Socio-cultural impact of both niche and mass tourism custom essays
// June 3rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Free essays
Along with a significant economic effect, tourism may produce a profound socio-cultural impact on tourism destinations. In this respects, the effects of niche and mass tourism may vary dramatically. Basically, mass tourism implies that the large number of tourists visits the tourism destination and, as a rule, the tourists originate from different countries or, at least, from other parts of the country since the local population is not a consumer of tourist services but rather a supplier. In such a situation, the large number of tourists from different parts of the world may be viewed as a serious threat to the local culture and lifestyle. It is not a secret that many companies operating in hotel industry, for instance, tend to develop certain standards of services which they provide for their customer. This leads to the situation when customers feel comfortable at any part of the world staying at the hotel of a particular company because of this standardization. However, standardization leads to the adaptation of the personnel and local peculiarities to the international standards. This means that tourists cannot come into contact with the original local culture. Instead, it is rather an adapted version of the local culture tourists can observe. In contrast, niche tourism often implies the deepening of tourists into the local culture. For instance, rural implies that tourists visit areas which were not available to them in the past because this kind of niche tourism targets at showing tourists the real life or traditional life of the local community in its original form. In contrast to mass tourism, the local population should not adapt to the needs of foreign tourist, instead they should demonstrate their original and unique culture that is the main attraction to tourists (Edgell 2006, p.78). (more…)
