Internationale Kulturwissenschaften
International Cultural Studies
Etudes culturelles internationales

Sektion VI: Kunst und "Globalisierung"

Section VI:
The Arts and "Globalisation"

Section VI:
Art et "globalisation"


Daniela Jelincic (Zagreb)
Tourism, heritage and globalization

When one sees these three words put together: 'tourism, heritage and globalization', he must think that they greatly fit together. These concepts are indeed very closely connected and the picture would not be complete if one of them were omitted. Still, these concepts differ a lot: heritage is seen as a carrier of historical values from the past, a part of the cultural tradition of the society. On the other hand, tourism is associated with modern times.

When speaking of heritage, I do not only mean monuments and sites that remember us of a certain historic event, but a heritage in its broader sense: cultural tradition of a certain nation that involves its customs, food, clothing, etc. In two words: a nation's material and spiritual culture. But whether is it material or spiritual, heritage implies stability or continuity, whereas tourism involves change. In fact, the relationship between heritage and tourism can be seen as a debate between tradition and modernity.

Tourist has been defined as 'a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change' (Boissevain 1997:3). According to this definition, it is obvious that the tourist is characterized by a transient nature. He has moved from one place to another at least once - from home to a local community, or has constantly been on the move, traveling from one place to another. This leads us to the motives that urge tourists to travel: they can be extremely different, but let's accept that the leading motif is the desire of visitors to change their life situation temporarily. They seek escape from the daily routines, they want to broaden their views of time and place, and to change the rules that lead their lives back home.

Being a tourist can easily be associated with being a member of a masquerade. In other words, a tourist hides a part of his 'old' identity and behavior and adopts a 'new', temporary identity while on holiday. This new identity allows a tourist to behave more freely: he can be rude, drunk, aggressive. He is leisurely dressed and he drives fast. Such a behavior can offend local people that are used to their daily routines and tradition. Tourists bring crowds, fuss, lack of water or other supplies, etc. What is the local response? The prices of meat, fish or fruit and vegetables suddenly grow higher as do the prices of any service that is intended for tourists.

It seems that we have two groups that are extremely different one from another, where the local group cannot stand the visiting one. Two totally different identities: the disturbing and the disturbed. Although the tourist behavior seems totally inappropriate, it does stimulate some positive characteristics of the local behavior: it promotes self-awareness, pride, self-confidence and solidarity among local people. Which then, of course, lead to the feeling of annoyance, opposition and even hatred towards tourists. This is especially the case in remote or peripheral host communities. Automatically, the two categories are created: 'we' and 'they', host and guests, visited and visitors, insiders and outsiders. But exactly because of those annoying tourists, the local communities have discovered new dimensions of their traditional identity. Because of the interest of tourists, they have reflected their own culture and traditions, preserving their customs, crafts, recipes, rituals, dances, etc.

Slowly, we are coming to the point where we can observe tourism and tourists not only as negative factors. Let us not forget the financial side of the tourism. Almost every community can thank the tourist money for their improved lives: better infrastructure, water supply, job openings, better possibilities for education, etc., all owing to the economy run by tourism.

In the beginning of this article I defined heritage as a concept of stability, continuity. In a sense, that is true. But we saw that the very tourism had changed such a view of heritage. Since tourism is not a static phenomenon, but a dynamic process, it has influenced the tradition/heritage itself. In certain communities the tradition is changed because of the tourism. Or even, if the tradition does not exist, it is invented or created. Modern society, ? , forces people to create their own traditions. One of the most powerful modern traditions is tourism, with attractions acting as key cultural experiences, in which meaning is created through consumption, rather than the productive process central to previous eras (Richards, 1996:261).

Can you remember the 'authentic' paintings made by local painters (the same drawing is printed in many copies and then finished every in various color so that it seems totally different painting), or the 'authentic' folk songs that have been sung in the same way for centuries (although the words recall TV, discotheques, and similar), etc.? A small town at the Adriatic coast invented a masquerade festival during the summer time, although masquerades are traditionally organized in winter. Accordingly, the tradition, the heritage, the culture is invented if it does not exist for the needs of tourism. Besides, do tourists really care for authenticity? It must be good if it sells.

Anyways, not ironically, but is the authenticity really important? Does it really matter? As we have seen, tourism as a process normally brings changes in a local community. Not only it changes the economical and social structure, but it also changes the local culture. Individual families enter the tourism activity and are organized to offer tourist services. They are hosts to foreigners: people from far countries, people from different social classes, with different habits and needs, with different, even strange views of life and world. And in this very home of the local host, the family is adapted to both the needs and the habits of the foreigners. The family slowly learns the foreign language, which is the first sign of the will to communicate, to change, to be closer to the guest. Therefore, tourism becomes a factor of intercultural influence, intercultural contacts and even a factor of introducing changes in the life and culture of the host communities. These contacts and changes are not registered within the national commissions for cultural contacts, but these tiny, almost invisible changes have far-reaching consequences.

We can conclude: tourism would not exist without culture, because it is culture that is one of the principal motivations for the movement of people, and because any form of tourism will provoke a cultural effect, on the visitor as well as on the host.

Temporary international migrations constitute a phenomenon without precedent in the history of humanity, allowing contact between different cultures on a scale previously unimagined.

These massive movements give many people access to representative works of different cultures and allow them to experience at first hand the diversity of cultures and lifestyles. In this sense, tourism is a privileged vector for intercultural exchange, and a school for tolerance where everyone can encounter a world that is unique and diverse.

As was said before, this ideal model is often disturbed by the imbalance in the encounter between rich visitors and poor local community. Tourism can also cause disturbance and discomfort in the everyday life of local populations when priority is given to infrastructures and functions geared to tourists. The culture shock is often aggravated by the difference in standards of living of guest and host. It may threaten cultural identities. Tourism may be the vehicle of this threat or, on the contrary, may help societies to reaffirm their cultural identities, to make them both better known to others.

Now, we have seen how negative tourism can be, but also how positive it is for a human society. Personally, I think that the positive factor of tourism is the greater one. Would you resign from taking a trip to the beautiful unknown countries? A trip to unknown, different and interesting cultures? I know I wouldn't.

 

References:

Boissevain, Jeremy: 1997 Insiders and Outsiders: Mass Tourism and the European South. Paper presented at the conference 'Anthropology and the Mediterranean: unity, diversity, and prospects', CRNS, Aix-en-Provence, May 14-17, 1997.

Richards, Greg: 1996 Production and Consumption of European Cultural Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 23, No. 2



Internationale Kulturwissenschaften
International Cultural Studies
Etudes culturelles internationales

Sektion VI: Kunst und "Globalisierung"

Section VI:
The Arts and "Globalisation"

Section VI:
Art et "globalisation"

© INST 1999

Institut zur Erforschung und Förderung österreichischer und internationaler Literaturprozesse

 Research Institute for Austrian and International Literature and Cultural Studies

 Institut de recherche de littérature et civilisation autrichiennes et internationales