CEM210 - Cultural Toursim

For me tourism is going to visit somewhere you may not have been to before, so you can gain knowledge about a different environment and culture.

Sadly tourism is such a huge industry that a lot of the time you’re not seeing the real cultural heritage but one that has been adapted for the tourist so the local economy gains more money, this could be seen as exploiting their own heritage for profit. e.g. tourists visiting an island in Fiji and upon arrival there are woman dancing with coconut shell bras on, this would not happen when every guest arrives on the island only when the paying tourist arrives.   

In a way I disapprove of this because its just a representation of what happens and the tourists are not seeing the true culture, but on the other hand they may have had the tradition of dancing to guests for decades and it is the only way the tradition is keep alive.

I think heritage is part of our nationality,  tourists visit heritage sites to find the identity of the nation where they are visiting.

UNESCO is a constitution, their cultural goals are ‘to preserve World Heritage sites, which may be of historic or scenic value, for future generations to enjoy’ I believe this is a very important organisation because there has been a lot of destruction and arguments over world heritage sites especially one of religious importance. 
It is vital that there is a body who is unbiased and just wants to protect the sites who ever they ‘belong’ to or wherever they are, because if not there is not a constitution like UNESCO people will decided things about significant heritage sites that may not be best for them. 

For me I think some places should not have tourist visit them, for example the indigenous tribes that still don’t associate with the modern world should be left alone because otherwise people come in from the outside world and bring modern items in, this starts to make them materialistic and they start depending on trading with the outside and therefore are not an independent tribe anymore and the next generations of the tribe will have different values and priorities. 

In conclusion I think cultural tourism is a very valuable industry and I think strongly that people should visit different places but tourism can change a place which is not always for the better. 

Reference

• Catherine Palmer. (1998). Tourism and the symbols of identity . Tourism Management. 20
• Cheryl Teal. (2011). Aims & Objectives of UNESCO . Available: http://www.ehow.com/info_8044081_aims-objectives-unesco.html#ixzz1eGO2GI2n. Last accessed 19th Nov 2011.
• Barbara T. Hoffman (2006). Art and Cultural Heritage: Law, Policy and Practice. USA: Cambridge University Press.