The consequences of cultural tourism practices

Cultural tourism has long been driven by a range of consequences, both positive and negative. In the past, these included the educational role of cultural tourism for the elite and the verification of cultural authenticity for the icons of high culture. The rise of the cultural industries placed growing emphasis on the economic impacts of cultural tourism, seen as the ‘new oil’ or ‘new General Motors’ of the post-industrial economy. But the drive for economic growth also revealed other, less desirable outcomes of the growth of cultural tourism, including a range of social and cultural effects for host communities. Arguments about the declining authenticity of (cultural) tourism experiences abounded, stimulating discussion about the grounds for determining the authenticity of objects and experiences. Cultural tourism has been at the forefront of such discussions, although there are also grounds for seeing the authenticity debate as an academic red herring. We examine the authenticity debate from a practice perspective, highlighting the example of flamenco as an authenticity-generating ecosystem. We consider the different consequences and effects arising from cultural tourism in terms of a model of ritual social practices. In this model, cultural tourism rituals focussed on cultural objects and processes generate outcomes for the actors and the context, including the internal and external goods required to support the practice itself. The search for emotional energy through ritual practices is seen as a driver for the search for new cultural experiences and the development of new means of cultural tourism consumption.