Cultural and
eco-tourism scrutinised
By David Luninze
It is very usual in these days of
globalisation and environmental concern to hear the words tourism, culture and
ecology mentioned in the same breath.
The ideas of cultural and eco-tourism have good intentions, yet they must be
approached and managed with sensitivity and transparency to ensure that the
correct ethical balance is maintained and the benefits are equitably achieved
and shared.
It is the tourist industry in the affluent tourist generating countries that
determines the scale and nature of tourism. However, it is the less affluent,
tourist receiving countries that pay for the social, cultural, environmental and
economic costs of tourism.
Tour operators are, or certainly have been in the past, primarily interested in
short-term benefits of their operations. While proponents of tourism are keen to
stress the potential benefits of this massive industry to the host country (i.e.
hard currency income), they are less likely to admit the damage tourism often
causes.
Some of the adverse effects caused by increasing tourism are environmental
degradation (e.g. on heavily trekked mountains); dislocation of local economies
and displacement of local people (e.g. due to the creation of protected areas)
and conflict and resentment (e.g. due to overuse of water and land resources by
tourist lodges and hotels being built in rural areas).
These problems are now being addressed by “green” tour operators, under the
banner of eco-tourism, and are often solvable by mutual co-operation between
tour companies, local communities, and independent environmental monitors.
Eco-tourism is basically defined as a tourist activity where local people
benefit by way of employment at the tourist facility, and/or by the support of
their economy through the purchase of foodstuffs by the tourist facility, or by
providing other resources and services including cultural visits to communities.
The conservation and protection of local natural resources and habitats is an
integral and major part and parcel of the eco-tourism concept.
Cultural tourism however, generates its own income by offering tours or visits
to the cultural tourism programme village, where there tourists have the
possibility of camping or being accommodated in the village itself. Here
tourists can experience, or participate in day to day and traditional activities
such as fishing, herding, brewing, cheese making or crafts and handwork. They
can visit modern projects such as soil and irrigation management, fish farming,
milk production and tree- planting for sustainable resources, and go on drives,
river trips, and guided walks to local wildlife areas.
This positive involvement has the effect of giving self respect to villagers,
rather than them relying purely on charitable donations, which are often late in
materializing or even non-existent, and gives them some control over their own
development.
However, there is one very important and potentially adverse effect that is
rarely considered when exposing indigenous people to tourism in this way. This
is the degradation of the host culture.
Advertising cultural heritage and ethnic traditions is becoming an increasingly
integral and requested aspect of tourism. Tourists want to see the natural
wonders of the land they visit and experience how local people live. This
demand, while increasing the over exhibition of a nation’s culture,
unfortunately tends to trivialize it and create “synthetic” representations of
traditional dress, dance and lifestyle.
Leaping about in front of a bewildered audience to the accomplishment of frantic
drumming portrays perhaps not the whole truth of a country’s culture. Tourism
can have the effect of turning a nation’s cultural heritage into a cheap circus,
with the favourite acts being performed in the spotlight of the main ring, to
the loss of the equally important sideshows.
The financial prospects an offer, in some cases, discourage people from
observing what is happening to their communities when tourism starts having
serious effects on their daily lives. Tour operators, and tourists alike must
help to ensure that this does not happen.
Preservation of culture must therefore serve to benefit the indigenous people of
that nation, not merely by earning them tourist dollars, but also by making them
proud of their heritage.
However, due to the poor economics of developing countries, tourism is balancing
on a fine line. Local people themselves can easily tip the weight the wrong way
when they see a few dollars being waved around.
Therefore, a visit to a local village should not create a scenario whereby the
local people are paid to perform for the benefit of the tourist. Rather,
tourists should pay for the privilege of seeing local people in their everyday
activities, taking part in dance or ceremony for their own purposes, enjoyment
or celebration, or taking the role of causal observers or passer-by.
The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace in London is an enormous tourist
attraction, annually drawing thousands of visitors from all over the world.
Although performed with pomp and ceremony in a tradition that has been unchanged
for hundreds of years, it is performed by real professional soldiers of the
British Army, with one Guards regiment handing over the duty to another, with
the very real purpose of guarding the palace and providing security for its
royal inhabitants.
It would continue in its present form even if no tourist ever visited it again.
The culture and heritage of a nation should be preserved in a way that benefits
both visitor and host, and should not hold back the development and growth of
the country in question.
Cultural tourism should command the same attention as any environmental concern
affecting a country, by tour operators, tourists, and the government and
residents of the country itself.