The tourism industry has currently been characterized and influenced by the issues of authenticity. The commodification of culture has been exposed in the various sectors of tourism such as the heritage and ethnic tourism, and they prove to be relevant to several destinations across the globe, in developing as well as the western world. Nonetheless the destinations in the developing world have shaped their tourism to suit the criterion of tourism authenticity that is defined by the western countries given that many of the tourists who visit the destinations are from the west. Additionally the west tourists pay a lot better as compared to those from the developing countries. The culture has been used as a commodity to sell particular destinations in several ways that will be discussed in this article. However, the commodification of the cultural heritage is a threat to its authenticity, natural state and uniqueness. It would be more appropriate to state that tourism has contributed to the debasement of heritage by converting it into a commodity that trivializes it. The aim of this paper is to advance the argument that in the process of providing for the cultural tourism, there has been the issue of authenticity and commodification that has lowered the essence of cultural heritage.
The cultural heritage is a very valuable asset that has been sacrificed for the sake of entertainment, popularity, and profit making. It is, therefore, necessary to put in place restrictive mechanisms that will work towards protecting the authenticity of the heritage from the evils of capitalism that have currently occurred. Given the significance of being a precious tenet passed from one generation to another, the heritage has shown some considerable appeal to the tourists, both domestic and foreign. In particular the heritage based tourism has evolved and has come be an important facet in creating the tourisim experience. The contemporary tourists have inclined to the pursuit of quality experience, which constitutes authenticity. This fact has led to the exponential growth of the heritage based tourism. As is suggested by some studies, the demand of heritage-based tourism is based on; increasing awareness of the heritage, the ability to show individuality through the recognition of the history, higher affluence, leisure time, ability to move from one region to another easily, access to arts, the need to examine the contemporary experience and compensate with the deficiencies and demands, and to ensure the fulfillment of the psychological needs by way of appreciating the personal family history.
Authenticity has been applied for heritage based tourism with the sole purpose of selling it. The trend can be observed in the strategic marketing of the various commodities. It is a term that is fundamental in creating the value of a particular product. The label of authenticity has been utilized in selling festivals, rituals, cuisines, souvenirs, dresses or accommodation. It is mainly used to bring out the meaning that the product has been made by the local people in line with their traditions and customs. However, the concept of authenticity depends on the definition that is attached to it by the various schools of thoughts. One of the schools of thought regards authenticity as being objective implying something that assumes inherently authentic. It is a museum-linked way of perception founded on the items that show the origin of time such as the Roman coin. The impacts of staging authenticity on the commodification of cultural based tourism have been used as a resistance tool to the host communities. The host community has been negatively impacted by the new tourism trends that put monetary value on the cultural heritage. The culture of the people is defined by the arts that comprises of performance theatre, dance and music, and display of fine arts. In the entirety perspective, culture is defined as the way of life of people. Tourism is seen to transfer the concept to people that subsequent modification, transformation or creativity to the initial idea as being negatively inauthentic.
As McConnell claims, the issue regarding authenticity begins with the tourist quest to have authentic destinations. The reason attributed to this is the concern by the tourist of their shallowness and inauthenticity found in their daily lives, therefore tourism becomes the only source from which authenticity can be found is in the primitive societies. The same temperaments have been expressed by Handler who argues that the quest for authentic culture parallels the search for the unspoiled, genuine, and untouched traditions. The view emphasizes that the tourism sought in the primitive society as part the quest is founded on the belief that western societies have lost their authenticity. Authenticity is found in many forms, through the objects and events that the tourists experience. As Steiner and Reisinger put it, the genuineness of the artifacts or events relates to the objective authenticity. The object authenticity appears as simple concepts in which the real has to be separated from the false. This is a subjective attribute since the category for the authenticity is founded on the authenticity set by the tourists. It has also been noted that the same Eurocentric perspective has been applied to come up with the definition of cultural commodification. The majority of tourist promotion shows host and culture in the developing countries in the post-colonial setting where it was deemed to be static and unchanged in order to maintain the imbalance between hosts and visitors. The various changes and development to modernity is regarded is inauthenticity.
The host populations usually resort to staging authenticity with the main aim of fulfilling the western criterion. In the move to satisfy the tourists, modernity is often excluded. The staged authenticity is seen to be inherently inauthentic because its tenets fall short of the genuineness characteristic of the object authenticity. However in some instances it appears to be different. This is because the staged event may not always be recognized by tourists. The staged performance may therefore fulfill the tourist’s quest since the authenticity is not necessarily a subject of the object authenticity. It has been suggested that the emergent authenticity in which the culture trait is at one point taken to be authentic, may in the course of time turn out to be generally accepted as authentic, even by the experts. This show that authenticity is indeed dynamic, that is it changes with the environmental circumstances.
The majority of the cases are compounded by staged culture that only aims ate creating income from the tourists. The culture is therefore commoditized by the host populations. After communization the products or activities start being evaluated on the basis of their value exchange, and in the context of trade they become goods and services. The commodification of culture has resulted in several implications that are continually explored in the academic literature. The search for authenticity usually raises a lot of ethical questions. Authenticity can be considered with suspicion which is either ignorantly or deliberately unethical. Given that the object authenticity is got from the western perspective, the ethical grounds of such a need may be questioned when the power of imbalance is taken into consideration, in especially when the consequences of staging authenticity and culture are regarded.
In the process of staging authenticity for tourist attraction, the hosts get some benefits in some way. The benefits gained by the host relates to the preservation of the culture and traditions. After commodification of the culture and traditions, the society enjoys an economic gain. The host community is able to earn a living out of the showcases they make. It also helps then receive the motivation towards reviving, preserving and reconfirming the belief of the tradition for the future generations. The processes of commodification do not therefore, essentially destroy the traditions, but instead change it as time elapses. Besides the economic benefit, it boosts the image of traditions making culture to be something the host can be proud of. Tourisms plays the role of authenticating, creating a sense of identity and self-pride on the part of the host in the marginalized primitive societies that have often regarded to be isolated and backward.
On the contrary, the use of culture and tradition as economic elements may create tensions that disorient the culture from an identity purpose. The tensions lie in the boundaries that the host population has put on the staged and commoditized authenticity. It has been found that the host societies at times refuse to portray their sacred rituals for the tourist. The staged authenticity has been used as a resistance tool by the locals in the attempt to offset the negative impacts of the culture commodification. The staging involves the tenets which the host and tourists meet in order to hide the back regions thereby protecting the true back regions from the tourists. The commodification exposes the level of modernity and industrializations of the locals which the tourists do not associate with authenticity, making the hosts to adopt a culture that only meets the western expectations. This causes the local to live a life generated out of false realities created by the perceptions of the western societies and hence the culture and traditions exist devoid of authenticity. The culture becomes distorted as the hosts try to meet the tourist’s expectations. Ultimately, the fabric structure of the host community becomes disintegrated out of the corrosive effect of culture commodification. The traditional structure risks becoming extinct and a new form of culture get created on the foundations of the western defined traditions.
In addition, the host community is put at the risk of not getting industrialized or becoming industrialized. Since the host has to remain as they have been from the start to attract tourist, they may be hindered from embracing transformational changes that would bring industrialization and modernization. In the case where the societies are not the performers of the stage managed authenticity, development and modernization may have a chance to occur. Nonetheless, the society may feel affected by the myths and stereotypes of the primitivism that are associated with the processes. In the event that changes resulting to modernization
In conclusion, authenticity has been considered as the core values that support cultural based tourism. However, the concept has been complex and having a myriad of definitions. Generally, authenticity refers to the approach to give the story of a place and finally attach an appeal to that place. The significance of authenticity has been widely explored in this paper. Some of the positive implications that have been evidenced are; economic benefits for the host society and facilitation of the preservation of the traditions and cultural particulars that the society derives its power of pride. However, the staged authenticity has been seen to result in negative implications for the locals. It has been found that the culture portrayed has to be inclined to suit the definition perceived by the Western society. It has emerged that it corrodes the initial genuine values in culture, as the locals try to make their culture meet the expectations of the west in regard to what authenticity should constitute. The culture based tourism may also substantiate to lack of development and modernization of the host societies. Finally, the myths held by the tourist regarding some traditions impacts negatively the locals who have achieved modernity as they do would not wish to be associated with the primitive aspects. In case modernity occurs, the authenticity of the culture is lost and thus tourist would not anymore feel attracted to the destinations that have transformed.
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