Tourism and cultural identity tourisme et identite culturelle tourismus und kulturelle identität: Cultural identity

This article risks the attempt to move the discussion of culture and tourism onto a broader basis. It replaces a rigid conception of culture with a dynamic model and starts from a framing premise of empathy rather than cultural pessimism. It uses an extended explanatory model of tourism to seek answers to two central questions: what functions does travel fulfill for the travelers' culture and what effects can tourism have on hosts culture? The report demonstrates that the ritual, utopian and mythical character of travel makes a significant contribution to satisfying the basic human needs for security, activity and pluralism. In this way the holiday culture that has developed in the western countries has come to assume a vital role in strengthening cultural identity.