Spirit Possession and Tourism at Thai Festivals A Comparative Study

Abstract

Spirit possession festivals are of particular interest for tourism studies, since they are not staged specifically for tourism, but appeal to tourists for their ‘exoticism.’ Two spirit possession festivals in Thailand, differing considerably in their respective scope and duration, the Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Phuket and the so-called ‘Tattoo Festival’ in a Buddhist temple in Central Thailand are compared, with respect to differences in the extent of their promotion, the status of foreign tourists, the tourists' conduct and their effect on the sustainability of the festivals. Considerable differences between the two festivals have been revealed, the principal being that the Vegetarian Festival is a ‘spectacle,’ a performance by spirit mediums for an audience, to which tourists are invited as ‘guests,’ while the Tattoo Festival is a ‘ritual’: possessed adherents are oblivious of their surroundings, and do not perform for an audience; hence tourists are not invited, but only suffered as “intruders.” While both festivals remain sustainable, they differ in their sensitivity to tourist numbers: the Vegetarian Festival is capable of absorbing big numbers of visitors, but the Tattoo Festival, visited by few foreigners, might be seriously disturbed by even a small increase in their numbers.