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“Jack”, Gabby says, came as a reaction to an action. It came after Jack Dear, a corporate lawyer for the Barbados Board of Tourism made the decree that hotel owners had the right to bring their property down to the waterfront. The idea for the song came one night while I was singing a hotel. This white woman said to me, “could you play some local music.” Jack was at the hotel that same night and the entire encounter led to the creation of “Jack”.

Summary

Tourism is definitely not characterized by neat boundaries but by central ideas (states of minds), by common features, by family resemblances. Tourism is therefore understood as a polythetic classification and studied from different and diverse angles. Today, the anthropology of tourism is on the map. However the number of fieldwork-based monographs in mainstream anthropology about identity issues between so-called host cultures and their guests, the tourists, remains very small. Despite the general acknowledgement that international (mass) tourism affects influential social and cultural change, the study of the complex connections between the dynamics of tourism and cultural creations of identity bodies (such as nationality, ethnicity,…) is still a rather virgin field. This article presents two research models of fieldwork about this topic, based on own fieldwork in the Azores, Barbados, Belgium, Crete (Greece), Egypt and Malta.

Keywords: Tourism, ethnicity, research field models

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Introduction: tourism as a polythetic classification

From a general anthropological perspective, tourism can be understood as a temporary and recreational nomadic way of life , as P.L. Van den Berghe stated when the anthropology of tourism was still in its infancy (1980: 375-376). The tourist is by definition the person who passes through a place with no expectation of permanence. The nomadic life of the tourist is self-imposed, of deliberately limited duration and sharply distinguished from his normal sedentary existence. Since this definition, tourism has rapidly developed into a huge and thriving global industry, deeply implicating society and culture. Social and ethical, political and economical issues are raised as a consequence. At present, tourism is definitely an umbrella term and diverse sciences –often applied in a inter- or multidisciplinary approach- are studying the complex processes of changes evoked by tourism. Scholars trying to grasp tourism in a few lines, are constantly confronted with the very fast changes in tourism. J. Urry describes tourism as a leisure activity which presupposes its opposite, namely regulated and organised work (1990). But how to handle than the contemporary wide-spread activity of working holidays or, even more difficult in Urry’s definition, the so-called second homes? Both trends developed very fast in the nineties of the twentieth century and second homes are at present an integral component of tourism in rural and peripheral areas. Not one but many sets of practices colour tourism and touristhood. This assessment is one of the main reasons that tourism is a fruitful field of anthropological study. Peoples and places, ways of life and pasts are increasingly created, packaged, shaped or transformed for purposes dealing with tourism. The research deals with behaviour, interaction and change; politics and economics and items of stereotyping, authenticity and modernity. The dynamics of tourism makes and re-makes cultural capital, in other words, tourism utilises.

Tourism affects diverse change, four theoretical hypotheses as a starting viewpoint

“To ignore ethnicity when writing about tourism but equally to ignore tourism when writing about ethnicity,…” this remark of M. Crick (1998) still stands today. Only a few researchers are active in this unexplored but fascinating field. Mass tourism has the stigma to destroy “authentic cultures”. It has become a trite to state that tourism destroys the very object of its desire. But fieldwork shows how tourism is frequently a special species of ethnic relations. From the starting viewpoint of acculturation (Latin: ad culturam, towards a new culture), one can easily visualize the research context as diverse encounters between people of the host culture and the international mass tourists, whereby different activities in the host culture are organized. Four research hypotheses summarize this whole process.


In the first hypothesis (h1) there seems to be no case. However, one should be careful if the inhabitants of the host culture deny any influence at all. Sometimes feelings of proud prevent to accept the influence of tourism, certainly when the hosts are discussing this topic with tourists. Some Cretan seniors in the depopulated mountain villages develop this reflex in their stories to wandering backpackers (“Crete will never change, her soul is immortal”) while they admit amongst themselves that the island of Crete has thoroughly changed by international mass tourism. In the second hypothesis (h2) tourism causes socio-cultural changes as e.g. the input of diverse infrastructures but there are no real changes in the host self-images or other identity bodies. In the third hypothesis we notice structural changes in the host society, which affect the identity concepts of the involved hosts. The fourth hypothesis (h4) is rather unlikely in the case of mass tourism. Tourist safaris in host cultures can upset a village only for a few hours; however, they can be a medium to rethink the self-images as I noticed in some dessert dwellings in Egypt or in some small villages of the islets of the Portuguese Azores. On the isle of Pico some young men working in a vineyard were confronted with a group of young European tourists for a couple of hours. Everything went well and both groups had a good time exchanging experiences in a pleasant manner. But after the tourists were gone, the Portuguese youngsters pitied themselves. They complained that they will never have a chance to go abroad, to discover the world. “We, men of Pico, are stuck to this damned island!” Only the day before they boasted to me about the beauty of their island, the cosiness, the healthy living,…

Daily praxis in the field

On further consideration, these hypotheses only make the research context more visible. In daily praxis, numerous options and nuances are indeed possible. The options also must not exclude each other but can be part of a greater scenario of a growing tourism in the host culture. As for hypothesis two, there are much more tourists in the north of Malta than in the south. So the impact of international tourism on Maltese society is much more profound in the north. The same can be said for Barbados and Crete. A clear geographical definition of “the host culture” is only a first step. Members of the host culture react in different ways to the presence of mass tourists. A research in the Belgium city of Bruges, a famous international tourist centre, concludes that the children (10-12 years) of people working in tourism in Bruges experience the international tourists rather as an enrichment for their city and this in different ways. The Bruges’ children of people not active in Bruges’ tourism on the other hand complain more about the presence of the tourists: too many numbers, too many traffic problems,... (De Bruycker, 2006). A large research carried out in the same city during the last years finds four categories about viewpoints of the inhabitants of Bruges concerning the tourist activities: “the haters of tourism”, “the critical realists”, “the cool lovers” and “the staunch advocates” (Bryon, 2005). Another item of interest in this matter is the type of tourism coming to the host culture. Mass tourism is often characterized by sun-sea-sand tourism and for the inhabitants of the host culture it is indeed a big difference to receive tourists of that kind of type in comparison e.g. with tourists only interested in the cultural heritage of the host culture. Last but not least, the impact of the dynamics of tourism on host societies and host identity bodies must be examined in a historical context. In Crete, many tourists but also some scholars of tourism think that tourism is the main reason for the depopulation of the villages in the mountains. But the Cretan emigration to the north coast started in the fifties and the sixties of the twentieth century, caused by the severe and poor living conditions in the traditional mountain villages. Since Crete joined Greece (1913), daily life in the mountains has become more difficult and the Second World War, followed by the Greek Civil War worsened this situation. The coming of mass tourism to Crete in the seventies strengthens indeed this emigration, but tourism never caused it. Therefore it is crucial to have insights in the history of the host culture, certainly in the culture of the nearby past, “before tourism becomes important in the host culture”. This plea for a diachronic approach may be an obvious remark but in contemporary research about the impact of tourism, the historical dimension is often absent.

Tourism as ethnic relations: a general research model

Following research model discuss tourism as ethnic relations from four with each other connected fields:
1. the study of the integration of tourism in the host culture;
2. the study of tourism as a factor of social and cultural change with special attention to socio-economical issues;
3. the study of the diverse confrontations between hosts and tourists with special attention to processes as the demonstration effect and the ethnicity of the touristhood; and
4. the study of the interactions between well defined groups of the host culture and the tourists or well defined groups of the touristhood.

Integration

The study of the integration of tourism reconstructs the history of tourism in the host culture and is -at the same time- researching new tourism policy tendencies. Which type of tourism is to be preferred? Malta e.g. tries with all means to enlarge the business of congresses. For some years now, Greece has been extending its marinas. Which strategies and tactics are applied from different angles? And are they successful? Obviously, in this matter the role of the state of the host culture is a very important one, from national to local policy strategies. In the slums of Cairo one can’t find tourists and that is a clear government measure. This research also deals with issues such as building new infrastructures (extra roads, extra boat lines) or creating new institutions as “tourist police”. In the Mediterranean as for Spain and Greece, dictatorial governments pushed the business of tourism in the second half of the twentieth century, granting extra-legal opportunities for foreign tourist companies. It was not a democratic choice and no public debate was possible. Today however one can hear all over in the Mediterranean people discussing openly in cafés and in the streets diverse measures of the state to promote tourism. In those informal discussions some persons stress the fact that more necessary investments should be done in education or social welfare. “Too much money goes to tourism.” Such debates are important to map the big picture of the impact of tourism. The penetration of tourism in host cultures can be far reaching. In some Mediterranean tourist crowded spots, tourists -often staying there in second homes- even start up political parties in the societies of their hosts to defend their interests.

Social and cultural change: the economical focus

Closely linked with the research of the integration of tourism, this field of study describes and investigates the profound socio-cultural changes in the host culture, directly or indirectly due to tourism. Of vital importance are certainly economical issues. When economical patterns change, as a rule, cultural habits are modified. The humble settings at the shores of Crete and Malta were reshaped in a few years from small, face-to-face communities of traditional peasant culture into dynamic tourist centres. “In the past we used to sleep at night; at present we stay up all summer and only sleep in winter” said one of my Maltese informants of the village of Mellieha. In the midst of the nineties of the twentieth century, Mellieha was a rather sleepy village with some elderly tourists, a few eating houses, some restaurants and one discotheque. Ten years later the inhabitants of Mellieha find themselves in the long summer living in an international resort provided with all the tourist infrastructures contemporary tourists may ask for. This research domain is a very large one and demands an interdisciplinary approach. The research issues stretch out over diverse subjects, from changes in landscape to changes in family patterns. Often underestimated is the impact of the long presence (nine or ten months a year) of “new people” as foreign hostesses and hosts, cooks, animators, managers,… sometimes marrying locals and changing the host culture from within. In some Cretan coast villages, such mixed marriages or vast relationships can reach a number of 15% (local men, foreign women). Tourism, when successful, also brings earlier migrated people -or their children- back to their home culture or encourages the process of transnationalism (e.g. Crete-Germany, Malta-UK/Australia). In some cases, educated youngsters who do not like to work in tourism emigrate as a rather large group of young Cretans of the city of Rethimno decided some years ago to live their lives in Athens.

Confrontations

Tourists come and go but their collective identity of touristhood remains in the host culture, certainly in the so-called bulk destinations. Their typical behaviour with typical tourists acts as to get a tan, to hunt souvenirs, to visit tourist sanctuaries, to stroll in the streets,… even “the tourist gaze” makes them in the eyes of the inhabitants of the host culture an homogenous group, an ethnic group. In many cases the locals have to share their territory for more than six months each year with their “new friends” and in some cases the sharing is all the year going on. In plenty of Mediterranean and Caribbean tourist resorts international tourists even claim an own tourist history in the host culture, often stating that “we, the tourists” bring prosperity and money to the place. In creating such an history the tourists strengthen the process of a very special ethnicity. Thus both groups, locals and tourists can easily be described in the broad concept of ethnicity as described by J. Leman (1998: 149). “With ethnicity, we mean (1) a “subjective, symbolic or emblematic use of any aspect of culture, in order to differentiate from other groups" (Brass, 1991: 19), (2) on the basis of "a feeling of continuity with the past, a feeling that is maintained as an essential part of one's self-definition" (De Vos, 1975: 17), (3) providing “reservoirs for renewing humane values. Ethnic memory is thus future, not past, oriented" (Fischer, 1986: 176), and (4) whereby it is not “the cultural stuff that it encloses" that fundamentally decides what is involved in the we-consciousness but "the ethnic boundary that defines the group" (Barth, 1969: 15). Ethnic frontiers are social frontiers." The confrontations between both groups have many faces and consequences. An underestimated mechanism behind these encounters is the demonstration effect, the silent observations of each other. Low educated girls and young women in Barbados, Crete and Malta living in tourists resorts often disapprove “the too sexy dressing up of western female tourists” and condemn such “shameless” behaviour. As a reaction some of them develop negative feelings concerning the western world and fall back on traditional habits of their grandmothers times, causing great despair in the circles of supporters of women’s lib. Another effect of the diverse confrontations is the creation of different cultural patterns in terms of “on the stage” versus “behind the stage”. Some staged authenticities go very far. In Crete some tavern owners write their outside stalled dinner menus in very poor English or German, anticipating the search of the tourists for “real, authentic Cretan food”.

Interactions

The real interactions -from exchanging a smile over some small talk to even sexual intercourse or fights and conflicts- between locals and tourists provides from an anthropological viewpoint the most promising focus. The participant observation is far the best method because a confidential relationship must be built up. It is preferable and in fact necessary to research well defined niches in the host culture, and in some circumstances of overcrowded tourist places even to differentiate in the group of the tourists. I have written before in Kolor about the group of low educated young males in Crete working directly or indirectly in mass tourism (2002: 61-76). It is interesting to find out that some cultural mechanisms of their search for a renewed identity are the same mechanisms concerning low educated young males working in tourism in Barbados and Malta. Those groups often claim “on the stage” to be “the real Cretans”, “the real Bajans” or “the real Maltese”, using myth symbols and invented traditions to describe the paradise they live in. “Behind the stage” one finds them much less self confident, on the contrary, they develop even negative feelings about their “touristified” culture. This field of research offers challenging and unexplored study subjects such as the confrontation of the chosen niches with the large production of stereotypes and images about the host culture used in tourism.

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Tourism is a dynamic way of being that may facilitate or hinder intercultural communication and intercultural exchange. Tourists are in this context confronted with very specific material, practical and emotional questions which affect tourist behaviour. An array of developing and recently constructed conceptual frameworks of tourist behaviour –dealing with topics as destination choice, travellers’ on site experiences, motivation, satisfaction, learning,… - are discussed by Philip Pearce (2005). To understand touristhood and the study of tourism as ethnic relations, a richer approach is required than only to register the obvious elements and effects or the stereotypes of tourist behaviour. In the Expeditions Summer School of Malta we apply following research model. The model deals with international tourists staying in Malta and coming with the ferry to the Maltese islet of Gozo. They are visiting Gozo only for a couple of hours, mainly arriving about 10 AM and leaving the small island of thirty thousand inhabitants in the late afternoon. There are four basic levels of the research.

Level 1
- What is the motivation to visit Gozo and what do the tourists expect of their trip? Did they take any special preparations for the trip?
Research: on the ferry Malta to Gozo (25 minutes trip), informal talks and informal inquiries.

Level 2
- What are the tourists really doing in Gozo?
Research: action research, participant observation of tourist activities in Gozo.

Level 3
- How did the tourists experience their trip in Gozo? Were they satisfied? What was e.g. not expected?
Research: on the ferry Gozo to Malta, informal talks and informal inquiries.

Level 4
- What do the tourists remember of their trip to Gozo?
Research: A. informal inquiries after a few days in the tourist lodgings in Malta; B. formal inquiries in the home-countries of the tourists, a general survey.

The four levels are linked with two broad domains of data.

Domain 1
The first domain is about:
1. body issues,
2. global society issues (political, economical, art & culture,…),
3. cultural patterns issues (language,…) and
4. cosmology issues (religion,…).

Domain 2
The second domain deals with the following questions or items:
1. what is “ok”, what is very nice, enjoyable, etc.,
2. what is a skill-element?,
3. what causes feelings of tension?,
4. what causes real conflicts?

All this leads to a field tool with 64 inputs of data (four levels x 16 fields; 64 subfields). Schematized for expectations/motivations, level 1, with two examples x and y:


x: “I hope to see a lot of beautiful churches in Gozo, I heard that the Gozitans are very catholic people.” (man, UK, 56 years, first time in Malta with his wife, own initiative to make the trip to Gozo, builder)

y: a related item; “I heard that the Gozitans are very catholic people, so I took some precautions for our visit to the cathedral in Victoria about my clothing so that I will not offend some locals.” (woman, Germany, 42 years, first time in Malta with husband and three children, initiative of tour operator, organised trip with 18 tourists, housewife)

In the first level, the tourists are also defined and characterized by sex, nationality, age, Malta holiday experiences , travelling alone or in group, profession,… and categories as dressing, language, understanding/speaking English (English is one of the official languages in Malta),… The second level, the action research of the 64-table tool provides insights in the differences what the tourists say they are doing and what the tourists actually have done in Gozo. In the third level, data is gathered about the tourist formulations of the tourist experiences while the fourth level is seeking for the tourist re-formulations a few days after the trip or even when the tourists are back in their home-culture. It is, of course, not the intention to fill in all the 64 subfields but to find general tendencies and similarities in the tourist state of mind and behaviour, linked to well defined tourist groups. Diverse items are related to each other and can be found in different subfields. Some results of this inquiry will soon be published on the Expeditions website.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bryon, J. (2005), De dialectische relatie tussen stadsbewoners en de toeristisch-stedelijke ruimte. Case studie Brugge. Niet-gepubliceerd proefschrift tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in de Wetenschappen. KU Leuven.

Crick, M. (1998), Review of Tourism; Ethnicity and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies, Australian Journal of Anthropology, VII, 3.

De Bruycker, D. (2006), Beeldvorming en beeldvastlegging van toeristen in Brugge. Een case studie van de perceptie van kinderen. Niet-gepubliceerde masterproef, Master in Toerisme onder leiding van Marc Vanlangendonck, KU Leuven.

Gavin, J. and Phipps, A. (2005), Tourism and intercultural exchange. Why tourism matters. Tourism and Cultural Change book series. Channel View Publications.

Leman, J. (Ed.) (1998), The Dynamics of Emerging Ethnicities. Immigrant and indigenous ethnogenesis in confrontation. Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang.

MacLeod, D.V.L. (2004), Tourism, Globalisation and Cultural Change. Glasgow University. Tourism and Cultural Change book series. Centre for Tourism & Cultural Change, Sheffield Hallam University.

March, R. and Woodside, A.G. (2005), Tourism Behaviour. Travellers’ Decisions and Actions. London : CABI Publishing.

Pearce, P.L. (2005), Tourist Behaviour. Themes and Conceptual Schemes. James Cook University. Aspects of Tourism book series. Channel View Publications.

Rothman, H.K. (2003), The Culture of Tourism, the Tourism of Culture. Selling the Past to the Present in the American Southwest. Albuquerque. University of New Mexico Press.

Sharpley, R. and Telfer, D.J. (Eds.) (2002), Tourism and Development. Concepts and Issues. Aspects of Tourism book series. Channel View Publications.

Urry, J. (1990), The Tourist Gaze. Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London : Sage.

Van den Berghe, P.L. (1980), Tourism as ethnic relations: a Case Study of Cuzco, Peru. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 3, 375-392.

Vanlangendonck, M. (2002), Tourism as ethnic relations in Crete (Greece). An ethnographic outline. Kolor, Journal on Moving Communities, nr. 2, 61-76.

Walton, J.K. (Ed.) (2005), Histories of Tourism. Representation, Identity and Conflict. Tourism and Cultural Change book series. Channel View Publication.

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Marc Vanlangendonck is an historian and Doctor in Social and Cultural Anthropology. He is an associate researcher of IMMRC and teaches anthropology in the Master of Tourism (KUL). In Xios, Department Social Work, he teaches philosophy. Marc leads diverse anthropological fieldwork in Belgium and abroad (Mediterranean and Caribbean cultures) and he is the founder and chairman of Expeditions, Research in Applied Anthropology (www.xpeditions.be).

Contact: marc.vanlangendonck@xpeditions.be