It is also a relative concept, as stated by Moore: ‘One person’s absolute fake is another’s meaningful experience.’ Getz describes authenticity as: a difficult concept open to many interpretations, but [is] of great importance in the context of cultural tourism and particularly event tourism. Although some believe that authenticity is an absolute, determined by a complete absence of commoditization, many other theorists believe it is transitory, evolving and open to negotiation.
Jamal and Hill provide an excellent analysis of different typologies of authenticity. They differentiate between ‘objective authenticity’, which usually refers to traditional or historical sites or artifacts, and ‘constructed authenticity’, which may refer to staged events, moderated art objects, or artificially created cultural attractions. The category of ‘personal authenticity’ is perhaps the most complex and the least researched, but may refer to the emotional and psychological experience of travel, subjective responses to, and interpretation of sites and events experienced, or deeper existential aspects relating to personal meaning and identity. They conclude that:
‘Authenticity’ is neither a unified static construct nor an essential property of objects and events. It is better to approach it more holistically as a concept whose objective, constructed and/or experiential dimensions are in dialectical engagement with each other and with both the home and world of the tourist. Tourism becomes a metaphor for a changing, bio-political world in which (post)modernity, capitalism and globalization furnish complex meanings to authenticity and the authentic in everyday life.
Turner and Ash describe how tourists are placed in a circumscribed world devoid of responsibility and protected from reality, which includes any sense of authenticity. Boorstin argues that tourists deliberately go in search of inauthentic experiences or ‘pseudo-events’, and that tourism has become responsible for rendering most events superficial or ‘pseudo’. Of course, many tourists are escapist in their pursuit of leisure and entertainment, but many are also very well aware that the cultural experiences presented to them are far from being ‘authentic’. There are often more important issues at stake for the average tourist than authenticity, such as entertainment and enjoyment. However, this is probably less likely to be the case for tourists who partake of indigenous cultural tourism. In many ways they go to great lengths to avoid the inauthentic.
They conform to MacCannell’s description of tourists as being like contemporary pilgrims who are in search of authentic experiences in other places and other times. In terms of the world around us, Goffman argued that the ‘reality’ of everyday living which we perceive is as staged as the cultural performances we attend. This is the concept of ‘staged authenticity’. The real lives can only be found ‘backstage’, but as stated by Urry the gaze of the tourist will then become an obvious and unacceptable intrusion into people’s lives which any sensitive tourist would want to avoid. Crick also contends that all cultures are staged and are therefore inauthentic to an extent. It has to be accepted that many tourists cannot be entirely sure whether or not a cultural performance is entirely authentic, whereas the performers should have a very clear idea. The problem arises when the tourist feels deceived or disappointed and the performer feels exploited, stereotyped or compromised. Clearly, local cultural performances and events should not be adapted or altered in such a way that they offend local sensibilities or compromise artistic integrity.
Religious Tourism and the Experience of the Sacred
