Friday, September 4, 2015

Tourist Identity

“Salaamu’alaikum, are you a Muslim?”

Almost two times a day I got these type of questions from Jordanians that I met. At first, they looked uncertain about me when they saw my appearance, however when I gave them a nod, their confusion turned into a smile. As a Muslim traveling with a group of many Caucasian students, I experienced a mixed feeling. Although I am part of the group of “tourists”, I felt that I am more connected to the local culture, including its atmosphere and the people. 
A (typical) touristic activity

It is clear that the connection that I felt is largely because of the same religion that we share. However, in this case I also play a role as a tourist; a person who typically wants to find exotic experiences and to gaze upon others. It brings me to a question, what are the factors that influence the tourist’s identity? To what extent a tourist can be defined as such, when there is a significant connection between the tourist and the destination place? According to Jacobsen (2000), tourist roles, experiences, meanings and attitudes are more important than the reductionist notion of tourists which describes that “a tourist is a person who travels outside for more than 24 hours”. It means that, using postmodernism approach, the motives behind someone’s visit to a destination becomes salient. As for myself, I found that what I experienced was a “role distance” (Jacobsen, 2000); I was attached and committed to a role as a tourist, however I also want to distant myself from the tourist stereotype in order to get to know the local better in relation to the Islam. This is because being perceived as tourists may lead to a social stigma. Nevertheless, the dichotomy between ‘tourist’ and ‘traveller’ might not be very useful to determine the tourist identity, rather, a comprehensive view of the values, meanings and attitudes that the tourist show might help in unveiling the tourist’s identity.

 Tourists or travelers?

Our (touristic) activity in Umm Rassass

References:
  • Jacobsen, J. K. S. (2000) ‘Anti-tourist Attitudes:Mediterranean Charter Tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research 27(2): 284–300.

1 comment:

  1. What about your position as a student of tourism? How has this played a role in the connections and divisions you felt with fellow group members/students, on the one hand, and locals, on the other hand?

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