communities visited. Examples include: the construction of elaborate customer and employee satisfaction instruments (Bojanic and Rosen, 1994; Lawton, Weaver and Faulkner, 1998; Testa, Williams and Pietrzak, 1998), the application of the culture-assimilator technique in training hospitality industry workers (Bochner and Coulon, 1997), the use of personal construct theory in developing repertory grids (Fransella and Bannister, 1977) to measure how tourists evaluate the places they visit (Walmsley and Jenkins, 1993; Walmsley and Young, 1998), the development of a multinomial logit model to measure tourists’ decisions about which destination to visit (Luzar et al., 1998), and the use of inferential rather than just descriptive statistics in the analysis of survey data (Morrison et al., 1996).
Our approach in this chapter has been to concentrate on those aspects of tourism that are directly relevant to the central theme of this book. Of particular interest are issues relating to whether contact between tourists and hosts is a pleasant or stressful experience; whether the motives for travel include culture learning; what determines the nature of the affect, behaviours and cognitions which such contact evokes; and what systematic interventions are available to reduce stress and increase positive outcomes. At a broader level, the questions underlying the more thoughtful research in international education can also be posed with respect to tourists, in particular whether the industry contributes to intergroup harmony and world peace. What follows is a brief review of recent developments in these areas.
The effect of the travel experience on tourists has been the subject of extensive debate. The optimists have maintained that international travel promotes tolerance and understanding of other cultures. Mahatma Gandhi, cited in Theobald (1994), called travel the language of peace. Robert F. Kennedy (1963) asserted that travel has become one of the great forces for peace and understanding in our time. More recently, Ronald Reagan (1985) wrote that travel for pleasure between countries helps to achieve understanding and cooperation. Some academics, also, have argued that tourism contributes to world peace and harmony (e.g. D’Amore, 1988; Khamouna and Zeiger, 1995;
Zeiger and Caneday, 1991).
Other observers are not so sanguine. Barthes (1973), Huxley (1925), and Turner and Ash (1975) have all described the tourist experience as shallow and unlikely to leave any lasting impressions on the traveller. And a recent review of the research literature has found very little evidence for the proposition that tourism promotes peace (Litvin, 1998). Although the resolution of this argument ultimately depends on empirical evidence, there is an underlying issue that has to be dealt with, namely the conditions under which tourists can be regarded as experiencing culture contact in the first place. In other words, two separate questions tend to be confounded, creating confusion and inconsistency in the literature: (1) whether or not a particular category of tourists is exposed to genuine second-culture influences; and (2) what tourist-related contact variables enhance or diminish mutual understanding and international harmony.
The WTO defines an international tourist as a visitor whose length of stay reaches or exceeds 24 hours, thus spending at least one night in the visited country, and whose main purpose is other than to exercise an activity for which they are remunerated (cited in Vellas and Becherel, 1995). Clearly, under this definition, there would be many visitors classified as tourists whose contact with members of the host culture would be minimal. Add to that all of the tourists who travel in groups as part of packaged tours, effectively cocooning themselves from any meaningful contact with the local culture, and the emerging picture suggests that a sizeable minority of those categorised as tourists cannot be regarded as having been exposed to significant second-culture influences.
However, from the perspective of members of the visited society, all interactions with tourists, irrespective of their motives, length of stay, and culture-of-origin, constitute culture-contact episodes. The shopkeeper, bus driver, restaurant owner, or just the local person on a casual stroll in a street, beach or park, will categorise those who are visibly foreign as tourists and will respond accordingly. Consequently, it is vital to include research on the affective and behavioural responses of hosts to the tourists in their midst, and there is a growing literature that deals with this issue.
Finally, an introduction to this topic would not be complete without referring to the distinction often made between tourists and travellers (Dann, 1999). A further distinction is also sometimes made between visitors and guests, particularly in the Pacific Islands (Berno, 1999). Before the advent of mass tourism, recreational travel abroad took the form of the ‘Grand Tour’ with wealthy individuals spending months and sometimes years in foreign places (Pratt, 1992; Sitwell, 1925; Starke, 1802). In particular, the British and Americans had extended sojourns in destinations that they regarded as the centres of culture and the arts in Europe. Exotic regions of the world such as Africa and Asia also attracted western travellers, many of them explorers or amateur archaeologists. There is no doubt that these travellers were directly exposed to contemporary second-culture influences and were personally changed by the experience.
The modern equivalent of the Grand Tour phenomenon can be found in best selling travel narratives by Michael Palin, Paul Theroux and others, who make a good living out of recording their first hand experiences at the cultural coal-face of the countries they visit (e.g. Palin, 1997; Theroux, 1988). Some observers have attributed the success of this genre to its ability to provide vicarious cultural experiences to persons unable or unwilling to gain these first hand (Urry, 1990).
The popularity of guidebooks such as The Lonely Planet series may also in part be due to their emphasis on everyday cultural manifestations.
THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE
The psychological effects of unfamiliar cultural environments on tourists
Tourism is often represented as being an enjoyable, desirable and pleasurable experience, and most people look forward to and expect their visit abroad to be interesting, relaxing and worthwhile. In fact, the annual holiday has been stated as a major reason for saving money (Furnham, 1985). Research on tourism, however, has found the reality to be somewhat different. Boredom, bewilderment, rage, disgust, physical and mental illness, excessive alcohol consumption, depression, and antisocial behaviour are as much in evidence as delight and recreation (Cort and King, 1979; Furnham, 1984; Pearce, 1981;
Prokop, 1970). The early studies on the tourist experience, guided by Pearce’s (1982a,b) pioneering work, were reviewed in the first edition of this book. There it can be observed that the investigations concentrated mainly on the signs and symptoms of ‘culture shock’.
Recent research has also confirmed that being a tourist can be a stressful experience, but it has additionally considered the consequences of ‘culture shock’ for intercultural relations, including the attitudes and perceptions of tourists and members of the host society. For example, a useful current conceptualisation of tourist stress is in terms of risk perception, which includes the psychosocial costs of travelling in general as well as to particular destinations. Along these lines, researchers have recognised that tourism can involve various degrees of risk ranging from simple disappointment to serious injury, even death, due to such calamities as sickness, accidents, or crime (Evans and Berman, 1992; Mansfeld, 1992).
Crime, in particular, affects tourists’ perceptions of safety A considerable literature now exists showing that tourists’ intentions to visit a destination are influenced by their perceptions of risk and feelings of personal safety and that they will avoid regions where they feel threatened (Pizam, 1999; Pizam and Mansfeld, 1996). A good example is New Orleans, a city which has become a major urban tourist destination, due to its French Quarter, river boats, antebellum homes, and Mardi Gras. But underneath the glossy brochures the real New Orleans is a city with major social problems, including poverty, urban decay, poor education and inadequate public health, all contributing to rising crime (Dimanche and Lepetic, 1999). New Orleans is a violent city, and even though in absolute terms very few tourists are killed, many have been subjected to robberies and muggings, and this has affected visitor numbers.
Tourists are also increasingly becoming direct and indirect targets of international terrorism. Sonmez and Graefe (1998) list 28 terrorist incidents involving tourists between 1993 and 1996, and there is evidence that these exacerbate public perceptions of danger associated with travel, particularly to politically unstable destinations that have become notorious for terrorist activity
(Hall and O’Sullivan, 1996). For instance, nearly two million Americans changed their overseas travel plans in 1986, following attacks in 1985 on Americans in the Middle East (Edgell, 1990).
As a significant portion of the contemporary literature tends to conceptualise tourist stress in terms of the ‘culture shock’ that travellers experience, it is important to identify the typical or frequent emotions, cognitions, and behavioural responses that tourists manifest. However, our preferred way of dealing with this topic is a systems approach that places the reactions of tourists in the context of an interacting encounter between the visitors and their hosts.
This will be done in the section on tourism and intercultural contact. To foreshadow that discussion, the amount of ‘shock’ that tourists convey depends on the relative proportion of tourists to locals, technically referred to as the
‘Tourist Ratio’ (Faulkner and Tideswell, 1997), the relative wealth, sophistication and economic development of the respective cultures (Dogan, 1989), and the ethnic composition and prejudices of the groups in contact (de Kadt, 1979; Farrell, 1979). Tourists tend to be particularly disliked in poor, small, simple and isolated communities. At the other end of the scale, residents in popular tourist destinations including large cities such as London and Paris become less than welcoming during the height of the tourist season (Rothman, 1978).
Tourist motives and behaviours
As we indicated earlier, our aim in this chapter is to look at those tourists whose sojourn is at least in part motivated by a desire to learn something about the culture of the visited country. Tourist motives, however, are sometimes difficult to define. Assessment techniques have traditionally included self-report questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews (Ballantyne, Packer and Beckmann, 1998); however, these procedures yield mixed results that are often difficult to interpret. In addition, some of the categories employed in taxonomies of tourist motives may be misleading, as we shall suggest later in this chapter.
A more direct method to investigate tourist motives is in terms of specific
‘niche’ travel markets that have emerged during the last decade. Whereas in the past the tourist industry sold its wares in terms of general attractions such as climate, shopping, beaches and exotic food, current marketing strategies are now concentrating on promoting specific attractions and tourist destinations to travellers with special interests. The tourists can then be defined or labelled by their main purpose or activity. This approach provides a much more direct index of whether the tourists have any leanings toward culture learning experiences, or at least, the data can be used to identify those tourists who have little or no interest in the cultures they are visiting.
To illustrate, visitor categories where culture learning is minimal include sex tourism (Oppermann, 1999); scenic spots such as waterfalls (Hudson, 1998);
movie-induced tourism to film locations (Riley, Baker and Van Doren, 1998);
visits to specific overseas sporting events such as the Olympic Games, World Cup soccer, and other international championships (Green and Chalip, 1998);
bicycle tourism (Cope, Doxford and Hill, 1998); and wildlife attractions including salt-water crocodiles (Ryan, 1998), trophy hunting (Baker, 1997), and captive animals in zoos (Broad and Weiler, 1998). The quite extensive literature in each of these areas hardly ever makes reference to the sociocultural context of the physical attractions that draw tourists to these sites.
In contrast, the growing ‘heritage tour’ industry is an example of a tourist category in which culture plays at least a modest role in attracting visitors.
However, the cultures that such tourists seek to experience are not the present societies where these attractions are located, but their historical representations.
For instance, a major subset of heritage tourism is what Seaton (1996, 1999) calls thanatourism, or travel to sites associated with death and disaster, such as Auschwitz, Pompei, the book depository in Dallas where Kennedy was assassinated, battlefields, graveyards, catacombs, and war memorials. According to Seaton, the site of the Battle of Waterloo is Belgium’s second most important tourist site.
Singapore attracts approximately seven million visitors a year (Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, 1996) with shopping probably the most popular activity. However, more recently the Tourist Board has been making efforts to diversify Singapore’s tourist attractions based on its wartime heritage. The fall of Singapore in 1942 has become a major part of this campaign and includes several museums featuring artefacts from 1942–45, displays at Fort Silosa, Sentosa Island, the Changi Prison, and a number of War Memorials such as Kranji.
These displays attract visitors mainly from the former colonial powers. As Henderson (1997) notes, the surrender is presented as a disaster for Britain and its allies, the role of the local population having been largely ignored.
In Britain, what Robb (1998) calls ‘mythical’ heritage forms a large part of the heritage industry, based on archaeological sites such as Stonehenge, Tintagel, which is associated with the Arthurian legend, and other places linked to ancient events in Britain’s history. Visitors to these sites are not interested in current British culture. What attracts them is Britain’s ‘mythical’ past.
Heritage tourism’s emphasis on the past is reflected in the growing literature on the role of authenticity in determining the attractiveness of a tourist destination. Here a distinction is sometimes made between authentic experiences and the authenticity of toured objects (Wang, 1999). This may relate to whether one is in search of the ‘real’ Spain, Italy or Greece (Waller and Lea, 1999); the meaning and significance of visits to period theme parks (McIntosh and Prentice, 1999); or the issue of contrived or staged authenticity (Cohen, 1995;
MacCannell, 1973), including the quest for ‘genuine fakes’ (Brown, 1996) and sanitised versions of authentic but uncomfortable, dirty, and unpredictable bona fide experiences. The point is that these contrived experiences are unlikely to put the tourist into contact with the contemporary mainstream cultural manifestations of the visited society.
Nevertheless, at least these tourists are interested in attractions that provide them with information about the lifestyle, values and cultural practices of people from whom they differ significantly, even if this culture learning is often a historical exercise. Heritage tourism shades into what has been called cultural tourism. This is operationally defined in the literature by the following activities:
‘ethnic’ events, including festivals, music and food; cultural attractions such as the theatre, concerts, dance, opera, ballet; visiting museums and galleries;
observations of unique people such as Australian Aborigines, Amish communities and Native Americans in the United States; visits to places of historical or archaeological interest; and visits to sites commemorating important people (Alzua O’Leary and Morrison, 1998; Moscardo and Pearce, 1999).
It should be noted that this list clearly overlaps with the attractions and motivations that characterise an interest in historical heritage sites. Its usefulness in the present context is to contrast it with the motives of those tourists who are primarily interested in beaches and warm weather, outdoor and nature destinations, resorts, entertainment, and visiting friends and family, i.e. those who form the majority of contemporary tourists. Our review of this literature has also shown that from the point of view of culture learning, so called heritage and cultural tourism does not refer to a homogeneous population. As we have seen, the exposure to contemporary, second culture influences varies according to a range of circumstances, and labelling a particular group of visitors as cultural tourists may in some circumstances be misleading.
A tourist category that makes explicit reference to culture learning is ecotourism, said to be the fastest growing tourist segment in recent years (Buckley, 1994; Ecotourism Society, 1998). There is some debate in the literature as to exactly what the term refers. Blamey’s (1997) review of this controversy lists several definitions that would seem to satisfy the criterion of culture contact. Examples include ‘travel to enjoy the world’s amazing diversity of natural life and human culture without causing damage to either’; ‘travelling to relatively undisturbed areas with the specific objective of studying…the scenery, wild plants and animals, as well as any…cultural manifestations, both past and present’; and ‘ecologically sustainable tourism that fosters environmental and cultural understanding’ (p. 110). Some of these attributes overlap with the nature and heritage characteristics listed earlier and point to the difficulties of trying to achieve precise definitions in this area. And yet, a reasonably accurate definition is necessary if we wish to estimate the proportion of all tourists who are ecotourists, and, in turn, identify the subset who might have a genuine interest in cultural manifestations. A further problem is that the term ‘ecotourism’ is sometimes misused as a catch-cry and marketing ploy by developers, politicians and tourist operators to justify commercialising wilderness areas (Chirgwin and Hughes, 1997).
Probably the group most likely to come into genuine contact with ordinary members of the societies they visit are the so-called ‘backpackers’, broadly defined as people who travel with backpacks (Hampton, 1998; Loker-Murphy
and Pearce, 1995; Wilson, 1997). In many ways, the backpacker phenomenon seems to be a modern version of the ‘Grand Tour’. The travellers are young and idealistic, not in regular employment and therefore not under the time pressures of conventional holiday-makers. This gives them the leisure to explore the visited places in depth and to immerse themselves in the local scene. They tend to gravitate to locations off the beaten track, and because they are usually on a tight budget, they use local transport, eat indigenous food, and live in cheap accommodation. This means that they are in a much better position to gain first hand experience of the local culture than the traditional tourists staying in international hotels and attending sanitised cultural displays. It should also follow that backpackers are the group most likely to be personally changed by their tourist experiences. However, evidence on this latter assumption is hard to come by.
The ‘niche’ market approach to identifying tourists and categorising them in terms of their implicit motives and type of culture contact offers a valuable perspective on tourist-host interactions. There are, however, other taxonomies that can shed light on the nature and type of intercultural encounters between tourists and hosts. One example is provided by Smith (1989) who considered the type, frequency and adaptational patterns of tourists (Table 6.1).
According to Smith, explorers are not conventional tourists and are more comparable to anthropologists who live as active participants among members of the visited culture. They are few in numbers but adapt almost completely to the local norms concerning accommodation, food and lifestyle. Elite tourists are also uncommon. They prefer to travel ‘off the beaten track’ for holiday experiences.
Although they adapt easily and enjoy ‘living native’, they differ from the explorers in that they are engaged in recreational travel. Off-beat tourists are those who either seek to get away from the tourist crowds or to do something out of the ordinary for their holiday experience. They adapt well to the host culture norms although more in the form of ‘putting up’ with the local conventions for the duration of their stay. The
Table 6.1 Frequency, type and cultural adaptation of tourists (Smith, 1989)
Type of tourist Number of tourists Adaptation to local norms
Explorer Very limited Accepts fully
Elite Rarely seen Adapts fully
Off-beat Uncommon but seen Adapts well
Unusual Occasional Adapts somewhat
Incipient mass Steady flow Seeks familiar amenities
Mass Continuous influx Expects familiar amenities
Charter Massive arrivals Demands familiar
amenities
Source: Hosts and Guests 2nd edition, edited by Valene L.Smith. Copyright © 1989 University of Pennsylvania Press. Reprinted with permission.