SOCIO-CULTURE IMPACTS OF TOURISM
INTRODUCTION
The socio-cultural impacts of tourism described here are the effects on host communities of direct and indirect relations with tourists, and of interaction with the tourism industry.
For a variety of reasons, host communities often are the weaker party in interactions with their guests and service providers, leveraging any influence they might have.
These influences are not always apparent, as they are difficult to measure, depend on value judgments and are often indirect or hard to identify.
Impacts arise when tourism brings changes in value systems / behaviour, threatening indigenous identity.
Changes often occur in community structure, family relationships, collective traditional life styles, ceremonies and morality.
But tourism can also generate positive impacts as it can serve as a supportive force for peace, foster pride in cultural traditions and help avoid urban relocation by creating local jobs.
Socio-cultural impacts are ambiguous: the same objectively described impacts are seen as beneficial by some groups and as negative by others.
Tourism encourages civic involvement and Pride
Tourism also helps raise local awareness of the financial value of natural and cultural sites and can stimulate a feeling of pride in local and national heritage and interest in its conservation.
More broadly, the involvement of local communities in tourism development and operation appears to be an important condition for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
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Tourism can cause change / loss of local identity and values by:
COMMODIFICATION
STANDARDISATION
LOSS OF AUTHENTICITY / STAGED AUTHENTICITY
ADAPTATION TO TOURIST DEMANDS
Commodification
Tourism can turn local cultures into commodities when religious rituals, traditional ethnic rites and festivals are reduced and sanitized to conform to tourist expectations, resulting in what has been called "reconstructed ethnicity."
Once a destination is sold as a tourism product, and the tourism demand for souvenirs, arts, entertainment and other commodities begins to exert influence, basic changes in human values may occur.
Sacred sites and objects may not be respected when they are perceived as goods to trade.
Standardization
Destinations risk standardization in the process of satisfying tourists' desires for familiar facilities.
While landscape, accommodation, food and drinks, etc., must meet the tourists' desire for the new and unfamiliar, they must at the same time not be too new or strange because few tourists are actually looking for completely new things.
Tourists often look for recognizable facilities in an unfamiliar environment, like well-known fast-food restaurants and hotel chains.
Loss of authenticity and staged authenticity
Adapting cultural expressions to the tastes of tourists or even performing shows as if they were "real life" constitutes "staged authenticity".
As long as tourists just want a glimpse of the local atmosphere, a quick glance at local life, without any knowledge or even interest, staging will be inevitable.
