Kirsti Clapsadle Essay on Ethical Quandaries Commodifying culture simultaneously preserves, transforms, and destroys it.

This is the fourth quandary on the list created by Cheryl Shanks in Nine Quandaries of Tourism: Artificial Authenticity and Beyond, and is among the most obvious quandaries of tourism. Together with the exploitation of the difference of the people of a foreign location, the almost comical transformations put forth to the culture of the travel destination for the eye of the traveler turn the tourism that was meant to be authentic into something artificial. I have seen, in several travel photos and advertisements, the perfect vacation. Sitting on a sandy white beach, Corona in hand, palm trees swaying in the wind A camel ride followed by a guided tour of the pyramids of Egypt These images are commonly accepted as a typical, authentic foreign vacation. Corona simultaneously advertises for a Mexican vacation in its commercials for the beer when it shows a couple or a group of friends on a beautiful beach, surrounded by nothing but sand and crystal blue oceans, but when are you ever actually alone on the beaches in Mexico? If you are at a beach in Mexico, you are very likely staying at a resort in Cabo San Lucas or Acapulco and you are definitely not alone. Similarly, if you went on a vacation to Egypt to see the pyramids, you shouldnt feel at all special, or one-of-a-kind. In fact, if you wanted a little extra time to relax before your vacation, you can avoid the whole process of planning it by buying a pre-organized package at www.antelope-travel.com! There you will find an eight day, seven night package, complete with a Nile Dinner on your first night, followed by tours of the pyramids just before your camel ride through the desert and a tour of Cairo on the second and third days, your choice of scuba diving

or just some relaxation the next two days, and another tour the final day as you travel in air conditioned coaches to Luxor on the Nile River. What an authentic Egyptian trip, provided by the American Society of Travel Agents and other non-Egyptian companies. To add to it, most tourists arent prepared to see the city just over the hill from the pyramids as part of their authentic, ancient tour, and why on earth would you want to ride in an air conditioned car if youre looking for an authentic representation of historical culture? Again, we have a commercialized vacation that imitates the reality of the authentic culture in order to cater to the comfort and expectations of the tourist. In Maasai on the Lawn: Tourist Realism in East Africa, Edward M. Bruner and Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett write about a Ranch near Nairobi owned by a British family, but exploited as African. The ex-colonial family, now Kenyan citizens, provides tribal dance before they enjoy tea and scones on the lawn of the Mayers Ranch (435 Bruner). It isnt really necessary to explain how ironic it is that a British family is presenting their ranch as authentic Africa, but tourists who may ignore that fact, also might not realize that the presentation continues to exploit the authentic African dancers as wild, versus the civilized European with his tea and scones. The scenario, of course, is not authentic because it is put on as you would put on a Broadway show. And it is just thata show. Tourists continue to dawn sombreros and sit atop camels, or learn to hula dance and buy a piece of the ruins of Greece as if these things are part of the authentic history of the places they are visiting. But if we look closer, we see that the sombreros which they wield were made in a factory, and the camels they ride are guided by an American. The hula dancing is done by women who look Hawaiian, but not always those who are Hawaiian, and the piece of Grecian ruins that you are taking home completely removes the relevance of it even being part of the

ruins because it no longer is part of the ruins once it leaves there. These things are always looked at as authentic in the eye of the traveler, but each time the traveler visits and buys into the artificiality, the problem only grows to a bigger state. Rather than local businesspeople creating the souvenirs you buy, they have to be mass produced, completely negating the authenticity. What was once authentic in tourism, will soon all be artificial.

Works Cited "5 Day Nile Lake Nasser Honeymoon Cruise Package." Antelope Travel. Antelope Travel. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.antelope-travel.com/lake-nasser-cruise-cairo_package.html>. Bruner, Edward M., and Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett. "Masaii on the Lawn: Tourist Realism in East Africa." Cultural Anthropology 9.4 (1994): 435-70. American Anthropological Association, 2 Sept. 2007. Web. Shanks, Cheryl. "Nine Quandaries of Tourism." ReVista, Harvard Review of Latin America Tourism in the Americas.Development Culture and Identity (2002). David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/revista/articles/view/36>.