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Introduction
Notably, traveling has become one of the most popular leisure activities of the twenty-first century, thanks to the deregulation of air travel and the introduction of low-cost airlines. It is increasingly seen as a vital learning experience and a treatment for stress, sadness, and burnout. People spend weeks or months immersed in various cultures in order to get genuinely authentic experiences. Nevertheless, whether authenticity is operationally attainable is debatable. Firstly, individuals frequently travel to distant places in search of spiritual development. Westerners travel to undeveloped countries with the specific expectations that experiencing economic suffering would increase their appreciation for their privileged situations. This orientalist lens objectifies indigenous cultures by seeing them as the exotic other, understood as the antithesis of the West rather than on their terms (Mackie, 2000). Second, the pursuit of authenticity has culminated in the ‘Disneyfication’ of local cultures, rendering the idea of a genuine tourism experience paradoxical. In order to attract more customers, a location becomes a fabricated and exaggerated representation of itself.
Authenticity has been a critical term in analyzing and evaluating the travel experience. Nonetheless, given the varied interpretations of the concept, its precise definition is not discernible. Lunchaprasith and Macleod (2018) acknowledge that early definitions of authenticity are associated with tourism’s inability to depict actual customs and traditions or with a getaway from inauthentic working lives. Rather than striving to give accurate descriptions of practices and rituals, tourism is about presenting culture to fit visitor demands and expectations (Lunchaprasith and Macleod, 2018). Hence, recent research has shifted toward viewing authenticity as a representation of stakeholders’ worldviews. The contrast between authentic and inauthentic experiences should be considered visitors’ perceptions rather than tourism’s capacity to convey objective truth. Thus, the paper investigates the issue of authenticity of tourism in Thailand to demonstrate the answer to whether a tourist experience can be truly authentic.
The Presentation of a Case Study: Thailand
Tourism is an essential aspect of the Thai economy; hence, Thailand was selected as a case study. Hipsher (2021) states that international tourists provide eighty percent of travel and tourism’s contribution to the Thai economy, with domestic tourism accounting for the remaining twenty percent. Thailand is a popular tourist destination owing to its beaches and other natural attractions, inexpensive pricing, and spicy food. Furthermore, the impression of Thai friendliness attracts many international tourists. These frequently adopted concepts found in Theravada Buddhist teachings to overcome the strains of tourism’s sociocultural repercussions and, therefore, Thais typically thought tourism offered more advantages than issues (Hipsher, 2021). According to World Data (n.d.), Thailand received forty million tourists in 2019, placing it fifth as the most popular tourist location globally in absolute numbers. The country has five cities among the leading hundred most famous tourist destinations (World Data, n.d.). Moreover, Bangkok ranked second in 2019 with more than twenty-five million visitors.
Discussion
For many years, Asian countries have utilized food to distinguish and advertise themselves as destinations by asking tourists to eat and experience local culture. Berno et al. (2021) emphasize that Thailand is one country that has been exceptionally effective in promoting its native food. Food, gastronomy, and culinary traditions are among the most fundamental aspects of culture. Cuisine is a powerful transmitter of traditions, customs, history, social bonding, and celebration; it is more than the sum of its components (Berno et al., 2021). Thus, culture and gastronomy are inseparable; culture may be reflected in the cuisine, and cuisine can represent individual and group cultural identity.
This link between food and culture underpins many tourists’ aspirations to discover local foods when traveling as an effective method of learning, enjoying, and comprehending the country’s culture. Food is one of the most significant resources in each tourist location, as it contributes to a sense of authenticity and belonging (Berno et al., 2021). Although dining in Thailand is linked with rice, it is much more than that. Rice is integrally linked to the Thai people’s life cycle in terms of geography, consumption, religious belief, and ceremonial practice (Berno et al., 2021). Thus, rice is a holy meal for Thais, inextricably related to human existence.
Although rice is an integral part of Thai food and culture, many tourists dismiss it as nothing more than a starchy side dish. Berno et al. (2021) state that rice’s cultural and culinary value is not recognized or acknowledged. Despite the significance of rice in Thai culture and its role in Thai cuisine, stories about the interconnectedness of Thai life and rice have been underutilized and underexplored in tourism (Berno et al., 2021). Thailand’s tourism growth has been chiefly focused on community-based tourism and agro-tourism. Rural scenery and farms serve as backgrounds for more immersive components such as coconut culinary routes, Thai silk communities, and regional ateliers (Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration, 2017). Nonetheless, the Thai government has recently launched the Thailand 4.0 economic structure. This innovative approach to development emphasizes respect for Thai native customs and authenticity, including Thai farmer traditions, healthy countryside lifestyles, and the development of sustainable farming (Prayakavichiet, 2017). Berno et al. (2019) argue that old patterns are difficult to overcome despite the rhetoric about providing possibilities for a more profound sense of Thainess through food. Consequently, tourists may fully experience Thai culture by eating rice, the very core of Thainess and what makes Thais Thai.
Geographic viewpoints have also been used to investigate the intricacies of authentic tourism encounters. Rickly (2018) suggests that slum tourism, a sort of pro-poor tourist activity, is renowned for promising real experiences. Tourists are not only promoted slums as proper areas where they could witness actual poverty but also feel philanthropic towards the local population through the tour price charged (Rickly, 2018). In Thailand, for instance, trekking visitors seek an authentic experience, not just viewing another culture but also experiencing closeness with someone completely different from them (Rickly, 2018). Therefore, authentic experiences have been discovered to be multi-layered through a geographic lens, such that physical closeness and perceiving and enacting place are flexible and adaptable.
A significant example of staged authenticity is the interaction between resorts and eco-tours in Phuket, Thailand. Rickly (2018) investigates the spatial exclusivity of mass tourism and ecotourism. In this area, ecotourism enterprises may increase their clients by using the market of visitors currently on the island while also pushing towards stricter limits limiting tourism expansion (Rickly, 2018). In other words, companies can use faked authenticity to attract tourists who are primarily interested in mass tourism resorts to participate in eco-tours that help conservation programs. Pookhao Sonjai et al. (2018) claim that the problem of power imbalance in Thailand tourism impacts how the community commodifies its sociocultural distinctiveness of people and location, turning them into products for the enjoyment of tourists. The community-based approach’s goal is to transfer power to the local community to manage, preserve, and revitalize the culture or determine what to display and sell to tourists (Pookhao Sonjai et al., 2018). Nonetheless, external power continues to affect local sociocultural commodification through stakeholder collaboration.
Additionally, the Thai community has also become connected to the identity offered to foreigners by the media in terms of self-reliance and solid local collaboration. Pookhao Sonjai et al. (2018) argue that the villagers have eventually linked with the identity provided by the tourists. As a result, in the open settings, the villagers act as expected by visitors, yet they behave differently within the limits of their restricted space. Thus, a tourist experience in Thailand cannot be truly authentic. Postmodernism, according to Larsen (2014), blurs the boundary between “representations” and “reality” (p. 306). People are said to live in a highly saturated image world in which representations are ubiquitous and sometimes more fascinating than actuality. Tourists are more interested in representations than reality in the contemporary ‘hyper-mediated’ era. Indeed, travelers frequently visit sites that the media have elevated.
Conclusion
Authenticity has long been used to describe and evaluate the travel experience. Tourism nowadays is about exhibiting culture to meet tourist requirements and desires, rather than providing accurate representations of history and traditions. Tourism fails to recognize that culture is continually evolving because the people who form it are constantly changing. Consequently, the global travel business cannot be authentic because it objectifies and commercializes culture, making it appear manufactured; most travelers visit tourist attractions, which in most cases do not represent the authenticity of culture and are customized for foreigners. People live in a “hyper-mediated” world where omnipresent representations are often more exciting than reality. Therefore, authenticity may be viewed as a representation of stakeholders’ ideas and viewpoints.
Thailand was chosen as a case study to evaluate the prospect of providing tourists with a genuine experience. Based on findings, the Thai community became associated with the identity, which is subject to various stakeholders’ demands, and finally falls into the commercialization of fake, or in other words, staged authenticity. Through stakeholder engagement, external power continues to influence local sociocultural commodification. Rather than attempting to provide authentic experiences of customs and rituals, tourism is about showcasing culture to meet the visitors’ expectations, desires, and requirements, and Thailand is a prime example.
Reference List
Berno, T., Dentice, G. and Wisansing, J. J. (2019) ‘Kin kao laew reu young (‘have you eaten rice yet’)?: A new perspective on food and tourism in Thailand’, In Park, E., Kim, S., and Yeoman, I. (eds.) Food Tourism in Asia. Perspectives on Asian Tourism. Singapore: Springer, pp. 17-30.
Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration. (2017) Community benefitting through tourism report. Bangkok: Perfect Link Consulting Group.
Hipsher, S.A. (2021) ‘Tourism in Thailand: Exploitation or opportunity?’, International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management (IJABIM), 12(3), pp. 26-42.
Larsen, J. (2014) ‘The tourist gaze 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0’. in Lew, A. A., Hall, C. M., and Williams, A. M. (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell companion to tourism. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 304-313.
Lunchaprasith, T. and Macleod, D. (2018) ‘Food tourism and the use of authenticity in Thailand’, Tourism Culture & Communication, 18(2), pp. 101-116.
Mackie, V. (2000) ‘The Metropolitan gaze: Travellers, bodies and spaces’, Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, 4.
Pookhao Sonjai, N., Bushell, R., Hawkins, M., and Staiff, R. (2018) ‘Community-based ecotourism: beyond authenticity and the commodification of local people’, Journal of Ecotourism, 17(3), 252-267.
Prayakavichiet, P. (2017) Rice road.
Rickly, J. M. (2018) ‘Tourism geographies and the place of authenticity’, Tourism Geographies, 20(4), pp. 733-736.
World Data. (n.d.). Tourism in Thailand.
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