Cultural appropriation, to what dimension adventure tourism can impact local residents?

Abstract:
This paper discusses cultural conflict raised between adventure tourists and local residents, particularly highlighting the African continent as it is specialised in adventure tourism.

Keywords: Local resident, values, cultural traditions, poor living conditions, undeveloped countries.

Adventure Tourism is described as the extent to which people are motivated to pursue risky or adventurous activities that enables them to face challenges and discover or gain valuable experiences. (Hudson 2003; Robinson, Heiman and Deike, 2011). Roberts (2011) attached two elements to adventure tourism ‘Hard and Soft’. Hard involves elements of danger and extreme activities such as: rock climbing or shark diving. Contradictory, Soft requires a minimum physical level of danger like skiing. This significantly demonstrates the adventure market is flexible and adaptable to suit a range of budgets, whilst fulfilling people’s desires. (Roberts 2011)
Since 2011 Adventure tourism has become very popular in the African continent, owed to its abundant open space, a suitable resource to host all sorts if adventurous activities. Botswana, Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Kenya are the key destinations with a high level of adventure tourism in Africa, offering most comprehensive tour packages and attracting larger numbers of tourists, mainly from abroad (Mintel 2013). These countries perform signs of ongoing development, undoubtedly it is due to its low population density; with wilderness areas and natural landscapes, lakes, rivers, unspoiled coastlines, mountains, and cultural attractions which enables people to conduct activities such as trekking, rafting, riding and other outdoor pursuits. (Mintel, 2011)
One popular destination is the safari park in South Africa which significantly attracts tourists to the country as there has been an increase of 10% between 2011 and 2012 in the number of adventure tourists arriving in the country (Mintel 2013) it is more than double the average annual global tourism growth rate of 4% as reported by the UNWTO in 2012. The change resulted in an increase in the direct GDP by 5%; an increase in direct employment from 4.3% to 4.5%, and foreign tourists’ expenditure increased by 3.3%. Mintel (2013 ) declares that It is evident that South Africa is setting itself apart in a competitive market place and it is well reputed as a friendly welcoming , inspiring and unique tourism destinations.
Consequently, this beneficial change created jobs for local people, mainly those living close to attraction parks such as the safari park assumed that “ adventure tourists enables them to make money on daily basis by touring tourists around” (Mintel 2008). Nevertheless, the fact that women are more appealing than men in the job recruitment, in order to use them as a distraction tool for attracting tourists to the park. Contradicts their cultures, norms, beliefs and traditions which emphasize that “Women should remain at home and men should be role models and bread winners".
Moreover traffic caused by mass numbers of tourists in the safari park is eroding the grass cover, damaging plants and disturbs local habitats. In many instances, local people work for low pay and long hours, their over looked and their needs and priorities are not taken into account. The profits made through tourists visiting does not reach the local communities, therefore they hardly can invest locally in order improve their living standards. (Mintel 2013)
Similarly Kenya stood nominated has the leading East African Safari destination due to the high number of tourist attending the country for adventure purposes. The country experienced a growth of 15.4% from 2010 to almost 1.27 million in 2011. (Mintel 2013). The Mount Kenya National Park is the second largest peak in Africa, at 5, 199 metres, it is located in an area of wilderness and it is a home to several species such as leopard, lions & Rhino’s (Mintel 2014) and attracts over 700 tourists each day. Kenya hold approximately 50 reserves which includes, rivers, lakes, and the sea where activities such as: water sport, canoeing and shark diving activities take place. Those assets produce food for locals as it enables them to conduct fishing; the water is used for washing or/and cooking. However, tourist activities restrict them to fetch water in that surrounding, consequently they have to travel for miles; fishes lost their habitats; several died. The locals lost their wealth and their means of bread and living is slowing being destroyed due to adventure tourism activities (Mintel 2014). Some local communities such as the Masai Mara (Ethic group) suffered of low- revenues for years, they experienced a high-volume of tourism, which was bringing little benefit to them. Yet caused massive negative impacts on the animal population. As adventure tourism continues to impact on the lifestyles of the rural communities, Masai group re-located to the borders of the Mara with their livestock herbs where again they are in competition for space with wildlife that can no longer move between regions. (Mintel 2013).
Rendering to Robinson (1999) it is essential for the country to attract adventure or general tourists, nevertheless more importantly it is vital to consider local residents and communities opinions and avoid having negative environmental and cultural impact on them in order to reduce cultural conflicts between tourists and local people. (Robinson, 1999).

Bibliography
Mintel (2011). Adventure Tourism in Africa. [Online] London: Mintel [Accessed 2011]. Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/545411/#

Mintel (2013) Safari Holidays in Africa November. [Online]. London: Mintel [Accessed November 2013]. Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/686657/?highlight#hit1

Roberts, C. (2011) Sport and Adventure Tourism in Robinson, P., Heitmann, S., and Dieke, P (Ed). Research Themes for Tourism Oxfordshire: CABI.

The main reason for focusing my commentary upon this piece of work is due to the interest of topic on adventure tourism, which I briefly touched upon in my own discussion paper. With the authors’ own perspectives on the benefits of tourism within a specific destination through referencing and against the way in which researchers believe adventure tourists’ bring to the industry as a whole.

In relation to the general definition of ‘adventure tourism’, the author has clearly identified and presented the different typologies of an ‘adventure tourist’, and then furthermore situated these typologies within the context of adventure tourism in South Africa. Additionally, it is identified in the commentary the type of activities that tourists’ may take part in (“trekking, rafting…riding”). Buckley (2006:xiii) reiterates that this type of tourism is not for the middle-class, and that it often requires expensive specialist equipment - suggesting to the reader that adventure tourism is an expensive type of activity.

The author clearly identifies the main impacts adventure tourists have had throughout South Africa; with more importantly the benefits of adventure tourism on the economy including job creation for local communities. Buckley (2006:84) expands on adventure activities boosting the economy in relation to Victoria Falls, whereby most tour operators will employ locals as well as residents from outside local communities. With the benefits outlined, there are also negative impacts raised within this paper. However, with the constant evidence throughout the paper that local economies in South Africa have been benefited through adventure tourism in their communities, the author then ‘digs deeper’ into the chosen destination and their native population that have suffered from the high-volume of tourism. Buckley (2006:422) reiterates by stating ‘residents seem to see tourists more as a hindrance to their on outdoor recreation opportunities than as a source of income’.

The statistics used throughout the discussion are beneficial to the strand when identifying values for the host – the economy. The author uses MINTEL (2013) to prove that that the economy in South Africa is improving (“…increase in direct GDP by 5%; …direct employment from 4.3% to 4.5%”).

With the continuous referencing and evidence from MINTEL throughout the paper in relation to different activities associated with adventure tourism, it has brought more belief that adventure tourism is a growing phenomenon across the world. Even with ‘smaller-scale’ adventure tourism, such as: hiking and biking, climbing and mountaineering (Buckley, 2006:xvii), and as the author reiterates areas with “low population density; with wilderness areas and natural landscapes – countries are experiencing on-going development due to the money being made from such activities.

In comparison with this paper and my own, there are many different destinations in which adventure tourists wish to travel and explore, and like that of my own discussion paper, they are overwhelmingly unaware of the damage that they are continuously causing, even though they feel their experience is only bringing positive impacts to the communities that they are visiting. I believe that the paper could have been more interlinked with the title in regards to 'culture'. Also, a better format for the paper could have been adopted to enable points to be put across more in a more beneficial way.

Buckley, R. (2006) Adventure Tourism. 1st Ed. CABI Publishing.

The reason why I have chosen this topic to comment on because this paper is quiet close to my previous research and I wanted to take a read and learn more from this person research on adventure tourism.

The paper has developed a very good and interesting topic on the cultural conflict raised between adventure tourists and the local residents. The writer has produced a quiet lengthy discussion that is very readable. The discussion effectively addresses the extent of tourist motivation and what motivated them to pursue risky adventurous activities that grab people’s attentions to face dangerous challenges and to experience something different from common regular holidays. The writer has given a clear insight and large amount of details within adventure tourism describing the two elements that consists within the adventure tourism such as ‘hard and soft’. Furthermore the writer has impressively used wide range of theories which are cited throughout each paragraph and built a consistency and structure that created a flowing style of emphasis. The writer has also given some highlights on the African continent which has given the reader some informative information that the African continent is specialised in adventure tourism and has a high level of packages that attracts large amount of people around the world by offering wide range of tour packages. The writer also mentioned that the countries has shown some signs of growing and developing business of adventure tourism as the population of the countries in Africa has isolated area that are wild, natural landscapes, cultural attractions which allows tourist to participate in conducted activities such as trekking, rafting, riding and other outdoor activities. However as a reader, one is very keen of reading more of the positive and the negative sides of the adventure tourism within the region and other destinations. Also comparing the continent to other countries to see which has the most effective and common places where the adventure tourism activities takes place. The writer has given the reader to see the facts and figures of tourist attractions and has mentioned that in the year between 2011 and 2012 the safari park in South Africa has considerably attracted many tourists around the world to come for an adventure holiday in African continent which increased the African destination up to 10% which is very good as the writer mentioned the positive impact of this is that the country has managed to benefit from their success by creating jobs for local people within the region and having some sort of income to educate the people of Africa. Overall one is convinced that the writer has produced an effective work and throughout every paragraph the writer has demonstrated a consistent control of sentence structure. However there are few flaws but not so distracting. This paper is really excellent and has developed an outstanding discussion throughout the read.

This paper was chosen for commentary because I have interest in this topic area and it is also quite similar to the discussion paper I wrote, in relation to tourism impacts on local residents. Quiet commonly, local residents face many impacts during and after tourism development and is often over looked mainly by economical benefits that tourism has on a destination. Adventure tourism has become increasing popular over the years and there is a demand in this market segment. Mintel (2011) stated that in 2010 Africa had 9% increases on international adventure tourists from the previous year, which the author clearly outlined there is a growth for the market, which raises concern for the impact it has on a local community.

The definition of adventure tourism had been given promptly so that readers could clearly understand what it is before more in depth information was given. The author goes on to state the different typologies of adventure tourism, which is also important to highlight as ‘hard and soft’ adventures can have different impacts on local residents. For example, soft may include fishing and snorkeling, whilst hard adventure encompasses a higher element of risk such as mountain climbing (Allen, 2010). As a result, impacts of the local community could include over fishing and coral damage or the impact of porters taking risks of climbing mountains without safety equipment and low pay.

There are clearly a few benefits that adventure tourism has in Africa and it is becoming increasingly more appealing. The author identified the benefits by referencing statistics from Mintel that adventure tourism increased direct employment to 4.3% and increased GDP by 5%. However, this is then contrasted to workers receiving low pay and working long hours, which illustrates that even though the sectors that benefit from adventure tourists, locals that work to support adventure tourism is not reaping the benefits.

In regards to culture, the author outlined job recruiters favor women more for attracting tourists to adventure parks, which puts a strain on cultures norms and beliefs that ‘women should remain at home’. However, pertaining to that statement, I believe that will be a cultural issue in many occupations. But as stated earlier, the increase in adventure tourism jobs makes it a more favorable and easier sector to earn for many locals and social cultural norms will inevitably change. Furthermore, the author also stated that indigenous communities had to relocate due to the influx of adventure tourists in the area damaging wildlife and disrupting the community. The relocation of communities due to tourism can indeed cause a loss of culture, as their home was apart of their culture. This was an interesting finding from the author and further research could highlight all the cultural impacts.

Overall, the arguments in this paper has been structured well has the topic was introduced, provided a detailed report of adventure tourism in the African market, then lead straight into the arguments of the impacts and issues the local community faces with adventure tourism in the area.

References
Academic.mintel.com, (2011) Login to Mintel Reports - Mintel Group Ltd.. [online]. [Accessed 9 May 2015]. Available at: <http://academic.mintel.com/display/592548/?highlight#hit1>.
Allen, J. (2010) Soft Adventure vs. Hard Adventure. Examiner.com, [online]. [Accessed 9 May 2015]. Available at: <http://www.examiner.com/article/soft-adventure-vs-hard-adventure>.