow suit and build on the success of Al-Marj.

This has paved the way for a promising agri-tourism product that will benefit the local community while preserving a unique cultural and traditional heritage.

This is an industry that puts smiles on the faces of people, those that are visiting and those that are hosting. It is an industry of hope and optimism. USAID is putting self-reliance at the core of its strategy to help countries achieve and finance their own development objectives and thereby end their need for foreign assistance.

To finance self-reliance, countries will need systems that mobilize and spend public resources efficiently, enabling environments that allow the private sector to thrive, and diverse and well-regulated…. Based on recent case studies that illustrate the different facets of the relationship between tourism, culture and regional attractiveness, and the policy interventions which can be taken to enhance the relationship, this publication shows how a strong link between tourism and culture can be fostered to help places become more attractive to tourists, as well as increasing their competitiveness as locations to live, visit, work and invest in.

The book is essential reading for academics, national and local policy makers and practitioners and all those in the tourism sector who wish to understand the relationship between culture, tourism and destination attractiveness. PART I. Introduction Chapter 2. Policies and Programmes for Culture and Tourism Chapter 4. Introduction Chapter 6. The Vorarlberg Province, Austria Chapter 8.