AFRICAN AND WESTERN TOURISTS: OBJECT AUTHENTICITY QUEST?

The study draws from netnography and participant observation to compare the subjective importance of object authenticity between African and Western tourists, in their encounters with staged culture in Zimbabwe. Thus it challenges the status quo, being one of a few studies in which Africans are represented as tourists. The paper then argues that, in its object-related sense, authenticity has limited usefulness for African tourists. It is suggested that, for them, rather than authenticity, aesthetics and artistry are more meaningful criteria for evaluating cultural performances. Therefore, object authenticity is not universally relevant as a touristic quest. In contrast to African tourists, however, Western tourists were preoccupied with evaluating object authenticity and uncovering “deceit” in staged culture.     

回望“真实性”(authenticity)(下)——一个旅游研究的热点

麦坎内尔掀起的"真实性"研究热已逾30年,其间,研究视角逐渐从"客观"转向"主观",这既反映出真实性内涵的延展与变迁,亦凸显旅游主体—游客体验的重要性。然而,就研究者日渐褊狭的视域来看,旅游客体真实性对旅游体验真实性的影响从松散到几近断裂,旅游主体甚至以"悦纳万物"的信仰姿态视一切"存在"为真,从而收获真实的体验。客观真实与主观真实,究竟是谁决定或影响了谁?对此问题的探寻导致学界对旅游客体之"虚假"的重新界定和对旅游体验之"真实"的再度好奇,并因此形成旅游真实性研究的纷争局面。有鉴于此,对国外真实性研究做一番缘起、视角、界定等方面的梳理和反思,或将对国内相关研究与应用有所裨益。     

社区居民对九寨沟民族歌舞表演的真实性认知

旅游真实性的研究一直是文化旅游的重要研究内容之一.但旅游地居民本身对文化旅游项目真实性认知的研究却基本上是空白.本文以九寨沟为例,探讨了社区居民对民族歌舞表演的真实性认知.研究认为,社区居民对文化旅游项目真实性的认知反映了旅游对地方传统变迁的影响.在九寨沟,经济因素和文化认同是影响居民对歌舞表演真实性认知的关键因素,而他们表现出显著的年龄差异.中青年居民受旅游经济的影响,将经济因素作为真实性评判的首要依据,而文化认同居于次要地位;而老年居民则超越了利益关系,将他们对九寨沟传统文化的认同作为了判定表演真实性的标准.     

Tourists’ perceptions of ethnic tourism in Lugu Lake,Yunnan, China

This paper examines tourists’ perceptions of ethnic tourism and satisfaction with their experiences based upon empirical research conducted in 2009 in Lugu Lake, Yunnan, China. The quest for romance and exoticism has inspired mass Han Chinese visits to the lake area. The tranquility of the lake and unique minority culture impress many urbanites and satisfy their nostalgia for the untouched, the simple, and the natural. Most tourists are satisfied with their overall experience and appreciate a packaged version of minority culture and tradition. However, a small number of visitors were disappointed about the commercial setting, inadequate tourist facilities, poor service, and limited tourism programs. Many tourists are concerned about cultural change and the loss of traditional customs. It is argued that maintaining authenticity and cultural integrity is essential for sustainable ethnic tourism development. Diverse and high-quality ethnic products should be developed to suit the different needs of the various types of tourists.     

文化实践中非物质文化遗产的真实性:径山茶宴的再发明

文章通过对一名茶僧参与策划径山茶宴全过程的民族志研究,采用参与观察和深入访谈的研究方法,讨论和反思旅游文化背景下非物质文化遗产的再发明问题。文章从旅游文化和"真实性"的概念出发,讨论旅游研究领域对"光环"研究的缺失,提出关注文化实践中对光环的利用存在的问题,进一步探讨径山茶宴再发明过程中"谁需要真实性以及为什么"以及"如何使用真实性"两个核心问题,以期补充现有真实性讨论的局限性。笔者认为,遗产旅游文化是文化市场化的结果,具备其真实性,而遗产的光环促进着地方文化品牌的推广,径山茶宴在旅游发展背景下的遗产化过程呼吁我们反思非物质文化遗产认证存在的批量化、标准化以及文化多元性等问题。     

Craving alterreal authenticity through the post-postmodern lens: An experimental inquiry

This research takes a post-postmodern stance to investigate tourists' predisposition toward alterreal authenticity (i.e., altered reality). It draws on Schachter's two-factor theory of emotion to highlight a model that examines the effects of authenticity and cultural difference, and their interactions on cultural-heritage consumption, through a field experiment. Results point to a two-step mechanism in authenticity negotiation in which psychological arousal is diffused through exposure to authenticity stimuli followed by cognition of the arousal situation conditioned upon tourist cultural background. This research not only heeds the call from the literature to enrich the methodological silos in authenticity discourse through causal inferences; it also provides early empirics to the post-postmodern view of authenticity, which conjectures means for tourists to imaginatively authenticate their experiences.     

A Study of Authenticity in Traditional Korean Folk Villages

The purpose of this study is to examine the structural relations among tourist motivation, the perception of authenticity, and tourist satisfaction. Structural equation model (SEM) analysis was performed to the study model. It is confirmed that study concepts have significant relations through multiple regression analysis (MRA). The suggestions of this study are as follows. First, the authenticity is perceived through the direct tour activities consisting of the tourist's experiences on the basis of the results of the preceding studies, and it is an important factor of cultural tourism activities. Second, cultural tourism sites including traditional folk villages are to choose city dwellers, club members who like adventure and exploration, and student groups as target markets. Third, tourists are to be made to have various historical and cultural experiences by realistic and lively compositions of traditional culture.     

The role of authenticity,experience quality,emotions, and satisfaction in a cultural heritage destination

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have shown the increasing importance of affective and subjective variables, such as experience quality, authenticity, and emotions in the formation of tourist satisfaction. This paper is a pioneer in jointly analysing the influence of authenticity in its double dimension, experience quality, and emotions variables on satisfaction in a cultural context. This study uses the structural equation modelling approach (Partial Least Square) and shows the direct and positive influence of objective and existential authenticity on the quality of the experience, as well as the direct and positive influence of the quality of experience on emotions. It is highly relevant to focus on both cognitive and affective dimensions of authenticity to improve the quality of the tourists’ experience. No previous studies in the literature examine the possible relationships between the different dimensions of authenticity on the quality of the experience and on emotions. The work reveals the importance of such variables in generating greater tourist satisfaction with the visited destination.     

A netnographic examination of constructive authenticity in Victoria Falls tourist (restaurant) experiences

The concept of constructive authenticity is seen as encapsulating the subjective nature of authenticity evaluations in tourism experiences. However, very few studies discuss the notion in the context of cultural eatertainment. This paper presents a netnographic analysis of tourists’ restaurant reviews and examines how authenticity is projected onto cultural objects. Online tourist reviews of two popular Victoria Falls restaurants, namely Mama Africa Eating House and The Boma - Place of Eating, were downloaded and analysed. Findings demonstrate that tourists are concerned about authenticity of cultural representations in restaurant experiences, although their constructions of what constitutes “real” African culture are extremely fluid. The study also discusses the implications of findings for theory and practice, and offers suggestions for further enquiry.     

旅游开发对语言文化景观的影响效应研究--以西安为例

语言变化是衡量社会文化变迁与旅游开发之间关系的一个重要指标。本文在国内外相关研究进展综述的基础上,以西安为例,从文化地理学的角度,就旅游开发对目的地语言文化景观的影响效应进行了综合分析,并探讨了产生这些效应的原因和空间特征。研究发现。旅游开发导致了目的地当地方言的淡化,外来方言的渗入以及外语产生的影响,具体表现在：①土语景观萎缩,普通话景观扩张,形成新语言占据土语空间和两者并存的现象;②目的地语言景观曼趋多元化,空间上形成了以旅游区为主体的粤方言渗透区;③外语作为一种异质文化,与方言相互交融。形成中外语言景观并存,交互并用的格局。文章最后指出,经济上的巨大落差。构成了文化能量的累积差异。从而产生西方文化、粤文化等经济发达地区文化向旅游目的地的传播和影响。同时,旅游开发对目的地语言文化景观的影响表现出其独特的影响方向和空间特征。     

Exploring cultural tourist towns: Does authenticity matter?

This study applies various conceptualisations of authenticity to explore to what extent tourists appreciate the authenticity of cultural tourist towns. Using the visitor-employed photography (VEP) method, this study collected visitor-employed data in two cultural tourist towns in Shanghai, China to analyse tourists' personal enjoyable aesthetic experience. Results show that tourists were not overly concerned about objective authenticity as long as they had a positive and enjoyable experience, and that some tourists experienced and favoured existential and postmodern authenticity in the tourist towns. Results highlight the importance of designing entertainment activities and iconic attractions in a strip shape to engage tourists and enhance their enjoyment. Overall, results suggest that sophisticated design characterised by interaction of four townscape factors – nature setting, emotional design, spatial configuration, and commercialised elements – can shape tourists' enjoyable authentic experience. Findings have implications for tourism and tourist attraction operators in their planning, design, conservation, and promotional efforts.     

Self-orientalism,joke-work and host-tourist relation

Literatures in tourism research have pointed out the hosttourist relationship is co-constituted by tourists and local hosts. It is necessary to attend closely to local people’s tactics and strategies to harness and re-shape effects of tourist encounters. This article is particularly interested in the subtle, covert forms of resistance that nonetheless generate circuits and networks of alternative meanings. In particular, it focuses on contestations over the notion of authenticity. With a study of cultural tourism in Lugu Lake, China, this article contributes to debates over host-tourist relations and contested authenticity by providing a nuanced ethnographic account of day-to-day interactions, engagement and power negotiations between Mosuo and tourists. The study highlights self-orientalism and joke-work as two primary forms of mediated resistance.     

Back to the past: a sub-segment of Generation Y's perceptions of authenticity

To date, authenticity conceptualizations have taken into account the views of both suppliers and tourists. However, most studies, at the a priori stage, have not taken a market segment perspective but considered tourists to be a homogeneous population. This study challenges that by focusing on a distinct market segment based on age and life experience: Generation Y, drawing out an a priori-based sub-segment of Generation Y's perspectives of authenticity. It investigates if authenticity ideologies influence decisions to become a heritage tourist. Additionally, it determines other factors that predict differences between a heritage tourist and a non-heritage tourist. The study unveils interesting findings. With the exception of the objectivist and negotiation stance, other authenticity ideologies fail to inspire this generation to be heritage tourists. Intervention factors such as party size (and with it a social experience) and ethnicity prove to be better predictors of heritage preference. The results offer important implications for the heritage industry. For instance, “time travel” demand based on purely objective or negotiated versions can help promote conservation efforts and the sustainable development of heritage. This can lead to enhanced opportunities for partnership between the tourism industry and cultural/heritage site managers, and help revive discontinued or forgotten traditions.     

Authenticity in tourism theory and experience. Practically indispensable and theoretically mischievous?

The notion of authenticity arises in tourism research in two ways: In theory, as a contentious, complicated and disputed construct; empirically, as a recurrent theme in accounts of tourist experiences of place and culture and as a quality of tourists' experiences. This duality creates tension over the utility of authenticity in research and theory. We review recent literature on authenticity within tourism scholarship –and more generally– and propose a partial resolution of this tension through demystifying the concept. We do this by highlighting its embeddedness in the activity of both research and tourism. That is, we conclude that authenticity can shed its problematic dualism by understanding how it is used in theorising and the activities of tourism.     

Culinary tourism as living history: staging,tourist performance and perceptions of authenticity in a Thai cooking school

This study examined how a cooking school in Thailand acted as a site of living history in its staging and touristic experience of authenticity. The cooking school was one of the oldest, most visited and most comprehensively “staged” cooking schools in Bangkok. Research focused on understanding: (a) the nature of spatial and temporal staging of authenticity in the school, (b) tourists’ perceptions of authenticity and (c) parallels between the cooking school and living heritage sites. Findings showed that the cooking school was carefully designed to transport tourists from the heterogeneous tourist spaces of present-day Bangkok to the idealized, enclavic space of an imagined Thai culinary past. Tourists took on multiple roles, had rich sensory experiences, felt a sense of play and space–time transcendence, and revelled in close social relations with hosts and other tourists. These factors allowed them to experience multiple forms of both modernist and post-modernist authenticity. In its scenography, interpretative performance, narrative and rituals, the cooking school did indeed resemble a living history site. However, the school made no particular claim to expertise in Thai history, place or culinary culture, and tended more towards touristic entertainment, and less towards accurate historical and cultural visitor education.     

Burgers for tourists who give a damn! Driving disruptive social change upstream and downstream in the tourist food supply chain

Using the theoretical lens of social capital, this paper examines the role of small tourist food businesses and their impact on the sustainability of the destination and local food supply chains. The paper analyses the experiences of small business owner-managers highlighting the complex and subtle nature of the socially responsible strategies used to progress sustainability in a tourist destination. The findings show that authentic lifestyles, motivated by intrinsic not just extrinsic rewards, are driving disruptive social change upstream and downstream in the tourist food supply chain. Small food business owner-managers are catalysts for “common” good, and as supporters for ethical and sustainable food chains have considerable local tourism influence and impact. Social capital strengthens their sense of destination ownership and fuels an obligation to protect their fragile tourist resources. The intersection between social capital, authenticity and responsibility among small food businesses in the tourist industry is demonstrated.     

A consumer-based model of authenticity: An oxymoron or the foundation of cultural heritage marketing?

This study examines the relevance and conceptualizations of the authenticity concept in cultural tourism from the managerial standpoint. We propose a consumer-based model in which authenticity is a key mediating construct between cultural motivation and loyalty. The model is empirically examined by means of a survey conducted on 25 Romanesque heritage sites in four European countries. A confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were performed using LISREL 8.72. The results indicate that cultural motivation is an important antecedent of both object-based and existential authenticity, which in turn influence tourist loyalty. Theoretical, managerial and marketing implications of authenticity are discussed, showing that the consumer-based perspective can transcend some 'irreconcilable tensions' related to this concept.     

Authenticating Ethnic Tourism: Li Dancers' Perspectives

Authenticity is a negotiated rather than an absolute attribute of tourism phenomena. A large number of stakeholders is involved in the negotiation of authenticity, including the state, the business community, tourists and, in the case of ethnicity, representatives of minority groups. Each of these is likely to hold its own perspectives on authenticity. This presentation focuses upon the latter group and examines the perceptions of tourism and culture of Li dancers who perform for tourists in purpose-built folk villages in the island of Hainan, China. In order to structure perspectives on authenticity, survey responses of Li dancers are arrayed upon five constructs that can be viewed as representing different dimensions of the authentic. These constructs are: commodification versus spontaneity (non-commercialization), cultural evolution versus museumification, economic development versus cultural preservation, ethnic autonomy versus state regulation, and mass tourism development versus sustainable cultural tourism. It is demonstrated that there is tension both within and between each of these constructs. Furthermore, the perspectives of Li dancers on tourism and culture are formulated and reformulated within the context of the perspectives of other stakeholders who may hold different positions related to authenticity.     

从宗教景区上市透视宗教文化资本化

旅游市场竞争日趋激烈,上市成为提升景区发展力和竞争力的重要途径。在资本前景的诱惑下,诸多宗教型景区萌发上市冲动,而引发突破社会伦理的热议。文章围绕宗教景区上市背后的宗教文化资本化的话题,以宗教社会学、马克斯·韦伯的现代性等为理论基础,从宗教存在逻辑与资本逻辑间张力角度,分析旅游语境下的宗教文化资本化现象。结论认为,包括旅游资本在内的现代资本为宗教的发展提供支撑资源,但资本的理性、世俗性与宗教的感性、神圣性间存在不可调和的张力。单纯市场化的宗教旅游发展模式会消解宗教赖以存在的根基,因此不是宗教旅游发展的最佳选择。鉴于宗教旅游的准公共物品属性,现代非营利性组织的运营模式为宗教旅游的发展提供有益借鉴。     

丽江大研古城文化变迁中的“虚无”与“实在”:以酒吧发展为例

全球化背景下旅游业迅速发展,旅游目的地文化变迁日益显著,并引起人们的关注.作为世界文化遗产的丽江大研古城自旅游开发至今吸引了来自世界各地的大量游客,古城原生文化也经历着某种程度的变迁.文章在两次实地调研的基础上,综合运用访谈法和观察法,以古城酒吧发展的视角,探求反映古城文化变迁过程,并应用乔治·里茨尔“虚无”与“实在”理论分析古城酒吧发展过程中“虚无”与“实在”的表征及动因.