1

A Cultural Analysis of the Green Tourist

The concept of travel has been a crucial part of mans lifestyle and culture
before, and since the establishment of civilisation. However, the emergence of
tourism as an industry is a relatively recent development in history as well as
research. Perhaps the general definition of the World Tourism Organisation,
tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and
environmental sustainability
1
best foregrounds the potential of tourism as a
dynamic agent of cultural change. Ultimately, tourism cannot be detached from
its extensive, socio-economic and spatial context and in turn these factors are
closely related with the way social structures and individuals perceive the
notion of tourist.

This essay will explore the nature and development of tourism, as well as the
tourist, within the context of the rise of specialised forms of tourism over the
past few decades. Particular emphasis will be placed on ecotourism. The tourist
living in the twenty-first century seeks out the latter form of tourism as an
alternative to mass tourism in order to obtain cultural experiences
2
and
participate in the aura and organic nature of the rural environment which has
been lost and degraded through an urban, contemporary lifestyle.


1
http://www2.unwto.org/en/content/who-we-are-0 [accessed 09/02/2013]
2
Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (California: California University
Press, 1999), p.23.
2

Duffy establishes ecotourism as the antithesis of mass tourism with her
definition that ecotourism [is] nature-based tourism that does not result in the
negative environmental, economic and social impacts that are associated with
mass tourism
3
. Her definition challenges the World Tourism Organisations
assumption that economy and sustainability develop simultaneously without
being undermined by any political concerns. Pristine scenery, the diversity of
natural landscapes, wildlife and the genuine authenticity of cultural traditions
are all hallmarks of the multitudinous eco holiday brochures used in advertising
by the touristic industry. Several critics and researches have become wary of
greenwashing
4
whereby advertising methods and content place great
emphasis on the advantageous, far reaching benefits of eco travelling whilst the
opposite may in actuality prove to be true. Regardless of the ethical issues
surrounding ecotourism, this industry has been one of the fastest growing sub-
categories of tourism. Research into this trend therefore provides insights into
tourism as a cultural practice and the social context in which it operates.

The rise in touristic experiences contained within the rural environment sheds
light on the socially constructed values and meanings attributed to rurality
particularly its authenticity, sense of foreignness and myth. Issues concerning
naturalist values and ethics permeate contemporary political debate; from the
genetically modified substances in our foods to the resources used to generate

3
Rosaleen Duffy, A Trip Too Far: Ecotourism, Politics and Exploitation (London: Earthscan
Publications Ltd, 2002), p. ix.
4 W.R, The Greenwashing Game, The Environmental Magazine, July-August (2012), p. 51.


3

energy. Whereas farming and gardening were considered to be part of the harsh
reality of the agrarian lower classes they have now become specialised hobbies
for the middle class with disposable incomes. Even the gaming industry has
seen its own fair share of rural, agrarian gameplay centred on the user having to
direct and manage a farm environment.

The natural environment has been thoroughly embedded in Western cultural
thought as an idyllic place of character. Butler and Hall
5
provide examples
from the media on the latter point. All Creatures Great and Small, a television
series, and Country Life and Country Style, magazines dealing with precisely
what their title suggest, are both examples of the medias depiction of rurality,
albeit one which has been privatised and commodified. The physical landscape
and image of rural areas have become a contesting ground for investors who
tap into this image of rural arcadia
6
in order to appeal to the predominantly
urban, popular culture. The touristic industry is no exception.

The aesthetic appeal of nature differs significantly from that of art. Todd refers
to Hepburns seminal essay Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of
Natural Beauty (1966) when elucidating the latter point. Hepburn foregrounds
that a genuine appreciation of nature requires indeterminancy which is
brought about through the absence of framing. The individual requires

5
Butler, Richard W, and Hall, C. Michael, Image and Reimaging of Rural Areas, in Tourism and
Recreation in Rural Areas, ed. by Richard Butler, C Michael Hall and John Jenkins (New York: John
Wiley and Sons, 1998), p. 116.
6
Ibid., p. 116.
4

creativity and imagination in order to participate in the aesthetic experience
which although of a different kind [is] equally rich and rewarding
7
.
Indeed, Hepburns opinions on the aesthetic significance of rurality runs
counter to the general belittlement of landscape as a genre in painting.
Reynolds maintained that such work could communicate only limited and
particular ideas yet research carried out by Okely shows how Constables
paintings of rural England have come to define the area now known as
Constable Country
8
. Even though his paintings have been mass reproduced
[they are] a symbol of a vanishing and essential rural England
9
and the
landscape has thus been mythologized
10
.

Dialectical tensions emerge between the authentic rural environment, its iconic
representation and its different manifestations in culture. Walter Benjamin
asserts that the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of
authenticity
11
. The tourists attempt to achieve auratic perception is thwarted
by the mechanical sifting and reproduction of what the industry deems green,
rural and ultimately, marketable. The ecotourism industry functions on a
specialised concept of pluralist, market segmentation and is required to
compete in a global market
12
in order to fulfil its commitment to economic

7
Cain Samuel Todd, Nature, Beauty and Tourism, in Philosophical Issues in Tourism, ed. by John
Tribe (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2009), p. 156.
8
Judith Okely, Picturing and Placing Constable Country, in Siting Culture: The Shifting
Anthropological Object, ed. By Karen Fog Olwig and Kirsten Hastrop (London: Routledge, 1997), pp.
193-220.
9
Ibid., p. 217.
10
Ibid., p. 196.
11
Benjamin Walter, Illuminations, trans. by Harry Zohn (Schocken Books, 2007), p. 214.
12
Duffy, p. 71.
5

development and sustainability outlined in the World Tourism Organisations
definition of tourism. This does not alter the fact that the technique of
reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition
13
.
An example of Benjamins statement would feature an eco-holiday in Hawaii
which involves touring and participating in farming activities on a coffee
plantation with local people. The process of agribusiness incorporated on the
plantation reduce much of the traditional authenticity of the landscape, despite
the travellers best intentions in search of authentic and meaningful
experiences
14
. Benjamins notion of the auratic perception remains
unattainable and becomes mythical in proportion as individuals often substitute
the aura with a tangible, mechanical reproduction.

The mechanical attribute of modernity highlighted by Benjamin was taken up
and further developed by Lyotard in his definition of postmodernism. In his
seminal work The Postmodern Conditon, Lyotard claims fragmentation has
become a defining aspect in postmodern society due to the rise of the
delegitimation [of the] grand narrative
15
. The incredulity toward
metanarratives
16
arises from the computerized, digital age in which individuals
take part in a multitude of smaller narratives, essentially segregating the many
roles one takes on within society. This postmodernist fragmentation has for

13
Walter, 9. 215.
14 Stephen J. Page and Ross K, Ecotourism: Themes in Tourism (Essex: Pearson Education Limited,
2002), p. 90.
15
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. by Geoff
Bennington and Brian Massumi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), p. 37.
16
Ibid., p. xxiv.
6

Walker Warren heralded the process of cultural amnesia
17
where individuals
are so entirely moved away from physical work that people dont know where
the stuff that sustains their lives comes from
18
. I would argue that the rise of
ecotourism is a direct manifestation of peoples awareness and anxieties arising
from living in a modern-urban society, disconnected from the organic unity
found in a rural environment. They therefore seek an experience which
partially reinstates the organic wholeness of country life and are motivated by
a desire for self-fulfilment
19
as opposed to fragmentation. Abram and Waldren
quote Bauman (1996) in order to illustrate the previous point. Bauman
considers the shift in ideology from modernity to postmodernity as the
distinguishing factor between past and contemporary tourism
20
. The idyllic
image of the rural environment, albeit rooted in fabrication, is deemed to be
antithetical to postmodernism.

Raymond Williams contests the mythologised view of the rural environment as
he maintains that notions of urbanity and rurality are culturally defined. The
idealised countryside is often created and imagined through an urban gaze
which measures its appeal over and above its physical attributes. In his

17
Lee Walker Warren, Aspiring to the Working Class, Communities, Fall (2012), 19.
18
Ibid., p. 18.
19
Stephen J. Page and Ross K, p. 90.
20
Simon Abram and Jacqueline Waldron, Introduction: tourists and tourism Identifying with People
and Places, in Tourists and Tourism; Identifying with People and Places, ed. by Jacqueline Waldron
and Donald V.L Macleod (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1997), p.6.
7

terminology: Clearly the contrast of country and city is one of the major forms
in which we become conscious of a central part of our experience
21
.

An analysis of the contemporary tourist transcends the structural approach and
delves into notions of consciousness and reality for a number of reasons.
Goodale and Godbey highlight how the modern day individual is concerned
with a psychology of entitlement
22
. The Western lifestyle is marked by a rise
in affluence, hedonism and free time which the individual utilizes for leisure
purposes. The latter is regulated by political as well as economic factors and is
embedded in the context ofcultural morals
23
.

MacCannell defines tourism as a form of leisure which seeks out the
authentic, a notion which Goodale and Godbey link to the concept of time
deepening
24
where the individual is concerned with the attainment of pleasure
in the present time. This emphasis on the present results in restlessness and a
yearning for discovery and simultaneous experiences which are meant to
exponentially lead up to self-actualisation as defined by Maslows hierarchy of
needs. This non-structural approach underestimates the disparities of wealth
and cultural capital and class difference
25
and their role in modes of travel and

21
Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p.289.
22
Thomas Goodale, and, Godbey, Geoffrey, The Evolution of Leisure (London: Venture Publishing
Inc., 1988), p. 207.
23
Tamas Regi, Tourism, Leisure and Work in an East African Pastoral Society, Anthropology Today,
28 (2012), p. 3.
24
The Evolution of Leiusre, p. 214.
25
Janet Wolff, On the Road Again: Metaphors of Travel in Cultural Criticism, Cultural Studies, 7
(1993), p. 225.

8

destinations but this perspective is nevertheless relevant during a time when
personal autonomy is a central issue in contemporary thought.

In order to chart the course of leisure and its link to the specialised form of
ecotourism, a brief analysis of the mass tourism phenomena is necessary. In
contrast to ecotourism, mass tourism is characterised by homogeneity and
involves a large channelling of tourists to a small number of areas. The concept
of the sun, sand and sea holiday is one such example of mass tourism which
was highly popular in the Mediterranean areas, including the Maltese Islands,
during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Urry and Larsen examine
the concept of mass consumption in relation to tourism and concludes that it
involves the purchase of commoditieslittle differentiated from each other.
26

He cites Thomas Cook as an innovator in terms of turning individual travel
into a highly organisedpredictable social activity for the masses.
27


Hoggarts nostalgic account of the chara trip in the early twentieth century
pre-empts the systematic commodification of tourism and travel as a cultural
practice. The charabanc trips were formed by and for the working-class
people
28
whose garishness and cheerfulness
29
fostered a sense of community.
The short-lived splash
30
in the form of a trip was a form of escapism from the

26
John Urry and Jonas Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0 (London: Sage Publications, 2011).
27
Ibid., p. 53.
28
Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (London: Penguin Books, 1957), p. 146.
29
Ibid., p.146.
30
Ibid., p.148.
9

humdrum and regulated
31
life. The commodification of these trips by the
tourist industry has been expanded to cater for all class groups, the
differentiating factor mostly being affordability. The quality and duration of the
holiday rises proportionally with a higher income.
32
The commodified
equivalent of the chara trip in contemporary times could easily be a week
long cruise holiday touring several culturally renowned places in the Western
Mediterranean Basin such as Rome, Venice, Nice and Barcelona to name a
few. In The Coming of a Leisure Society? (1983), Newman derides this
routinized concept of the annual holiday which has been subject to extensive
commercialization and is essentially a leisure experience [which] is stratified
andalienated. Thus, as Adorno maintains, the culture industry treats the
masses not [as] primary, but secondary, they are an object of calculation; an
appendage of machinery
33
. The conscious self-fulfilment achieved through the
natural environment via ecotourism is arguably a direct reaction to this
portrayal of the passive tourist who has no power and control while still in the
grips of the cultural industry.

The concept of mass tourism started to eventually develop into more specific
niche markets including cultural, heritage, anthropological tourism (here used
interchangeably) and ecotourism as a result of cultural changes in the 1990s.
These included changes in the notion of leisure. Shaw and Williams cite

31
Ibid., p. 14.8
32
Gareth Shaw, and Alan M. Williams, Critical Issues in Tourism: A Geographical Perspective
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), p. 59.
33
Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 85.

10

Roberts (1989) to prove the latter point. Roberts identifies three major factors
which mark the shift away from the concept of mass tourism and into heritage
and ecotourism. Firstly, home centeredness marks the decrease in communal
ties and relationships resulting in the disintegration of Hoggarts notion of the
boisterous chara trip. Secondly a higher involvement in out-of-home
recreation places emphasis on visiting of rural areas for leisure. Finally the rise
in connoisseur leisure simultaneously created the need for both specialised
hobbies and holidays
34
. As opposed to mass consumption, Urry and Larsen
term Post-Fordist consumption
35
as the defining characteristic of this time in
which many aspects of social life are commodified [and] new kinds of
commodity which are more specialised are available.

The demand for specialised heritage and ecotourist holidays has resulted in
what MacCannell terms as staged authenticity
36
whereby the cultural essence
of a tradition is robbed of its meaning due to its incorporation with the touristic
industry for financial profitability. Greenwood
37
provides the example of the
Alarde of Fuenterrabia, a public celebration which is a ritual recreation of
Fuenterrabias victory over the French in the siege of 1938. The tradition died
down over time and the government eventually sought to pay individuals to
carry out the performance. Greenwood argues that the decision to commodify
tradition erodes its authenticity and the communitys power invested in it.

34
Shaw and Williams, p. 240.
35
Urry and Larsen, p. 53.
36
MacCannell, p.91.
37
Davydd J. Greenwood, Culture by the Pound: an Anthropological Perspective on Tourism as
Cultural Commoditization, in Hosts and Guests: the Anthropology of Tourism, ed. by Valene L. Smith
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1978), pp. 129-138.
11

Based on Greenwoods essay, Boissevain conducted his own research on
culture by the pound by analysing the traditional festa in Malta with his main
focus being the locality of Naxxar
38
. The belief that certain Maltese traditions
have been commercialized to increase Maltas competiveness as a touristic
destination is voiced by Mario Vassallo who maintains that the festa is one of
the manifestations which meets the demand to exploit the past as commodity
with which to lure tourists
39
. Boissevain however suggests that the festa
exuberance is actually an attempt by the Naxxarin to instil the sense of
community which has been lost over time. The festa is not an attempt to
commodify tradition but to invoke Hoggarts notion of the chara experience
and atmosphere, an attempt to de-systemize the notion of cultural
commodification and renew the sense of collective consciousness.

The same concerns regarding the commodification of traditions also apply to
the environment. Nuttall draws attention to the increasing number of tour
companies offering cultural and anthropological holidays
40
in exotic, fragile
regions in the world. The type of travel, activities and behaviour conducted are
often far removed from the ethical concerns posited by the initial definition of
ecotourism or any form of tourism which claims to be anthropological.
Nuttalls research shows how the region of Alaska is marketed in a way that

38 Jeremy Boissevain, Ritual, Tourism and Cultural Commoditization in Malta: Culture by the
Pound?, in The Tourist Image: Myths and Myth Making in Tourism, ed. by Tom Selwyn (West Sussex:
John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 1996), p. 108.
39
Ibid., p. 106.
40
Mark Nuttall, Packaging the Wild: Tourism Development in Alaska, in Tourists and Tourism;
Identifying with People and Places, ed. by Jacqueline Waldron and Donald V.L Macleod (Oxford:
Berg Publishers, 1997), pp. 223-237.

12

draws on Benjamins notion of the aura and MacCannells perception of
authenticity, albeit in a commodified and often stereotypical way to appeal to
the Post-Fordist mind set of individuals.

It is quite apparent that tourism as a cultural, socio-economic as well as
anthropological study is a vast and often rapidly shifting topic. In its essence,
tourism invokes the notion of transience
41
. Whether this implies escapism from
the mundanity of reality, a retreat into the realm of the aura or a deliberate
choice to achieve self-fulfilment, the temporary nomadism individuals
participate in continues to provide a commentary on their cultural context. The
versatility of the term culture and its seamless appropriation in cultural
critics arguments serves to highlight the dynamic nature of this term. The
central tension which underlies ecotourism is the mythologised aura of the rural
environment it purports as an image against the less idyllic notion of the natural
landscape as a production zone. Tourism and ecotourism as industries are just
one of the multitude of examples which can be used to illustrate cultural
realities which are ultimately linked to the wider and all-encompassing
thoughts of their times.





41
Alan Barnard, and Jonathan Spencer, Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2
nd
ed.
(New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 694.

13


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14


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