One of the most important things is that the Cultural Tourist Sites have to be vivid rather than fossilized. The vividness starts from the invention of authentic tradition. Anthropologists have not taken up a positive attitude about cultural tourism....
One of the most important things is that the Cultural Tourist Sites have to be vivid rather than fossilized. The vividness starts from the invention of authentic tradition. Anthropologists have not taken up a positive attitude about cultural tourism. Because they hold a biased view concerning about tourism which might be breaking the authentic traditional culture. This is closely related to structural-functionalists who are explaining culture from their point of view, i.e. explaining culture through function and structure. However, tradition always “invented” in the process of continuity and change so that the tradition cannot be stereotyped. The source of vividness as cultural site of Hida-Takayama begins from an invention of tradition. If they simply displayed material cultures of Edo Period, Hida-Takayama could have been a fossilized tourist spot that produced some images of the stagnated death streets. The vivid cultural tourist sites only can be made by the people who are willing to invent the tradition.
The argument is that what is invention or fabrication of traditional culture. A culture is switch over to the next phase culture pattern through its own unique process. Cultural continuity need to be maintained so that the maintained cultural continuity could invent tradition. Everything can not be regarded as the invention of tradition even if the culture is invented by a member of a community. Under the uniqueness and continuity of culture that can be extracted from the core system, the invention of tradition can be made otherwise it can be left in mimicry of culture.
It is impossible that without penetrating the fundamental process of a pattern of culture, the development of cultural tourist resources and cultural products cannot be made. That is why anthropologists should take up a positive attitude for the development of cultural tourist site.