Tourism and the value of culture in regions

Abstract

It is clear that tourism can no longer be thought of as a luxury or unnecessary, it is now regarded as an entitlement. In fact, it has become the defining feature for rites of passage of life events – for the student it is attending summer camp or study abroad, for brides and grooms going on their honeymoon, and for the retiree embarking on that long-awaited and well-deserved cruise. No one on his or her deathbed ever said, ‘‘I should have spent more time in the office.’’ Instead, one would be much more likely to say, ‘‘I should have eaten more ice cream and gone on more trips.’’ A groundbreaking treatise on tourism is John Urry’s (2002) book ‘‘The Tourist Gaze’’ first published in 1990. He said ‘‘the tourist gaze is directed to features of landscape and townscape, which separate them off from everyday experience.’’ Such aspects are ‘‘viewed because they are taken to be in some sense out of the ordinary.’’ For example, the aging baby boomers, obsessed with self-improvement on an apparent quest to be a ‘‘noble savage,’’ seek natural foods, Pilates bodies, botoxed faces, and being one with nature. Consider how the universal and pervasive tourist gaze is changing the notions of region. Urry describes what is happening with mass tourism as a death of tourism into a ‘‘culture of travel.’’ Whereas mass tourism was once characterized by democratization and standardization in travel, today’s sophisticated traveler is seeking customization for individualized tastes, giving rise to new cultural elite who seeks the authentic, aesthetic, and even ascetic. Further, we are bombarded with a myriad of burgeoning choices in travel and leisure that is giving rise to new industry in transportation, accommodations, food and beverages, recreation and sport, retail, health and wellness, photography, entertainment, culture and arts, electronics and so forth. It is no wonder that tourism, including transportation, is the largest industry in the world at $4.4 trillion, far surpassing expenditures on world military expenditures. (Assis 2004)