Tourism and Authenticity of Place

Many travelers are drawn to places that are rich in character. A key word is authenticity. They want places to be authentic, which means at least that they want to get off the tourist track and move away from places created to entertain visitors. And yet when tourism begins to develop in a place, a typical pattern is that certain aspects of the place emerge as being part of its unique charm, and those aspects are then imitated and recreated and repeated past the level of cliché. Places become over-simplified caricatures of themselves.

This problem has a particular poignancy in the context of communities that are looking at tourism as a tool for economic development. The almost incredible power of tourism to build businesses and support the places it favors makes it nearly irresistible, yet few would want to sell their soul for the money tourism can bring. Often economically depressed places have few obvious paths to development, and they may already feel that their distinctive character of place is threatened by the loss of jobs and the poverty of public resources, yet when they tally up their assets such things as natural beauty, cultural uniqueness, rich architectural heritage, and the pace and quality of life rise quickly to the top. And when they ask themselves how they can leverage those assets for economic growth, tourism inevitably comes to mind. But if preserving a community through tourism development means turning it into something its people would never have chosen, do not value, and even disdain, surely it isn’t worth it.

The challenge is to generate increased tourism by building on the assets that distinguish a place and give it character—without damaging or destroying the qualities tourism makes use of and celebrates.

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