How Different Types of Cultural Tourism Products Present Different Levels of Authenticity - Coursework Example

Describe how different types of cultural tourism products present different levels of authenticity and commodification. Introduction Cultural tourism is not a new phenomenon and has existed since the ancient times. Different cultural groups would travel from place to place and the main reason for travel in the ancient times was trade and pilgrimage. However, with time there developed special interests by especially Europeans in other cultures. Other relationships between cultures was developed by the Europeans and were: Darwinism and the search for the ‘origins of man’, The Christian missionary quest to ‘save savage and Colonialism and the enlargement of empire and souls. Past tourism is also included in cultural tourism and is widely known as heritage cultural tourism. For cultural tourism to be effective, perspectives of other cultural tourism have to be considered. Cultural revatism acts as a catalyst for this as it promotes cultural understanding of other cultures. Tourism related to culture largely depends on validity or undisputed credibility about that particular culture (authencity). Statement Cultural tourism has been practiced since time in memorial. However, there are different reasons as to why it was practiced but the main reasons were trade and pilgrimage. With time especially when the European countries started to be relatively congested, new interests in other cultures developed. Among the first interests was the search for the origin of man by Darwin. Later colonialism was seen and then the spread of the Biblical words by the missionaries. Culture reflects the way people with a common ancestor behave and the way they live according to their past or according to the way their ancestors did (Smith, 2003). Culture can also define the way people have developed and adapted to the place they live from the past to the present. The definitions of culture cannot be overemphasized and there are very many according to different authors and people. However, culture can only be defined well when considering how people behave, how they perceive the world and has to involve the values and codes of a particular social group. Cultures have been seen to change over a period of time in adapting in their environment. Some change at a very fast rate while others change over a long period of time. Ancient people thought that cultures never change but this has been proved otherwise as presently people adapt new ways of life and ideas from others thereby changing their different cultures. Nowadays, many people are adapting the western culture in many ways especially the technological advancements. This aspect of changing ideas manifests itself clearly in the tourism sector which has to consider cultural aspects of different cultural groups for it to succeed. Interaction among people is a key concept in culture. Relating with other cultures is very vital as we are able to share ideas and learn from others effectively. According to (Burns 1999), culture is achieved through both social relations and materials products. This shows both the visible and invisible aspects interchanged in cultures and may include food, marriage, and the ways systems like political and economic systems function and materially through buildings, tools and transport. These invisible and visible artifacts of culture influence tourism in many ways and they are therefore considered to be very important in tourism. Cultures are not the same in like a country or a region. There can be numerous variations in culture in a small region and even much more in the national level. There are variations even within a cultural group because there are different duties and roles depending on the gender. The age of a person can also manifest variation because there roles and duties according to age also. There are different ways in which culture can determine factors like education, income and where a person lives. Social class determines the factors above and manifests it self well in the way people live and socialize. Interaction among people is evident in many places where people from different cultural groups interact like places of work. There are facilities or resources which are found in an area of a cultural group or social class. These resources are very valuable to that particular culture and are mostly preserved for earning through tourism. Cultural assets may be tangible materials like monuments or pillars or may be related to the past or present times of a cultural group. Most cultures value these assets and they are preserved for their intrinsic value to the culture. The value of a particular cultural asset may be aesthetic, recreational, architectural, spiritual or historic. Most of these assets may interest people from other regions and they can even be modified into cultural tourism assets to enhance attraction. Since the late 1960s many cultural groups started protecting their cultural assets with a lot of seriousness. This was with the realization that tourism was of importance and protection of both heritage and contemporary sites would attract people from other cultural groups thereby earning revenues. At that time, there was destruction of many cultural assets which would have been of major boost to this sector. This saw the introduction of cultural tourism and formation of tourism and cultural management fields in many nations. This has played a vital role in the expansion of the tourism market from a very small market then to a large market nowadays. Cultural tourism includes aspects from both the past and the present. On the other hand there is heritage tourism which refers to tourism involving the past only. Cultural assets have values but there has been a debate for along time on their value. They have both instrumental and intrinsic values. Instrumental values are those that have the ability or capability to generate a specific benefit. Cultural assets have numerous instrumental values because with them, jobs are created, foreign exchange obtained and income earned. They are therefore able to generate benefits as aforementioned and therefore they have instrumental value. There are several other benefits that are generated by these assets like ability to inform us, ability to show transition, ability to find leisure and for identity purposes. On the other hand cultural assets have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is the actual or original value of an object because of its age or special characteristics like representativeness and spiritual quality. Their original meaning or why they were created hold values to that particular cultural group. Originality or actual value is of great importance to tourists and these values are important in attraction of tourist. It has been shown in a number of settings that most tourists are attracted because of intrinsic values and instrumental values. These two values are therefore vital if cultural tourism has to be practiced. Good management of cultural assets is important and can only be achieved by management of both the heritage and the present cultural assets. However, emphasis is on management of the heritage assets because if they are destroyed, they can not be recovered or re-built. There are several principles on which the cultural heritage management operates on. Conservation of a representative sample is one of the principles that are highly appreciated in cultural assets management. The main reason is that the cultural assets were created in a specific social, cultural and economic context and they cannot be reproduced like in tourism. The value of a cultural asset should be conserved as well. The reason behind this is that some of these cultural assets are symbols of national pride and identity of some cultural groups and there is need therefore to conserve them. This factor has made some of the cultural assets to be of great importance to tourism industry. They need to be presented to the public for them to be able to know that there are cultural assets and where they are located. By so doing, the public will visit cultural assets of interest and this is dependent on the tastes and preferences of the public. Presenting these assets to the public can be done by the cultural group. This can be through oral histories, songs and dance. In this, the originality and undisputed credibility (authencity) is of importance as some of them like knowing why a certain cultural asset was created, the reason for their creation and what they mean to a cultural group. However, not all of the cultural assets have importance in tourism but are of significance to the community. Most of these assets differ in many ways and they have different conservation needs. The process of managing the cultural assets involves several steps and all the steps are of great importance for fruitful conservation. This process is continuous and needs continuous support be it financial or symbolic support. Authencity is very vital in the cultural assets management and conservation. However, there can be a great danger if one does not know about other cultures and instead uses own perspective on other cultures. The perspective of others should be acknowledged and where need be; the host community should be given priority. Authencity has to be taken care of and prevent unsuitable transformation of cultural assets for tourism purposes. This has sparked controversy in the past in viewing authencity in different perspectives. Some may take upgrading of cultural assets as authencity whereas others prefer the cultural assets remain the way they are. In this context, the views of the host community should be taken into account. Consideration of the host community will see successful management and conservation of cultural assets. Authencity is defined differently by different individuals but there are factors which have to be considered in defining this term. Personal experience, cultural influence and national history are the major factors considered in authencity definition. A cultural asset of importance to a community as it holds both intrinsic and instrumental values to the community. Originality of a particular asset means a lot not only to the custodial community but also to tourists and other visitors. Authencity can be at different levels and depends on national culture, material culture, broad culture and daily existence. Maintenance of the value of any asset is not easy and its meaning can be easily compromised if the setting is changed for instance being moved in to a museum or when rituals are done by people from other communities because they might not understand the value or meaning. Conservation of a cultural asset value calls for its original location and any presentation be done by the predecessors of that particular cultural group since they are the only ones who knows the values of that asset. This is attributed by the fact that each culture has a set of unique meanings and definition of authenticity. Authencity should be defined from the different cultural groups’ perspective. This is importance for both tourism and cultural asset management because people from different cultures have varying ideas and values. This important concept was devised in 1994 by the Nara Conference on Authenticity. This conference acknowledged that different cultures took authencity differently and lack of recognition of this would result to disputes. Also the management of cultural assets and the tourism sector would be compromised if the finding of this conference were not appreciated. The host community plays a number of major roles in preserving the cultural asset. They maybe the predecessor users of the asset, responsible for the maintenance of the asset, acts as the guardian of the asset and they may also be involved in any modification of the asset, they give the guidelines. Transformation of cultural assets is important in conservation and in tourism sector. However, their transformation should be done carefully to maintain their undisputed value and at the same time attract tourists. There are numerous articles in which commodification has been used negatively because of careless commodification of cultural assets. This has lead to loss of value for the asset causing negative consequences. Consultation, proper planning and assessment reduce the chances of negative consequences greatly. Commodification has been facilitated by moulding of culture for tourism for both economic and cultural transformation. Commodification of places has witnessed transformation of these places in to commodities for recreational services and other benefits. There are many benefits associated with the commodification of a place. Many people are employed when a place is successfully commoditized without altering the values of the host community. The government also collects revenues from the tourists in form of foreign exchange. Host community does not lose either as there is exchange of ideas with the tourists manifesting the interaction in cultural tourism. Also whenever there is transformation of a place, there is provision of infrastructure to that place making its accessibility easier. This is another major benefit of this process to the host community. Like authencity, commodification is viewed differently by different communities or cultural groups. This transformation process is said to alter authencity by some cultural groups. However, this process can alter authencity only when there are alterations of the cultural asset by upgrading it using modern materials or it is moved from its original location. There are times when a cultural asset is removed in its original location and is preserved in museums and other conservation areas. Cases that have been reported on this have in one way or another lead to conflict or some other negative consequences. This is attributed by that some times, modification maybe done without the consent of the host community. Of course there would be a conflict of interest if this happened by any chance. Many assumptions on commodification have been devised. Most cultural assets are transformed into tourist sites because of their physical appearance or social attributes. However, there is ignorance of the meaning of that particular asset to the host or custodial community. Therefore, commodification of a particular cultural asset without the consent of this community may lead to substantial loss of the value of the asset. There are other factors that are associated with the transformation process and may alter the meaning of the asset. It is evident that the transformation process comes with construction of other modern facilities like shopping malls, transport infrastructure and other modern amenities. Therefore, the process of commodification should be assessed carefully so that the authencity of the cultural asset is not compromised. Consultation with the host community is also vital so that the meaning and the value is not altered. Conclusion Cultural tourism is a very important phenomenon to many communities because there are many benefits. This at times calls for modification of cultural assets with the aim of attracting tourists. However, this modification or transformation should be done in such a way that the meaning and value of the cultural asset is not altered or compromised. In the case of transformation, the host community should be involved actively because they are the only ones who can know the true meaning or the value of that particular cultural asset. References Burns, P 1999, An introduction to tourism and anthropology, Routledge, London. Giddens, A 1997, Sociology, 3rd edn, Polity Press, Cambridge McKercher, B & du Cros, H 2002, Cultural tourism: the partnership between tourism and culturalheritage management, Haworth Hospitality Press, New York. Regan, T (ed.) 1990, Earthbound: introductory essays in environmental ethics, Waveland, Illinois ICOMOS 1994, The Nara document on authenticity, viewed 19th August 2009 from, . McKercher, B and Cros, H. D. 2002. Cultural tourism: the partnership between tourism and cultural heritage management. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. Wall, G. and Mathieson, A. 2006. Tourism: change, impacts, and opportunities. 2nd Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Smith, L and Akagawa, N. 2009. Intangible Heritage. 2nd Edition. London: Taylor & Francis. Read More