Culture shock, what culture shock? Conceptualizing culture unrest in intercultural tourism and assessing its effect on tourists’ perceptions and travel propensity

Abstract

Hottola introduced ‘culture confusion’ as a new theoretical model to overcome the inadequacies of Oberg’s ‘culture shock’. This article proposed culture unrest as a new conceptualization whereby culture shock is negotiated at home before the overseas trip begins. In the past years, the growing number of immigrants in some countries has transformed culture shock into culture unrest, defined as the context where two cultures live together, but at a level of acceptance that has developed from a state of interest or curiosity to apathy, annoyance or even antagonism. Based on a background of ‘multicultural drama’, the study examined the perceptions of native Dutch respondents about the Moroccan community resident in the Netherlands and assessed their intentions to visit Morocco in the future. The ‘rapid implosion of the “Third World” into the “First”’ should no longer go unnoticed in tourism studies.