Untitled

130 culture, tourism
cuisine modified in restaurants in San Francisco,
Beijing or Vancouver; sarongs in India and
kimono in Japan; or even bed and breakfast as
commercialised forms of traditional hospitality
in many parts of the world. Some tourists take what
they have learned in tastes or dress, music or
cuisine, and seek them out back home for
continued use. The consumption of the host's
traditional local culture by the hosts themselves, as
modified by the tourist environment, could be seen
in the many art and music festivals timed to attract
tourists, in religious events and pilgrimages
modified to accommodate sightseers or nonbelievers,
or the host's enjoyment of the kinds of
ethnic restaurant mentioned here.
As such, tourism is a powerful force in exposing
and modifying local and traditional culture for the
`gaze' �which includes aural and lingual consumption).
It thrives on forms of heritage such as
archaeology, building and landscape restoration,
and local festivals. But, in ethnic and
cultural tourism, it is a conservative and
nostalgic force which tends to freeze traditions in
stereotypically recognisable forms �see nostalgia).
Tourism is not yet all-powerful. Such attractions as
the Palio horse race in Siena and the Changing of
the Guard at Buckingham Palace would probably
take place unchanged whether tourists were
present or no, and the hajj, the sacred pilgrimage
to Mecca, specifically excludes non-believers or
sightseers.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the
production of tourist culture in the forms of
behaviours and institutions which stem directly
from the tourist's home culture, suitably modified
for the touristic site. Here typically this culture
consists of institutions such as hotels, restaurants,
cafes, cleanliness systems, financial systems, shopping,
daily routines, tastes in clothing, entertainment
and mores, among other things. These
aspects of tourist culture, typically found in
enclave tourism, tourism ghettos or resorts
in the Third World, stem mostly from extensions
of European and North American institutional
cultures and personal tastes, even while they may
appropriate superficial aspects of the host culture
such as local spices, decor, textiles and colour
schemes.
This complex tourist culture has become `international
culture', and is not or was not the familiar
home culture of many non-Western tourists such as
East and Southeast Asians, who also have had to
learn to use such devices as credit cards, travellers
cheques, `French' menus and genres of wine,
restaurant table settings, bikini bathing suits, offthe-floor
beds and sit-on toilets. However, once
learned, these components of international and,
ultimately Western, tourist culture take firmer roots
in everyday living. Further, these imported aspects
of tourist culture are novel to the host peoples.
They are the forces behind the often lamented
demonstration effect by which local behaviour
and tastes are assimilated to the outside world.
Though older people may revile tourist culture, the
younger generations of locals may emulate it and
notice that the upper and middle classes of their
own society have already taken up this `international'
�Western) style.
Most interesting are novel aspects of tourist
culture which relate more distinctly to either the
host or guest populations. New forms of entertainment,
clothing, cuisine, souvenirs or `pidgin' speech
may emerge from the cultural mix. Obviously
tourist guides, guidebooks and model cultures
�such as Ancient City near Bangkok, the Polynesian
Cultural Centre near Honolulu or the various
Disneylands) and other forms of staged authenticity
would not exist without tourism. Whole
tourism market areas such as Malioboro Street in
Yogyakarta or the Zona Rosa in Mexico City with
their betjak drivers, touts and pickpockets have
grown up in response to tourism; certain kinds of
prostitution and pornographic shows �see pornography)
cater to tourist tastes, though local
consumption is the usual origin. In a nutshell,
tourist culture encompasses hybrid generative
forces which preserve some cultures, while promoting
cross-fertilisation and novel forms in others.
Further reading
Graburn, N.H.H. �ed.) �1976) Ethnic and Tourist Arts:
Cultural Expressions from the Fourth World, Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press. �Covers
analysis and case studies of the touristic stimulation,
production, trade and consumption of the