Tourism and authenticity in the Czech villages in Banat (Romania).
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| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Nowadays the Czech villages in Banat are popular destinations for tourists from the Czech Republic. Their visits are typically motivated by the search for both preserved “traditional” rural landscape and lifestyle of the locals. The main goal of this research was to identify what tourists expect from this type of visit and how tourism is perceived by the local inhabitants. This text analyse the ways how tourists feel rural landscape and lifestyle, how these perceptions vary among different actors (tourist agencies, tourists, local villagers) and how it influences their behaviour. We build upon the concept of authenticity as it is used by the contemporary social sciences (Cohen, Nash, Graburn, Meethan). These authors assume that there is a sentiment after traditional, therefore authentic, pre-modern world. This sentiment is also evident in the tourist behaviour in the region and it is used for tourism promotion there. Therefore the “harmonic cultural landscape” is not only of ecological and cultural value, but its image becomes a commodity in the tourism industry. |
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