Culture mainstay of tourism
CULTURE and nature have been the mainstay of tourism attractions around the world for a very long time. Just as the natural environment has undergone changes over time, people’s cultures have not remained the same. Culture continues to evolve and inter-culturalism has exacerbated the change. The world is gradually moving towards a common global culture. Whether that is a good thing or not, I don’t know.
People travel long distances to explore and experience other people’s cultures, both the traditional and contemporary contexts. Global trends have for the past decade indicated a major shift of tourist interests from nature towards culture. Tourism has therefore provided a window for people to understand and appreciate other people, their ways of life, belief systems and aspirations.
Tourism has definitely had a strong impact on destination cultures by putting them on the spotlight and promoting their preservation. Tourism has re-invigorated and incentivised people’s will as far as cultural preservation is concerned.
It has also bolstered people’s confidence in expressing their cultures. Whenever they see the way other people appreciate their cultures, they feel good about being who they are. Tourism generates money that supports cultural preservation and expression.
There is, however, a degree of exchange of cultural practices and values through tourism. The tourist is not a passive consumer of cultural products, they also bring far-reaching cultural influences to host communities.
Let’s remember that the cultures of the host communities also have an impression on the tourists and some are likely to take home with them certain aspects that fascinate them and fuse them with their own way of life.
In a way this would be a success story of the host community promoting its culture across the globe although it may also represent a distortion of the source market’s culture. Shall we say then that tourism enriches global cultures with new borrowed aspects from far and wide or shall we say it dilutes them with unhealthy elements copied from strangers.
People living in or around tourist resorts get exposed to the different cultures of the tourists who are always visiting and spending some time in those areas. This to a certain degree, is quite necessary considering that it is easier to serve and make someone comfortable if you understand his way of life from beliefs, values, food and language.
This is why at least some employees in the tourism and hospitality industry need to study foreign cuisines, etiquette, languages and cultural values, especially those source markets regarded as important.
Eventually cultures across whole nations are decorated by aspects of foreign cultures.
Whichever way we look at it, cultures get distorted big time, especially when the members of host communities feel somehow inferior to those visiting them. We have definitely seen people adopting certain behaviours alien to local cultural values and in some extreme cases becoming nuisances to their communities.
People need to guard jealously their cultural values from erosion lest they lose their identity. While tourism is a great phenomenon promoting economic development and supporting cultural promotion on one hand, it may lead to adulteration of cultural values and the proliferation of vices of the worst order.
A great risk also associated with this is that once destinations have lost their unique cultural identities, they cease to be interesting for tourism, for it is in that uniqueness that the value lies.
The culture industry has been greatly stimulated owing to tourism culminating in better livelihoods for many people. Cultural performances, village and township tours, storytelling, cultural souvenir markets are all good cultural promotion tools but there is a danger that comes with the commodification of culture.
Originality is lost along the way as people endeavour to spice things up and make it more attractive to tourists. Some of the cultural places and activities are sacred to local communities and the moment they are opened up for mass tourism that sacredness is tempered with or even lost completely. Some cultural performances are strictly supposed to be done in certain, suitable settings and under specific conditions, however, for tourism purposes they are being done in the streets and some very unsuitable settings. On the other hand, some very interesting cultural sites have not been adequately exploitable for tourism due to cultural barriers. All these issues present policy makers, destination marketers and local communities with a dilemma regarding the relationship between culture and tourism as well as how best to balance acts for best outcomes.
Phineas Chauke is a Bulawayobased Tourism Consultant, Marketer and Tour Guide. Contact him on email phinnychauke619@gmail.com/ Mobile +263776058523