‘Enough Stories!’ Asian Tourism Redefining the Roles of Asian Tour Guides

Civilisations 57(1/2):207-222

17 Pages Posted: 13 Jul 2012 Last revised: 26 Nov 2012

Date Written: December 1, 2008

Abstract

In order to remain competitive, travel destinations worldwide have to adapt themselves continuously to rapidly changing tourist preferences and consumer patterns. This involves (re)creating a distinctive local identity, attractive for the targeted markets, and ensuring that the provided goods and services meet global quality standards. Local tour guides are key players in mediating the multiple tensions between these concurrent processes of localization and globalization. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, this paper explores how Javanese guides adapt their guiding practices to better serve and please Asian clients. By way of an anthropological examination of Yogyakarta’s tourism sector in general and the local guiding scene in particular, the paper illustrates how the surge in tourists of Asian origin is redefining the roles commonly assigned to guides in the scientific literature, which is mainly based on research on Western tourists. The empirical data illustrate that while the Javanese guides are fine-tuning their routines to accommodate what they perceive as Asian cultural sensibilities and interests, broader structural dynamics frame the encounter. The findings of this case study therefore reaffirm that tourism of Asian origin is both shaped by and shaping the currently dominant models, discourses, and imaginaries of international tourism.

Keywords: anthropology of tourism, ethnography, local tour guiding, Asian tourists, Indonesia

Suggested Citation

Salazar, Noel B., ‘Enough Stories!’ Asian Tourism Redefining the Roles of Asian Tour Guides (December 1, 2008). Civilisations 57(1/2):207-222, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2104235

Noel B. Salazar (Contact Author)

University of Leuven ( email )

Parkstraat 45, bus 3615
Leuven, BE-3000
Belgium

HOME PAGE: http://kuleuven.academia.edu/NoelBSalazar/About

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