Branding an authentic rural Maramureş in tourism practices: Interplay of hospitality, heritage and social memory

Abstract

In trying to shape an “authentic” rural Maramureş, tourist guesthouse owners promote local hospitality as a brand. Mechanisms of branding hospitality, as part of a tourism marketing strategy mean re-enacting their “social memory” related to Romanian peasants’ sociocultural universe. The use of rural guesthouses as arenas for staging peasant identity for tourists entails the presentation of a peasant “essence” as reflected in physical traces (replications of peasant domestic universe) associated with traditional practices and knowledge relating to natural and agricultural landscapes. These local resources involve above all producing identity for tourist cultural consumption. However, the endowment of these resources with symbolic power opens up questions about their authenticity. It also questions the interplay between “heritage” and “hospitality values” intended for tourist development. Using an ethnographic approach, our findings advance understandings about the interplay of hospitality, heritage and social memory with authenticity in a rural world experiencing dramatic socio-economic changes under the incidence of globalization.