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Author : Peter Varga
School/Work Place : Ecole Hoteliere Lausanne, Switzerland
Contact : peter.varga@ehl.ch
Year : 2013

The question how native societies cope with the increasing pressure of global values, such as sustainability, westernization and democratic institutions has been asked in the last decades (Smith, 1989; Honey, 1999; Nash, 2001; Honey, 2008). Ecuador, as an important tourism destination in South America, has focused on eco-oriented tourism practices since the last decade of the 20th Century. Due to this increased global interest in the country’s diverse natural and cultural settings, ethnic groups in tourism destinations have experienced the growing demand for sociocultural adaptation not only to the tourists’ behaviors and expectations (Doxey, 1976) but also to the organizational strategies of the external stakeholders. As one of the central interests in the discipline of anthropology of tourism, various scholars have been focusing on the impacts of today’s tourism practices in the host populations (Chambers, 1997; Burns, 1999; Mowforth and Munt, 2009; Macleod and Carrier, 2010).

The present research is interested in how a local, indigenous community, the Siona in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has been experiencing the growing presence of the externally-led tourism practices in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, Ecuador. Tourism statistics show a sixty-three-fold increase in tourist arrivals between 1984 and 2010, indicating an important growth in the sector (Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism, 2010). The author of this paper carried out several anthropological field-works in the area since 2001 (twelve months in 2001 and some shorter periods afterwards), with the objective to understand the current changes in the locals’ social structure due to, primarily, the increasing presence of non-native tourism actors in the reserve and second, the growing competition for tourism revenues not only between indigenous communities, but also within native families. The research highlights the growing lack of “interactive-participation” of the natives in tourism dynamics (Pretty, 1995). As one of the various responses from the Siona in front of this degrading situation, some families established a new community and started to revitalize certain traditional practices as authentic elements of their culture in order to attract more tourism revenues (Urry and Larsen, 2011).


List of Articles
No. Subject Views Datesort
82 Think Tank XII The Climate Footprint of Nature-based Tourism - The ca... file 20231 Nov 06, 2013

Nature-based tourism is a form of travel that is often believed to lend itself more to sustainable development than other tourism segments. In fact, the concept of ecotourism – defined as nature tourism that is sustainable – was developed in...

Author: Wolfgang Strasdas 

Year: 2012 

81 Think Tank XII Opportunities and Obstacles for Sustainable Tourism Mo... file 5922 Nov 06, 2013

Cross border destination management is characterized by some extra challenges: national, district or county interests, different administrative structures, a high impact of politics and policies, inequality of tourism infrastructures, power ...

Author: Tatjana Thimm 

Year: 2012 

80 Think Tank XII Furthering the Understanding of the Slow Travel Phenom... file 8298 Nov 06, 2013

Slow travel is a relatively new concept. Originally this was a grass root movement, which now is becoming an interest area for scholars. The first organised networks and forums started to emerge approximately a decade ago. A slow travel webs...

Author: Tina Roenhovde Tiller 

Year: 2012 

79 Think Tank XII Controlling and Influencing Visitor Flow as a Basis fo... file 4906 Nov 06, 2013

Sustainable tourism at a destination is dependent on the maintenance and good management of its attractive assets. In non-urban areas, the assets will primarily be geological, natural and/or cultural, frequently of a sensitive nature, liable...

Author: David Ward-Perkins & Frédéric Dimanche 

Year: 2012 

78 Think Tank XII Are We Moving Towards Education for Sustainability? A ... file 6833 Nov 06, 2013

It is nearing the end of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) (United Nations, 2011), an awareness raising campaign which “seeks to mobilize the educational resources of the world to help create a mo...

Author: Erica Wilson, Tania von der Heidt, Geoffrey Lamberton & Dayle Morrison 

Year: 2012 

77 Think Tank XIII Conceptualising a Framework to Analyse the Factors Inf... file 19049 Nov 06, 2013

As the tourism industry continues to grow globally, sustainable tourism development has drawn interests among researchers, practitioners, governments and stakeholders. There are several studies on the local residents’ support for tourism, lo...

Author: Samuel Folorunso Adeyinka-Ojo, Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore & Vikneswaran Nair 

Year: 2013 

76 Think Tank XIII Tourism development led by the Third Sector - Impacts ... file 4215 Nov 06, 2013

Most tourism development is initiated and led by either the private or the public sector. These projects’ potential impacts on host communities have been explored since the 1980s, and they are now relatively well known. This is not the case ...

Author: Julia N. Albrecht & My N. D. Tran 

Year: 2013 

75 Think Tank XIII Building community capacity by developing regional bus... file 5118 Nov 06, 2013

Tourism is often proposed as a strategy for community development, especially in rural or remote regions where traditional industries, such as agriculture, are experiencing an economic downturn and there are limited alternative opportunities...

Author: Anna Blackman 

Year: 2013 

74 Think Tank XIII Tourism investment and sustainable development: A comp... file 15277 Nov 06, 2013

Despite the growing importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) for tourism in developing countries and its perceived importance for stimulating sustainable development, few empirical studies have examined its impact. This paper explored t...

Author: Lee Davidson & Mondher Sahli 

Year: 2013 

73 Think Tank XIII Resident Perceptions of the Impacts of Tourism in Majo... file 4715 Nov 06, 2013

Despite the importance of cities and tourism flows to cities, the literature which explores the effect of tourism on host communities tends to focus on non-urban locations. As different types of tourists place different demands upon the reso...

Author: Tony Griffin & Deborah Edwards 

Year: 2013 

72 Think Tank XIII Sri Lanka, Tourism for a Brighter Future? A Review of ... file 27846 Nov 06, 2013

Tourism is considered to have the potential to generate foreign exchange revenue, create jobs for all levels, support handicraft and export industries, promote art and subsidise the development of transportation infrastructure; as it’s a vec...

Author: Zilmiyah Kamble & Frederic Bouchon 

Year: 2013 

71 Think Tank XIII Measuring Tourism: Developing a Regional Level Framewo... file 6310 Nov 06, 2013

In the field of tourism impacts research it is often assumed that certain characteristics of tourism are related to the nature and extent of tourism impacts on the destination’s community well-being. However, a standard set of measures for t...

Author: Elena Konovalov, Laurie Murphy & Gianna Moscardo 

Year: 2013 

70 Think Tank XIII Assessing the Impact of Rural Tourism Development on t... file 6696 Nov 06, 2013

Past literature has posited that tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors and has been signified as an attractive investment proposition. Rural tourism sector has been actively promoted by the Malaysian government and currently, it is c...

Author: May-Chiun Lo, Vikneswaran Nair, Peter Songan & Helen Lee HuiHui 

Year: 2013 

69 Think Tank XIII Using Tourism to Build Social Capital in Communities: ... file 13295 Nov 06, 2013

Despite considerable discussion about how tourism could or should contribute to sustainable destination development, there is little evidence that the practice of tourism planning or development has altered in any significant way in the last...

Author: Gianna Moscardo, Andrea Schurmann, Elena Konovalov & Nancy G. McGehee 

Year: 2013 

68 OPA award Using Tourism to Build Social Capital in Communities: ... file 8663 Nov 06, 2013

Despite considerable discussion about how tourism could or should contribute to sustainable destination development, there is little evidence that the practice of tourism planning or development has altered in any significant way in the last...

Author: Gianna Moscardo, Andrea Schurmann, Elena Konovalov & Nancy G. McGehee 

Year: 2013 

67 Think Tank XIII Local Residents' Involvement in Rural Tourism: The Cas... file 4545 Nov 06, 2013

Community involvement is regarded as a significant factor for the development of rural tourism. In Malaysia, cooperatives are used as a catalyst to achieve community development through community involvement. This paper focuses on the involv...

Author: Uma Thevi Munikrishnan, Sushila Devi Rajaratnam, Paolo Mura & Vikneswaran Nair 

Year: 2013 

66 Think Tank XIII Exploring the Relationship between Cultural Capital in... file 6578 Nov 06, 2013

There is substantial literature on the impacts of tourism on culture, both positive and negative, however, there are relatively few articles that explore the relationship between cultural capital and sustainable tourism. This paper will repo...

Author: Laurie Murphy & Andrea Schurmann 

Year: 2013 

65 Think Tank XIII Visitors' and Residents' Perception of Tourism Impact ... file 20028 Nov 06, 2013

Tourism is one of the leading contributors to service industry in Malaysia and is gradually growing. The growth of this industry brings impact towards the environment, specifically the water quality of islands. This study views into the visi...

Author: Murugadas Ramdas & Badaruddin Mohamed 

Year: 2013 

64 Think Tank XIII City Slicker to Roo Carer: The Journey of a Wildlife V... file 3998 Nov 06, 2013

The level of interest and participation in voluntourism has progressively become a major sector in contemporary tourism. The notion of combining a novel and pleasurable tourism experience with the fulfillment of contributing a worthwhile cau...

Author: Eunice Tan 

Year: 2013 

» Think Tank XIII Striving for Environmental Sustainability through Soci... file 6023 Nov 06, 2013

The question how native societies cope with the increasing pressure of global values, such as sustainability, westernization and democratic institutions has been asked in the last decades (Smith, 1989; Honey, 1999; Nash, 2001; Honey, 2008). ...

Author: Peter Varga 

Year: 2013 

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