Trust Between Culture: The Tourist

Trust between culture is a salient issue to tourism studies. But the effect of tourism on culture is disputed, and surrounded by a basic lack of trust. Tourists as well as hosts categorise 'others' by their most immediately functional role, which is economic. Yet difference is an unavoidable social fact and does not exempt one from the responsibility of social relationships. For tourism, simulations of 'the other' are desired but must be always kept distant. So difference is accentuated by commerce, maintained by role identification and exacerbated by the brevity of the tourist's encounter. Therefore, the social alchemy between host and tourist is marked with dominance, power and alienation. Trust is engagement with 'the other', a reflexive relationship of engagement over time. Trust can exist in the tourist's encounters when differential power relationships are recognised - and negotiated through sincere engagement and natural communication. Professionals and intellectuals as well as the tourist must take an active and sensitive role in fostering reflexive and engaging social relationships between culture.