The impact of ethnic tourism on hill tribes in Thailand

This research examines how the economic benefits of working in the ethnic tourism industry affect households in the local minority community, with a special focus on the division of labor and power dynamics of gender complementarity.Household income data gathered from the inner-city communities of the Akha tribal people in Thailand are the primary data used in a linear regression framework. The results show that ethnic tourism provides income to the local minority community. This income, however, is higher for young people and women than for older men, a disparity that disrupts the community’s traditional patriarchal social system. This study contributes to a nested model of multiple marginalization based on ethnicity, gender, and legal status. This case shall contribute to tourism planning and local policymaking in areas where ethnic tourism prospers.     

旅游发展下客家妇女的地位变迁研究--成都龙泉洛带古镇的个案调查

关注旅游发展下客家妇女地位变迁状况,有益于深化旅游对东道主女性影响研究和客家文化变迁研究。以四川龙泉洛带古镇为例,采取问卷调查与个案访谈法,综合采用定量和定性分析,探究旅游发展下洛带古镇客家妇女家庭地位和社会地位的变迁状态、变迁特点和变迁原因。研究表明,旅游发展影响洛带客家妇女地位变迁;旅游对洛带客家妇女家庭地位变迁影响强度大于社会地位变迁,且更易于被感知;旅游参与方式对洛带客家妇女地位变迁程度无明显影响;旅游影响洛带客家妇女地位变迁的原因集中表现在生计、自由空间和家庭分工的改变。     

Among the piranhas: the troubling lifespan of ethnic tropes in “tribal” tourism to Vietnam

This article presents findings from mixed-method research into ethnic tourism in Vietnam. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and ethnographic research carried out in Sapa, northern Vietnam, the article examines how minority Indigenous groups are represented in ways that reproduce certain racial and gendered tropes that are drawn upon by tourists before, during and after actual tours. Findings from the study suggest that ethnic tourism is having a marginalising effect on minority ethnic women, who are becoming excluded from social, symbolic and economic space for behaviour that is deemed inauthentic. Tourists are drawing on a narrow range of Orientalist tropes throughout different stages of their participation in ethnic tourism and are carrying forward their pre-conceptions into tourism environments. Therefore, the ways in which indigeneity is packaged for tourists and the ways that tourists “authenticate” ethnicity inform their desires, which then shape their behaviour and interactions with locals. By bringing together ideas about authentication and gendered Orientalism and Othering, the analysis shows that the power play and its effects on Indigenous groups are considerable and troubling, with the whims and desires of tourists steering tourism organisation, including the surveillance and controlling of Indigenous women traders in and around the town.     

Gender and tourist experiences: assessing women's shared meanings for Beatrix Potter

As a social construct, tourism is premised upon inter-relationships between various producers and consumers. Within this system, gender differences may influence how tourist sites are interpreted and the symbolic associations visitors make with places. Adopting Johnson's (1986) circuits of culture framework and focusing primarily upon women visitors, this paper assesses meanings of Beatrix Potter inspired tourism in the English Lake District. Qualitative evidence highlights how women in particular conjoined an interest in Potter with the tourist visit to mediate other attitudes and values. Such links with non-tourist social practises were usually derived from associations with childhood and family life. The paper also considers how shopping and souvenir purchases helped to perpetuate and redefine this value system. Tourism occurs within a context of larger social-cultural structures and practices. In developing a more complete understanding of such aspects of tourism systems, gender constructs merit increased attention.     

Racialised boundaries in tourism and travel: a case study of the UK black Caribbean community

Studies of tourism motivation and behaviour have not accounted significantly for the aspirations and experiences of ethnic minority groups living in metropolitan societies. This conceptual paper presents a case study of the UK black Caribbean community and seeks to indicate ways in which members of this community perceive places, spaces and destinations in Europe. Attention is directed to how black people’s perceptions and experiences are influenced and structured by the social conditions of racialism and racism. The discussion considers how the incursive nature of the white gaze, and popular representations and stereotypes of black societies and cultures, contribute to black people’s disengagement from ‘tourism experiences’. Racialised experiences and encounters call into question an individual’s right to adopt a tourist identity. As the discussion partly focuses on ways in which black visitors perceive ‘white others’, the work strongly implies that there is a fundamental need to remove the ‘white gaze’ as the only or dominant way to observe and make sense of the world. Given that this paper contributes to an understanding of how race relations are reproduced within tourism environments, it concludes with suggestions as to how future studies of ethnic minority tourism and travel might be conducted.     

云南石林景点导游作为景观的旅游建构

文章在人类学田野调查基础上,以云南石林景点导游作为旅游景观的建构为切入点,梳理20世纪80年代以来政府对民族身份、性别在导游准入、导游管理中的认识和变化,以及导游自身的文化展演和符号行为等,以此呈现人、人的景观被规范到自然景现中,从而成为共同旅游景观的这一实践过程,并透过这一过程反映当地人的旅游实践.同时,在中国的文化背景和脉络下,对大众旅游表现出的不同意涵,该个案希望能提供一些有意义的启示.     

Impersonation in ethnic tourism – The presentation of culture by other ethnic groups

Adopting Goffman’s (1959) theories about presentation in daily life, this paper discusses the use of the culture of marginalised peoples whose very marginality forms the focus and subject of a tourist gaze and tourism development. This paper (a) examines to what extent Goffman’s theory (1959) regarding presentation of self in daily life can be applied in discussing commercial cultural performance, and (b) explores the operational mechanism of impersonation in multi-ethnic communities. The discussion is based in an ethnic community, Xinjiang, China where the first author resided for a year for fieldwork. An interdisciplinary approach is adopted in this study. Sociological theory, anthropological research method and management practice are all involved and the implications for both theory and practice are discussed.     

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.     

Exploring the Effects of Heritage Site Image on Souvenir Shopping Attitudes: The Moderating Role of Perceived Cultural Difference

Although tourism image and souvenir shopping play critical roles in travel decisions and tourist behaviors, little is known about the relationship between them. This article seeks to address two deficits in the literature by presenting (1) the linkage between tourism image and souvenir shopping and (2) the direct and moderating effects of perceived cultural difference. Using the data drawn from UNESCO heritage sites, the authors first validated a second-order construct of heritage site image, then tested the effects of this construct and perceived cultural difference on tourists’ attitudes toward souvenir shopping in two structural models. The uncovered direct and moderated results offer important implications for tourism and hospitality theories and practice.     

‘Freaky is just how I get down’: investigating the fluidity of minority ethnic feminine subjectivities in dance

This article addresses a lacuna of research into minority ethnic young women’s leisure participation by specifically focusing on the experiences and embodied subjectivities of two ethnic young women participating in dance. In the context of a qualitative research study based in an American inner‐city, post‐structural theory is used to signal the operation of intersecting racial, ethnic, gender, and class discourses and power relations. This analysis focuses on how the two young women engaged with dance cultures that were underpinned by particular dance forms; these dance forms arguably reproduced specific versions of ‘normalised’ femininity. The article then illustrates how the young women actively negotiated their dance cultures in order to construct multiple and shifting minority ethnic subjectivities. Commentary from one young woman, ‘Carrie’, indicates that she used her high school dance spaces as well as festival and club dance spaces to take up fluid white, black and ‘mixed’ subjectivities. I then investigate how a Salsa dance space provided the discursive resources through which another young woman, ‘Jenny’, constructed a proliferating diasporic identity. While Jenny identified as both black and Haitian, her hyperbolic dance performances re‐enacted various other subjectivities. These accounts demonstrate the possibility that young women can take up multiple versions of femininity in their leisure participation. These femininities reflect both alignment and resistance to dominant discourses which have ascendancy within young women’s leisure contexts.     

多民族地区旅游发展对当地族群关系的影响——以川滇泸沽湖地区为例

文章考察地处四川和云南之间泸沽湖地区旅游的发展及其对当地族群关系的影响.以观察、访谈和问卷的方式,研究小组收集当地人对旅游开发后泸沽湖地区族群关系互动的认识.研究发现,旅游的发展促进了该地区族群间的交流和融合,强化了当地居民(特别是摩梭人)的族群认同.但旅游开发并没有完全消除当地族群间存在的偏见和歧视,旅游发展带来的对传统文化的冲击、族群意识的加强、市场经济的竞争和贫富差距的增大,都影响当地族群关系的健康发展.文章建议,在多民族地区旅游开发中,推行参与式开发和包客性增长的策略.     

Reaching new heights. State legibility in Sa Pa,a Vietnam hill station

In this paper we analyze the recent acceleration of tourism in the historical hill station of Sa Pa Town and District, in Lào Cai Province, northern Vietnam. The article builds on debates concerning state efforts to increase legibility in a frontier area, modernity at the state’s margins, and critiques of mass tourism in socialist Vietnam. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork since 1995, we examine the state's modernist project for Sa Pa, exploring the roles of corporate entities and local state agents, and interpreting the impacts of recent tourism plans and policies on ethnic minority communities and Kinh residents. We reveal an underlying project among state officials and entrepreneurs to harness this marginal space on the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands regardless of cultural distinctions.     

Cultural political economy and urban heritage tourism

The paper explains a cultural political economy “framing” for interpreting heritage tourism in urban contexts. Key ideas behind this research perspective are explained and illustrated through discussion of past research studies of urban heritage tourism. It is underpinned by a relational view of the inter-connectedness of societal relations, and an emphasis on taking seriously both the cultural/semiotic and the economic/political in the co-constitution of urban heritage tourism’s social practices and features. A case study of heritage tourism in Nanjing, China considers cultural political economy’s relevance and value, including the distinctive research questions it raises. It reveals, for example, how economic relations in the built environment were related to tourist meaning-making and identities in the cultural/semiotic sphere.     

The evolution of tourist arts

Tourist arts with ethnic content are at the nexus of changing tourism, ethnicity and art in the modern world. This paper explores the range of varieties of tourist arts, the dynamics of change between various types of artifacts, and the interaction between tourist arts and notions of ethnic self-perception. The analogy between language and art is pursued to illuminate the nature of the various communication codes embodied in tourist and ethnic arts. The paper concludes by stressing that tourist arts are not an end-point, but one possibility within the fluid relationships between material symbols, outsiders' demand, and the defense and reformulation of ethnicity. It also concludes that the evolution of ethnic awareness, combined with increased education and travel opportunities, is bringing a uniformity of attitudes towards tourism, material heritage, and museums among the middle classes of all nations. Thus minority ethnic symbols have become the manipulated “totems” of touristic identity.     

Measuring intrinsic motivation in everyday life

Sport tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the tourism industry. This paper reviews the status of active sport tourism in the US. Taking a lead from sport sociologists who have repeatedly shown that sport in the US is still stratified on the basis of gender, class, and race among others, this paper examines the notion that by its evasiveness active sport tourism has gained mass appeal. Who is the active sport tourist? Are men more likely to be active sport tourists than women? Has active sport tourism become democratized? Male, affluent, and college educated are characteristics that describe the typical active sport tourist. A discussion focusing on gender, race, and social class is used to examine the participation patterns in active sport tourism and to suggest future avenues for research.     

旅游对恩施土家族居民民族认同感的影响——基于个人生活史的视角

民族认同感是族群意识的基本组成部分。在旅游影响下,少数民族地区的民族认同呈现出多维度和不同方向的发展轨迹。文章通过对一位土家族青年女性个人生活史的记录,分析了在旅游发展进程中族群个体的民族认同感的演化过程,发现旅游对民族认同的影响在于:旅游引致的经济增长提高了民族文化的"势位";旅游产品创造了民族的集体记忆和文化景观;文化旅游的发展使民族认同的层次不断深化;民族旅游的盲目开发和过度开发将误导民族认同的方向。研究将为民族旅游地社会文化影响研究提供新的视角。     

Tourism,Urban Governance and Public Space

Abstract

This paper considers the relationship between tourism development, urban governance and urban public space. It focuses on the way that ‘new urban governance’ mediates the activities and interests of mobile capital and consumption on the one hand, and the spaces of everyday life on the other which are increasingly subject to ‘urban renaissance’ strategies and spectacularizations as tourist attractions. By drawing on research undertaken in York, England, the paper illustrates the socio‐spatial issues at stake for urban centres that have used tourism and culture as major drivers of economic development. Finally, it challenges the axiomatic status of the local/tourist dualism in various tourism management discourses as being inadequate for understanding how tourism articulates with socio‐spatial mobility generally, and how this raises difficult issues in relation to urban citizenship and the governance of urban public space.     

Social conflict in communities impacted by tourism

This paper is based upon 12 months of ethnographic study while living among the Tuva and Kazakh people in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. Based on observation, interviews, participation and secondary documents the paper uses Coser's theory of Social Conflict to suggest a four part model of how tourism engenders different forms of social conflict and fluctuating alliances between stakeholders in an environment where tourism has been introduced by agents external to the indigenous community. The actors are ethnic groupings and members of those groups, governmental officials at local, regional and national level, intermediaries of the tourism industry and private sector entrepreneurs drawn from the majority and minority ethnic groups. Tensions are identified as being based on beliefs, resources and power, and a sequential pattern of primacy is identified consistent with stages of the tourist area life cycle.     

Comparing levels of resident empowerment among two culturally diverse resident populations in Oizumi,Gunma, Japan

While resident empowerment has been a central aspect of the sustainable tourism literature, difficulties of putting the concept into practice have been noted given the heterogeneous nature of communities. “Community” is often divided by kinship, age, gender and ethnicity, and such division may influence the perceptions of empowerment. The goal of this study was to better understand heterogeneous perceptions of empowerment by administering the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale within the community of Oizumi, Japan. Oizumi has the highest concentration of Brazilian immigrants in Japan, and the town has embraced “ethnic neighborhood tourism” centered on Brazilian culture as a strategy for economic development. Oizumi's demographic makeup allowed for testing differences in perceived empowerment between members of the dominant ethnic group (Japanese) and members of the ethnic minority group (Japanese Brazilians). Analysis of 650 completed questionnaires revealed that Brazilians felt more psychologically and socially empowered than Japanese residents, indicating a shift in the balance of power between the ethnic groups. Results also revealed that the political dimension of empowerment was rated relatively low among both groups, suggesting a general lack of opportunities to participate in the planning process. Implications for both practice and theory are presented.     

Fueling ecological neglect in a manufactured tourist city: planning,disaster mapping,and environmental art in Cancun,Mexico

Abstract

This article explores how tourism urban governance fuels patterns of ecological neglect. It turns a critical eye on Cancun, a leading Caribbean beach tourist destination and battered epicenter of anthropogenic climate change. First, the article contextualizes Cancun’s design and construction as a state development project and manufactured tourist city. It describes the city’s socio-spatial segregation and highlights the role of hurricanes in processes of beach enclosure. Second, it explores a series of risk maps elaborated as responses to international demands on coastal disaster mitigation and beach erosion. I show how local authorities, academics, and the Mexican state are bound to disregard risk maps to further enclose the Caribbean beach and keep the city productive for tourism. Finally, I look at the adoption of anthropogenic narratives on climate change as tourist attractions in Cancun’s Underwater Museum of Art, a unique coalition between conservation, art and tour-operators in the city. I show that turning sea level rise and ocean acidification into tourist spectacles through copyrighted art, this attraction depoliticizes tourism’s responsibility in patterns of environmental degradation. The article serves to reflect on the tacit paradoxes that plague efforts to imagine alternative environmental politics and sustainable tourism urbanisms outside neoliberal trends.