Tourism has the capacity of turning local cultures, religious rituals, and traditional ethnic rites to commodities that conform to the expectations of tourists in reconstructed ethnicity. Once an ethnic site becomes a tourist product, people perceive the sacred sites as goods of trade. Tourist manifestation on the unfamiliar destination through cultural expressions and performances lead to stage and loss of authenticity. Tourist demand the cultural manifestations as the natives work hard to satisfy their taste and preferences of the curios this can lead to cultural erosion due to commoditization of cultural goods.
Wilson and Ypeji (5) say that Latin America and Caribbean have many tourist destinations in this century with most coming from North America and Europe. Tourists from these territories visit the mass destination sites and the remote places. Tourist from Europe and North America take part in spiritual tourism, ecotourism, cultural tourism, ethnic tourism, and other forms of tourism. The tourism industry is a unique industry in the world since the production of goods and services occurs at the same time and place as their consumption (Wilson and Ypeji 5). Social interaction in tourism expresses power differentials in nationality, gender, race, class, and ethnicity. This paper will examine tourism development with a focus on tourism and ethnicity. Tourists are consumers at the local constructs of ethnicity in form of encounters, handicrafts, and romance tourism. Some of the positive effects of tourists in Caribbean and Latin America include generation of foreign currency, creation of employment, and opening of new markets. Conversely, tourism in the destinations adds economic value to resources such as interesting cultures, heritage sites, and indigenous communities. Ethnic tourism in these regions has seen the implementation of community-based programs to promote and empower the local communities. The differences between the visitors and the hosts are a vital reason for the tourist from the West traveling to Latin America and Caribbean. Wilson and Ypeji (6) argue that Western tourists come from homogenized modern societies that lost their authenticity and traditions many years ago. The mass tourist-sending countries scavenges the earth for new adventures as the tourist travel to other places and cultures. Tourists from the West travel to the faraway place in search of authentic experience. Western travelers go the remote places to establish ethnic relations since they interact with different cultures and subcultures. The natives serve as a spectacle to offer authentic encounters. Indigenous people are attractive to the tourists since they are authentic while they fail to benefit directly from the situation. Natives leave their remote areas to meet tourists in the city centers to serve as dominant representatives of national culture. Tourism superimposed on the existing ethnic, inequalities, power hierarchies, and gender relations. Guests’ tourists appreciate the authentic and local costumes, rituals, festivals, curios, and customs that lead to commoditization. According to Wilson and Ypeji (9), learning of the local languages is an example of commoditization. Commoditization of people together with their cultural identities and traits can alter cultural meanings and destroy the real culture. Tourist seeks for negotiable authenticity adventure while the locals strive to revive the local identities and the commoditization of the local customs. Researchers fail to agree on the impact of commoditization of ethnic arts and performances. Some researchers refuse to incorporate Asian designs to their work while they prefer to retain the Zapotec heritage. Other researchers incorporate foreign designs with the ethnic producers depicted in some of the images of Picasso. Emergent authenticity comes from the integration of guest and locals, for instance, the tourist-oriented festival the Inti Rami festival is a revival from the ancient Inca custom. In Ochumicho, Chiapas, the creation of ceramic devils has a negative impact in the community agricultural lands. The indigenous people learn strategic concepts as they integrate with the tourists to enable economic prosperity and the symbolic reaffirmation. Cultural brokers, intermediaries, and tourist entrepreneurs without the local community exert power as they initiate commoditization processes that exploit the local communities. The intermediaries skim the profits of the craft producers since they buy at fair prices and sell at high prices. The cultural brokers dominate the local economic resources since they are in a position of dominance over the local communities. They are symbols for commercial gain in their activities of decorating the hotels with indigenous crafts and curios. They set the stage for authenticity by providing native performances such as dances for tourist consumption. Culture brokers serve as tourist advisors by informing them concerning the authentic and other cultural products. Tourists participate actively in the social authentic constructs, as they perceive the destination site and other places. Tourists can perceive places as authentic, modern, or crowded. The level of authenticity can affect tourist information and their flow in such places. The pursuit of authenticities involves power struggles among tourists, intermediaries, local communities, cultural brokers, and entrepreneurs. Indigenousness and nativeness are both an asset to the local communities and basis for exploitation depending on the person that controls the processes that define and represent tourism. Men from the local community travel to other places in search of employment and this case, women retain more identities that are ethnic and are the power actors in the tourism.
In “Understanding and Managing Tourism: An integrated approach” Hall and Alan (2) utter some of the impacts of tourism such as sex tourism, climate change, spread of exotic disease, loss of agricultural energy, increased cost of energy, change in housing communities, and coastal urbanization. According to the author, tourism affects the social, economic, and political life of the local communities. The case of ecotourism and the introduction of pests details the way tourism is a human invention that interferes with the natural environment. Tourist that travel to see the gorillas, apes, chimpanzees, and orangutans lead to the animals dying due to respiratory diseases directly transmitted by humans. The author observes that tourists represent a voluntary human movement for political, environmental, and social reasons. Rich people practice tourism as part of their leisure activities and have more privileges when they travel across borders than impoverished people. Tourism is different from migration since migration is a voluntary one-way movement while tourism is a voluntary return mobility.
Works Cited
Hall, Colin Michael, and Alan A. Lew. Understanding and managing tourism impacts: an integrated approach. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Wilson, T. D., and A. Ypeij. "Tourism, Gender, and Ethnicity." Latin American Perspectives 39.6 (2012): 5-16. Print.
