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| Tourism-Linking Cultures and Humanity | | | Mahesh Kaul | 9/26/2011 10:42:55 PM |
| Tourism has evolved over the years not only as an economic activity that has
inherent in it all the elements of multiplier effect that boost the economic well
being of the destination area but it has emerged as the comprehensive mechanism
that encompasses all the aspects of the human society that make it vibrant. It
affects every sphere of the human life ranging from the environmental to
political, cultural to religious and many more. It has evolved a dynamics and
system of its own that can cater to the multiple multiple problems offering
multiple solutions.
Of all the areas where tourism has an access, culture holds unique significance.
As it is the culture of a particular place and destination that defines its
essence different from others and helps tourism marketers to segmentise and market
the destination with life long utility in the tourism market. Diversity of culture
gives differentiability to the tourism product and prolongs its life in the market
parlance. With the knowledge boom and the level of exposure faced by the working
class the curiosity and desire to discover and explore the lesser known ethnic
groups and cultures has increased immensely. Gone are the days of mass tourism and
outdated modes of analyzing and understanding tourism. Today tourism means
different things to different people. For a common man or woman with a disposable
it may be a source of recreation and rejuvenation to release him/her from routine.
For a motivated or ethnically oriented and internally displaced person it may have
sociological, psychological and political intent to understand the particular
culture alien or native. But the core belief in terms of understanding the culture
remains same with different degree of understanding and conceptual clarity.
The theme for this years World Tourism Day given by the World Tourism Organisation
(WTO)-“Linking Cultures” is quite apt and timely keeping in view the predominant
role played by the culture to given definite outline and blueprint in shaping the
contemporary discourse in tourism industry and the intelligentsia. Linking
Cultures does not only means the exchange of tourists but it means to experience
the diverse cultural landscapes that shape the geographical and social canvas of
this world inhabited by the ethnic and cultural communities in their habitat and
natural homeland where they have shaped there customs ,folk lore and traditions.
It will definitely help to reduce the fanatic interpretations and one sided
interpretations of a given cultural landscape and will give the explorers the
first hand understanding of the cultural moorings of the ethnic groups and their
cultural dynamics.
This year’s theme will help to evolve the comprehensive understanding of the
tourism as a whole. The tourism think tank at the WTO seems to have understood
that culture is the core around which any sustainable tourism product evolves and
revolves. There is no doubt about the fact that it is the cultural tourism that
should be the nucleus of any long term tourism planning. Like tourism concept as a
whole, culture and for that matter cultural tourism is not an isolated phenomenon,
it showcases the refinement of the humanity and different ethnicities. Cultural
richness leads to the evolution of the heritage in tangible and intangible forms.
Culture leads to heritage and in the same way cultural tourism leads to heritage
tourism. Heritage is the crystallization of the most refined aspects of the human
genius that finds ex-pression in the forms of forts, palaces, folk lore,
handicrafts
etc.
This year’s theme of “linking Cultures’ will serve two purposes one it will help
to sensitize the tourism enthusiasts and policy makers to understand the utility
of culture in its every form as the corner stone of human development by allowing
tourism to play the role of a significant catalyst to empower the humankind by
having faith in their assets and two, it will help to create an atmosphere where
it will dawn upon the tourism stakeholders ,policymakers, scholars and
conservation professionals to understand the importance of preservation and
conservation of both tangible and intangible heritage assets that are facing
different threats at different levels. And it becomes more important in today’s
world where religious fascism and fanaticis has become intolerant towards the
cultural sensitivities of other groups whom they see as rivals and are on the path
of destructing the cultural and heritage assets.
This year’s theme can reach its logical conclusion of harmonizing and projecting
cultural tourism as the key resource for the human development world over by
focusing on the following aspects:
• To understand that the cultural tourism is a form of tourism and not
a form of cultural heritage management. In other words it means that the decision
making on cultural tourism should take into consideration the market aspects first
and then seek to address its cultural heritage management aspect.
• To understand the use of cultural heritage assets in terms of community
involvement with the emphasis on its national value. There is an urgent need to
comprehend heritage in tangible and intangible forms.
• To understand the importance of the consumption of experiences and
products. The need is to transform cultural heritage assets into cultural tourism
products. It helps to create tourist gaze in a sustainable manner.
• To make “linking cultures” a workable theme there is utmost need to keep
the tourist as the area of focus of all the market planning of the cultural
tourism product.
It becomes clear that this year’s theme “linking cultures” is not an isolated
theme; it is a theme of global importance. The need to is work on the above
mentioned aspects to evolve a workable cultural heritage tourism policy that
caters to the global tourism needs.
****(Writer is a PhD scholar, at the School of Hospitality and Tourism
Management(SHTM),University of Jammu,Jammu,Chairman,Heritage Initiative Foundation
and President, Sangarsh)
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