Development – The Role of the Tourist
For tourism to be an effective means of achieving development in destination areas then, according to current thinking, the manner in which tourism is consumed should, ideally, reflect the characteristics of the destination and the desired nature and rate of development (Inskeep, 1991). In some cases, small-scale, integrated tourism may be most appropriate; in others, the development of more traditional, mass forms of tourism may be seen as the most effective strategy. However, in either case, tourist-consumer behaviour should, it is suggested, be appropriate to the setting.
In other words, a balanced, symbiotic relationship should exist between tourists – and the satisfaction of their needs – and the developmental needs and objectives of the destination (Budowski, 1976). Such a relationship is most commonly conceptualised as a triangular interaction between tourists/the tourism industry, the local community and the destination environment (ETB, 1991; Bramwell & Lane, 1993), although it has also been referred to as the ‘magic pentagon’ of tourism development (Mьller, 1994). According to the latter, the optimum satisfaction of tourists needs should be balanced with the health of local culture, the local economy, the local environment and, finally, the ‘subjective well-being’ of local communities (Mьller, 1994). In both models, it is implied that tourists, in addition to benefiting from the tourism experience, should make a positive contribution to the developmental process (see also Chapter 2).
It has long been argued, however, that this does not often occur and, therefore, that tourism development and tourist behavior should be controlled or influenced to the benefit of the destination. For example, inthelate1960s Mishan (1969:142) observed that
As swarms of holiday-makers arrive by air, sea and land…as concrete is poured over the earth, as hotels, caravans, casinos, night-clubs, chalets, and blocks of sun-flats crowd into the area and retreat into the hinterland, local life and industry shrivel, hospitality vanishes, and indigenous populations drift into a quasi-parasitic way of life catering with contemptuous servility to the unsophisticated multitude.
This somewhat extreme viewpoint was reflected in the proposed solution, namely, to simply ban all international air travel! A more considered approach became evident in the extensive literature on the host–guest relationship that emerged from the 1970s onwards, although even as early as 1980, and in opposition to the perceived consequences of mass tourism consumption, there were calls for tourists to adopt a more responsible, ‘good’ approach to being tourists.
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The mass tourist–good tourist dichotomy was further strengthened by the sustainable tourism debate during the 1990s. As concerns grew about the negative consequences of tourism and, implicitly, its failure to contribute effectively to development, it was argued that ‘the crisis of the tourism industry is a crisis of mass tourism; for it is mass tourism that has brought social, cultural, economic and environmental havoc in its wake, and it is mass tourism practices that must be radically changed to bring in the new’ (Poon, 1993: 3). This view is echoed by others.
A code of ethics for tourists
1. Travel in a spirit of humility and with a genuine desire to learn more about the people of your host country.
2. Be sensitively aware of the feelings of other people, thus preventing what might be offensive behaviour on your part. This applies very much to photography.
3. Cultivate the habit of listening and observing, rather than merely hearing and seeing.
4. Realise that often the people in the country you visit have time concepts and thought patterns different from your own; this does not make them inferior, only different.
5. Instead of looking for that ‘beach paradise’, discover the enrichment of seeing a different way of life, through other eyes.
6. Acquaint yourself with local customs –people will be happy to help you.
7. Instead of the western practice of knowing all the answers, cultivate the habit of asking questions.
8. Remember that you are only one of the thousands of tourists visiting this country and do not expect special privileges.
9. If you really want your experience to be ‘a home away from home’, it is foolish to waste money on travelling.
10. If you are shopping, remember that the ‘bargain’ you obtained was only possible because of the low wages paid to the maker.
11. Do not make promises to people in your host country unless you are certain to carry them through.
12. Spend time reflecting on your daily experiences in an attempt to deepen your understanding. It has been said that what enriches you may rob and violate others.
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For example, McLaren (1998: 6) suggests that ‘tourism remains a passive luxury for thousands of travellers. This must change, whilst a recent debate hosted by the pressure group Tourism Concern concluded that all-inclusive holidays, arguably the epitome of mass-packaged tourism consumption, should be banned (Farrington,1999).
Many would agree that the call to transform the ‘passive luxury’ nature of tourism or to ignore popular tourism markets is naive and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of tourism as a form of consumption. At the same time, it defies commercial reality. For example, following the decision of The Gambia’s tourism authorities to ban all-inclusive holidays in 1999, some tour operators reported a significant fall in bookings. Nevertheless, there is also no doubt that, in many instances, there is a need for an aware, responsive approach on the part of tourists if tourism is to make an effective contribution to the development of destination areas. In particular, as suggested in Chapter 2, sustainable tourism development requires the adoption of sustainable tourism consumption practices, reflecting the need for a new social paradigm of sustainable life-styles as a fundamental element of sustainable development (IUCN, 1991; Sharpley, 2000).
The issue, then, is not about the need for appropriate tourist-consumer behavior, but whether it is a realistic aspiration. In other words, can it be assumed that tourists are willing or able to adapt their consumer behavior to better match the developmental needs and objectives of destinations? Two important questions immediately follow, forming the basis of this chapter. First, are we witnessing, as some would claim, the emergence of the ‘good’ tourist? And, second, what influence do the characteristics of the consumption of tourism have on the nature of tourism development?
The Consumption of Tourism
Tourist-consumer behaviour is a complex process; it is ‘discretionary, episodic, future oriented, dynamic, socially influenced and evolving’ (Pearce, 1992a: 114). Typically, it is seen as a process or ‘vacation sequence’ (van Raaij & Francken, 1984) comprising a number of inter-related stages, from the initial need identification/motivational stage through to the actual consumption and evaluation of tourist experiences (Goodall, 1991; Gilbert, 1991). Each stage may be influenced by personal and external variables, such as time and money constraints, social stimuli, media influences and so on, whilst each consumption experience feeds into subsequent decision-making processes. At the same time, however, the consumption of tourism may also be considered a continual, cyclical and multidimensional process. That is, consuming tourism is, generally, neither a ‘one-off’ event nor just a simple, unidirectional purchasing sequence. As Pearce (1992a) points out, tourism consumption occurs over a lifetime, during which tourists may progress up or climb a travel career ladder as they become more experienced tourists. As a result, travel needs and expectations may change and evolve, but these may also be framed and influenced by evolving social relationships, life-style factors and constraints, and emerging values and attitudes.
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Despite this complexity, however, two specific characteristics of the tourism consumption process deserve consideration here. First, it is generally accepted that the process begins with motivation, the ‘trigger that sets off all events in travel’ (Parinello, 1993). It is the motivational stage that pushes an individual from a condition of inertia into tourism-consumptive activity, that translates needs into goal-oriented consumer-behaviour. Therefore, the motivation to consume tourism has a direct bearing on the nature of tourist-consumer behaviour. Second, tourism occurs in a world where the practice of consumption in general is playing an increasingly important role in people’s social and cultural lives. That is, most tourism-generating societies are becoming characterised by a dominant consumer culture which influences all forms of consumption, including tourism. Therefore, ‘consumption choices simply cannot be understood without considering the cultural context in which they are made’ (Solomon, 1994: 536).
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Tourist motivation
Tourist motivation represents one of the most important yet complex areas of tourism research. It is also a subject that has enjoyed widespread and diverse treatment in the tourism literature, although a generally accepted theory or understanding has yet to emerge (Jafari, 1987). Nevertheless, a brief review of the main contributions to the literature will reveal not only the complexity of the topic but also, more importantly, the fact that the primary motivational factors in tourism are likely to militate against tourists adopting destinationally appropriate consumer behaviour.
The literature on tourist motivation encompasses ‘an amalgam of ideas and approaches’ (Dann, 1981). Psychology provided one of the earlier disciplinary foundations, the notion of intrinsic need satisfaction being considered the primary arousal factor in motivated behaviour. Indeed, it has been argued that ‘motivation is purely a psychological concept, not a sociological one’ (Iso-Ahola, 1982). Many papers and texts refer to Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs, linking specific needs with identified goal-oriented tourist behaviour, whilst others explicitly adapt it as, for example, in the case of the travel career concept mentioned earlier. Similarly, Crompton (1979) suggested that tourist motivation emanates from the need to restore an individual’s psychological equilibrium which may become unbalanced as a result of unsatisfied needs.
These psychological motivational forces were subdivided by Iso-Ahola into two simultaneous influences. On the one hand, motivation results from the need to escape from personal or interpersonal environments whilst, on the other hand, there also exists the tendency to seek intrinsic psychological rewards from tourism. Similarly, Dann (1977) refers to ‘anomie and ego enhancement’ as primary motivational push factors, anomie being the sense of normlessness or meaninglessness to be escaped from and ego enhancement representing the opportunity to address relative status deprivation. However, like a number of other commentators, Dann (1981) adopts a more sociological perspective on tourist motivation. Needs are viewed‘ in terms of the (tourist) group of which the person deliberately or otherwise is a member’, rather than from the individual’s psychological condition. In this sense, tourist motivation is structured by the nature and characteristics of the society to which the tourist belongs.
For example, Krippendorf (1986) argues that ‘the need to travel is above all created by society and marked by the ordinary’ and that, functionally, tourism is ‘social therapy, a safety valve keeping the everyday world in good working order’. Tourism, therefore, represents non-routine time when the individual is ‘emancipated from the ordinary bounds into the unbounded realm of the non-ordinary’ (Jafari, 1987). In the new, unbounded world of the destination, the tourist has travelled beyond the margins of the ordinary (Shields, 1991) into a state of anti-structure where ludic or liminoid behaviour is sanctioned or even expected (Lett, 1983; Passariello, 1983). Moreover, tourists’ ‘normal’ roles may be inverted, playing king/queen for a day (Gottlieb, 1982) or regressing into a child-like existence (Dann, 1996). Thus, fantasy becomes the dominant motivational factor, the rewards of the tourism experience being the immersion into a dreamlike existence that is a temporary escape from the real world.
Conversely, for MacCannell (1989), the tourist is similarly motivated by the condition of modern society but rather than seeking fantasy, it is the experience of reality or authenticity that is the desired outcome. Faced with the in authenticity of modern society, the tourist becomes, in effect, a secular pilgrim on a quest for reality, tourism representing ‘a kind of collective striving for a transcendence of the modern totality, a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity’ (MacCannell, 1989: 13). Indeed, whether a search for or an escape from reality, tourism may be considered a sacred journey, being ‘functionally and symbolically equivalent to other institutions that humans use to embellish and add meanings to their lives’ (Graburn, 1989: 22). Tourists are motivated, therefore, by the potentially spiritual experience of the journey (or pilgrimage), of witnessing or gazing upon particular attractions or sights, or the sense of ‘communitas’ shared with fellow tourists in the non-ordinary tourism culture of the destination.
Other commentators focus on more specific social factors as determinants of tourist motivation. Some explore the relationship between work and leisure/ tourism experiences (Ryan, 1991), whilst Moutinho (1987) refers collectively to cultural and social factors, including social class, reference groups and family roles, as dominant social influences on tourist motivation and behaviour. These latter issues are also addressed individually by others, such as Gitelson and Kersetter (1994), who examine the extent of the influence of friends and relatives in tourism decision-making, and Howard and Madrigal (1990), who consider the decision-making roles of different family members. At the same time, other motivational studies have focused on particular destinational categories (Klenesky et al., 1993), on the measurement of tourist motivation (Fodness, 1994) and on the motivation of specific tourist groups (for example, Cha et al., 1995).
There is, then, enormous diversity in the treatment of tourist motivation. Nevertheless, a number of factors are commonly evident. First, tourist motivation is complex, dynamic and potentially determined by a variety of person-specific psychological factors and extrinsic social forces. That is, a number of different pressures and influences may shape the needs and wants of tourists at any one time. Therefore, identifying specific or dominant determinant factors may be a difficult, if not impossible task, particularly given the fact that tourists may be unwilling or unable to express their real travel motives. Second, however, most commentators suggest either implicitly or explicitly that tourists are motivated primarily by the desire to escape, by ‘going away from rather than going towards something or somebody’ (Krippendorf, 1987: 29). As van Rekom (1994) suggests, ‘a central need which has been revealed time and time again in empirical research is the “escape” notion’, a view supported by Robie et al. (1993) who identify escape as one of the three most common motivating factors in tourism.
Third, and related, tourists are motivated by the potential rewards of participating in tourism. Such rewards may be personal, inter-personal, psychological or physical and, collectively described as ‘ego enhancement’, they compensate for the deficiencies or pressures and strains of everyday life. Finally, and again consequently, tourists’ motivations are markedly self-oriented: ‘now I decide what … is good for me’ (Krippendorf, 1987: 29). In other words, tourism represents a form of self-reward or self-indulgence.
The implications of this in the context of tourism and development is that it is highly unlikely that tourists will be motivated to ‘work’ at tourism, or to ensure that their tourist-consumer behaviour will be directed towards optimising the benefits of tourism to the destination. Not only are tourists generally unaware of tourism-related consequences and tensions in destination areas but as tourism is an essentially ego-centric, escapist activity, tourists ‘do not want to be burdened with the concerns of the normal world’(McKercher,1993).More bluntly, tourists pay significant sums of money in search of relaxation, fun and entertainment. They are, therefore, most likely to give priority to satisfying their personal needs rather than demonstrating and responding to a positive concern for the consequences of their actions – their focus will be inwards, on the satisfaction of personal needs and wants, rather than on the external tourism environment. Moreover, as we shall now see, this characteristic of tourist-consumer behaviour is reinforced by the culture of tourism consumption.
Куделич Галина Петровна
Старший преподаватель кафедры романских языков (французский язык).
Преподаваемые курсы
Практика устной и письменной речи для студентов специальности: Международные отношения и Международное право.
Основные публикации:
1. Куделич, Г. П. «Антропология Ф. Достоевского в трудах Рене Жирара» / Г. П. Куделич // XIII Международная научная конференция по религиоведению Краков-Закопане 10-15 октября 2011 г. «Религиозный символизм как культурное наследство» / гл. ред. Алексеенко Н.А., Ksiazek A. — Krakow, 2011. — C. 34—35.
2. Куделич, Г. П. Фразеологический фонд языка как отражение национального и культурного своеобразия народа / Г. П. Куделич // Межкультурная коммуникация и профессионально ориентированное обучение иностранным языкам: материалы VII Международной конференции, посвященной 92-летию образования Белорусского государственного университета, 30 октября 2013 г. / редкол.: В. Г. Шадурский [и др.]. — Минск: Изд. центр БГУ, 2013. — 287 с.
3. Куделич, Г. П. К проблеме сопоставительного лингвистического анализа библейской фразеологии / Г. П. Куделич // Международные отношения: история, теория, практика: материалы IV науч.-практ. конф. молодых ученых фак. междунар. отношений БГУ, Минск, 4 февр. 2014 г. / редкол.: В. Г. Шадурский [и др.]. — Минск: Изд. центр БГУ, 2014. — 216 с.
4. Куделич, Г. П. Функциональные особенности употребления библеизмов в различных языковых традициях / Г. П. Куделич // Межкультурная коммуникация и профессионально ориентированное обучение иностранным языкам: материалы VIII Международной конференции, посвященной 93-летию образования Белорусского государственного университета, 30 октября 2014 г. / редкол.: В. Г. Шадурский [и др.]. — Минск: Изд. центр БГУ, 2014. — с. 79-81.
5. Куделич, Г. П. Влияние Библии на становление литературных языков в ареалах Slavia Orthodoxa и Slavia Latina / Г. П. Куделич / — Христианство в европейской и мировой истории. Сборник докладов XX юбилейных Международных Кирилло-Мефодиевских чтений (24 мая 2014 г.). — Минск: Ковчег, 2015. — с. 71—74.
6. Куделич, Г. П. Идиоматичность как фундаментальное свойство языковых единиц / Г. П. Куделич // Межкультурная коммуникация и профессионально ориентированное обучение иностранным языкам: материалы IX Междунар. науч. конф., посвящ. 94-летию образования Белорус. гос. ун-та, Минск, 29 окт. 2015 г. / редкол.: В. Г. Шадурский (пред.) [и др.]. — Минск: РИВШ, 2016. — С. 103—104.
Переводы научных статей и монографий с немецкого и французского языков:
· Антонов, Б. Преподавание религии в Болгарии / Б. Антонов // XVI Международные Кирилло-Мефодиевские чтения (Минск, 28—29 мая 2010 г.): материалы чтений «Религиозная культура в контексте светского образования» / Ин-т теологии свв. Мефодия и Кирилла, Белорус. гос. ун-т культуры и искусств; отв. редактор и сост. Г. Н. Петровский. — Минск: Зорны Верасок, 2011. — С. 90—105.
· Лоджанидзе, С. Преподавание религии в Грузии / С. Лоджанидзе // XVI Международные Кирилло-Мефодиевские чтения (Минск, 28—29 мая 2010 г.): материалы чтений «Религиозная культура в контексте светского образования» / Ин-т теологии свв. Мефодия и Кирилла, Белорус. гос. ун-т культуры и искусств; отв. редактор и сост. Г. Н. Петровский. — Минск: Зорны Верасок, 2011. — С. 284—293.
· Кируди, М. Ответственность церкви и государства в образовании на примере преподавания православного курса в Германии / М. Кируди // XVI Международные Кирилло-Мефодиевские чтения (Минск, 28—29 мая 2010 г.): материалы чтений «Религиозная культура в контексте светского образования» / Ин-т теологии свв. Мефодия и Кирилла, Белорус. гос. ун-т культуры и искусств; отв. редактор и сост. Г. Н. Петровский. — Минск: Зорны Верасок, 2011. — С.41—46.
· Раух, А. Бог и мир в единстве и различии / А. Раух // XVII Международные Кирилло-Мефодиевские чтения (Минск, 26—28 мая 2010 г.): материалы чтений « В ответственности за творение. культура и образование перед лицом экологических вызовов» / под общей редакцией В. В. Кулика. — Минск: БГАТУ, 2011. — С. 14—18.
· Жирар Рене. Достоевский: от двойственности к единству / Пер. с франц. Куделич Г. — М.: Издательство ББИ, 2013. — 162 с.
Бонхеффер, Дитрих. Этическое и христианское в качестве тем // Д. Бонхеффер. Этика / Пер. с нем. — М.: Издательство ББИ. — С. 378—407.
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