Tourism
In one month's time I have met almost no "foreign" tourists, the exception being in Vilnius and Krakow. I surely have seen no other bicycle tourist and no motobike tourists. I have seen some German plated cars swishing pass me. In none of the hotels I stayed there has been anybody I met that have been a foreign tourist. Most of them have been Ukrainians and the few foreigners have been businessmen, contractors or consultants (those are the guys with the lap tops). Most places I visited has clearly no infrastructure for catering to tourism from other countries even in the high season. I am sure this will be different in Kiev and in Crimea. So if you are one of those that want to go where there is no mass tourism, in fact no tourism at all, follow in my foot-steps.
Having said that I believe there is often a rather naive idea of "pristine" cultures untouched by tourism. I think the chances that you actually can visit and get anthing in particular out of those visits in a week's visit is are very small. If nothing else language poses an almost insurmountable barrier. And even in countries where e.g English is an official language villagers often don't speak it.
If there are people there speaking English or German, forget about your pristine culture. Of course it is a totally different game if you plan to stay somewhere for months or years, but that is hardly tourism any longer.
In reality you get more out of short term tourism if somebody has paved the way a bit, some people know foreign language, some people know what interests foreigners, some restaurants have a menu with several languages etc. But of course at that moment we already start to influence the site a lot.....
I think mass tourism and genuine cultures are incompatible. The whole tourism industry is rather unsustainable. Not only does it lead to an enormous energy use, it also undermines local cultures. And don't beleive that by ensuring that more money go to the local communities you are making those local cultures a service. The reality is that the better the local communities earn from tourism the less attention they will pay to their traditional livelihoods. Why go fishing if I can earn more money by selling sun glasses on the beach? Why farm when I can be a waitress (or a sex worker) in the hotels. In the end it only works if the tourism is reserved for a very small elite that have been given the right to "consume" other people's culture.
Sorry if that makes you feel bad, I have no easy answers....I just make problems all the time.
Having said that I believe there is often a rather naive idea of "pristine" cultures untouched by tourism. I think the chances that you actually can visit and get anthing in particular out of those visits in a week's visit is are very small. If nothing else language poses an almost insurmountable barrier. And even in countries where e.g English is an official language villagers often don't speak it.
If there are people there speaking English or German, forget about your pristine culture. Of course it is a totally different game if you plan to stay somewhere for months or years, but that is hardly tourism any longer.
In reality you get more out of short term tourism if somebody has paved the way a bit, some people know foreign language, some people know what interests foreigners, some restaurants have a menu with several languages etc. But of course at that moment we already start to influence the site a lot.....
I think mass tourism and genuine cultures are incompatible. The whole tourism industry is rather unsustainable. Not only does it lead to an enormous energy use, it also undermines local cultures. And don't beleive that by ensuring that more money go to the local communities you are making those local cultures a service. The reality is that the better the local communities earn from tourism the less attention they will pay to their traditional livelihoods. Why go fishing if I can earn more money by selling sun glasses on the beach? Why farm when I can be a waitress (or a sex worker) in the hotels. In the end it only works if the tourism is reserved for a very small elite that have been given the right to "consume" other people's culture.
Sorry if that makes you feel bad, I have no easy answers....I just make problems all the time.
Kommentarer
Postat av: Olle
It is a point of view. Foregneirs-tourism-impact-local culture. Can we ever be in our culture not influed by the foreigners visiting us? Do we really want to be not-influed? I don´t now how the ukrainians see it, but I can see the influence of the turists here (and the foreigners moving here) as the way to keep us connected to the rest of the world. Hope they see your visit as a connection to the world outside themselves.
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