Dear Lenia, thanks for sharing this project! Sensitizing travellers for local cultures is something really important and complex, especially if we are talking about young people. I think that one way to get the attention of young travellers and conect them with local cultures is to find common topics of interest between tourists and local actors such as music, food, dancing, etc, so we could generate curiosity and foster respect among them.

Dear Lenia, a noble project, indeed. One of the ways is to make that instant connection via recognition of human need - some kind of life struggle that young tourists can identify with even if the actual struggle is dissimilar. The theme may be the same. The struggle to make ends meet, to achieve a certain life goal, to overcome certain community threat, etc. And if there's some set up that allows tourists to participate in situ or even post visit, something online perhaps, that would be really helpful in instilling some sense of continuity of interest in the culture. All Best!

Dear Lenia,

this is a very interesting project. I´m looking forward to your results.

All the best

Stefan

Dear Lenia,

This is an interesting endeavor, good luck with this project.

I think step one toward appreciating the local cultures of other destination is appreciating the local culture of different ethnic communities in one's own place.

Just my initial thought on this.

Good luck

Mohamed

Very true Mohamed. Appreciating the diversity of the place you live in is very important. For many young people, however, the experience of cities is often a segregated one - in a psychological sense travelling to far away places is easier than travelling to the other side of your own city. Hopefully, the experience and appreciation of difference in other places will also stimulate people to seek out difference at home. This is one trend that seems to be increasing with the pandemic - we can't travel far, so becoming 'tourists in our own cities' is one alternative. https://www.academia.edu/34925642/Tourists_in_their_own_city_published_version

Hi Greg,

This is a good observation. It seems that for some people moving from the local to the global would be the way, while for others it is from the global to the local.

Regards

Mohamed

Dear Leina,

This is a very interesting project

in my opinion, the ways we can do:

1. Local residents Empowerment (Awareness building, capacity building, empowerment)

2. Making a connection between tourist and resident with the live-in program

3. Making a fun version of the cultural attraction with the commodification (without removing the value in the original version)

So in a destination, there will be 2 versions of culture. That is a commodified version designed to be more attractive to easily convey intrinsic value to tourists. As well as the original version that is usually carried out by the community, according to their customs and beliefs.

Regards

Rifki

Dear Rifki,

Interesting ideas. In fact, rather than just two versions of culture, there are endless versions of culture present in every place. Although the local community may largely agree on some of the key elements of local culture, there will always be different interpretations and versions of this present in the community. This is also what makes places so interesting to live in and visit - there is always more to culture than meets the eye.

Regards,

Greg

Dear Mr. Greg,

Agree Sir,

Maybe what you meant is "intangible cultural heritage" such as belief systems, indigenous knowledge, and so on

All of these are assets that need to be preserved through domestic cultural tourism (due to this pandemic) to foster a sense of pride among millennial tourists for their national identity and culture.

Regards,

Rifki

Lenia, I am afraid if you make young people start touring areas they will have little time to develop themselves like looking for job, having children and other building the nation activities. I fear they might start to be lazy. May be I am wrong but I have my reservations for such a thing in my local area. We are trying to help the youth fend for themselves first.

Dear Lenia, you project sounds very interesting! I'm leading a project that tries to enhance cultural sensitivity in Arctic tourism. The project name is Culturally Sensitive Tourism in the Arctic (ARCTISEN). You find information about it in my profile. We focus on developing tourism that respects local cultures, mainly by trying to sensitize the tourism industry, but surely our projects have synenergies! We are about to launch an open access online course for tourism entrepreneurs, their workers, and tourism students to enhance their skills in culturally sensitive tourism business, and based on test user feedback, it sensitizes the students also to reflect their experiences as tourists and gives them new ideas of how to travel in a more culturally sensitive and responsible way. Perhaps the course is of interest to you, too? The course language is English.

Dear Monika Lüthje,

That is great! We seem to be going the same direction. We are producing some materials, like videos, which will be made available in the website and youtube channel in a few months. Also other pedagogic tools are being developed. I'm sure we could learn from you and even see how to collaborate and enrich both our projects. You can contact me at [email protected] . Thank you!

Dear Kiprotich Kiptum

Thank you for your input. Each context is one, and all actions can be adapted. In any case, getting to know and appreciate our own heritage, tangible and intangible, and learning with others and other cultures, makes people more aware, more creative and more resilient. This can help to make the places they live better, and even helping them creating new business ideas, more sustainable and good for them, the communities and the tourists.

Dear Rifki Rahmanda Putra ,

Thank you for sharing your ideas! Indeed, you raise a good point about local awareness, with empowerment and capacity building. Could you explain a bit what you would see as " the live-in program"? Thank you kindly.

Luana Silva , Ian Aik-Soon Ng , Greg Richards and Mohamed Fawzi Afifi ,

Thank you all for your great contributions! It seems they point out to two clear paths: on the one hand, the need to look into oneself and their own local culture(s); on the other, to consider it under a glocal (global+local) continuum.

Now we only have to find the best ways to do this, in particular aiming at youth!

Dear Leina,

This is a compelling project

Young people are those groups who have remained from engaging with local culture. First of all, we should teach local culture to children with interpretation of place in order to be accustomed to different cultures. For instance, in my city as a World Heritage City (Yazd) every Tuesday we had a tour for various schools ( before pandemic).

Furthermore, the usage of digitization of culture can be more attractive for this group of people, especially for tangible heritage. 

Regards,

Hossein

Dear Leina,

The live-in program is a thematic tour package that connects happiness between tourists and local residents. In several activities:

1) Staying at a homestay in cultural tourism destination with intimate interactions between guests and hosts (such as being invited to do daily activities with local wisdom values ​​in it, tasting traditional food, involving guests in traditional ceremonies, etc. )

2) Sharing knowledge (cultural values) ​​through these interactions

3) Fostering the welfare of the local community through community-based cultural tourism

4) Direct interpretation media to tourists through experiential learning

Mohammadhossein Dehghan Pour Farashah , thank you, indeed starting early and in the first place with getting to know your own culture and learning how to appreciate it is very important! Digitalisation is only a means.

Rifki Rahmanda Putra , thank you! It is nice to see that human interaction is at the centre!

Great project! Congratulation to the whole group!

I would approach such an issue starting from the actors that create foster and communicate tourism in the first place. What makes the (young) tourists decide where to go and what to do there? What strategies are in place that aims to attract tourists?

I think about the infamous Amsterdam case, we have now a generation of people who have been to the Netherlands so many times in their life without trespassing the Coffee Shop quarter.

Also, what is the role of the "new" media in tourists' decision making? My hunch is that Instagram and influencers in general play a paramount role in developing tastes and hence tourists' behaviours.

Another level of attention could be one of the local businesses. Do shops and entrepreneurs play a role in that? Jane Jacobs would say YES, and others such as Gehl architects say that retail plays a crucial role in the experience of a city/public space.

Let's talk more!

All the best,

Valeria

Dear Valeria,

Thanks for the interesting comments.

I think your ideas would give the project a creative twist in the direction of placemaking - as you suggest in your references to Jacobs and Gehl. Perhaps a potential broadening of the current project into the wider impacts of tourism as a form of creative contact between residents and mobile populations?

Regards,

Greg

Dear Professor Richards,

I am glad you appreciate my comment! I look forward to any updates on this project!

Best,

Valeria

Even more interesting, Valeria Morea , as cities like Amsterdam are thinking of significant changes in their built, retail and tourism fabric!

Dear Lenia Marques ,

Congratulations for the Cultsense project and the discussion you initiated and carefully keep alive. Here in your questions, it is about (young) tourists, the project presentation mentions (young) travellers but tourism is included - evenmore for the use of the project outputs. Do "you" make a distinction between young traveller and young tourist among mobile population?

Dear Eveline,

A good point about the distinction between travellers and tourists. This is an issue we have been examining for quite a while in our research on youth travel. Studies by WYSE Travel Confederation indicate that self-identification as a 'tourist' has been increasing steadily among young people since 2002. I think there is a growing self-awareness of the 'tourist' role among young travellers, and the former 'backpacker' label has all but disappeared. As discussed extensively in the book The Global Nomad (2004), the use of terms like traveller and backpacker was often a means of distinction from other tourists. The growing currency of the tourist term among young travellers in this context perhaps reflects a growing realisation of the difficulties of maintaining such divisions in an increasingly complex travel landscape. The self-identification of young people when they travel is also an important issue that will be examined through the Cultsense project.

Dear Greg,

I'm grateful for this valuable response, pointing out something like an ongoing shift to "tourist" self-identification of young people when they travel, already noticed about two decades ago - at the beginning of the "integrated" in HE curricula student mobility, I would say. I'm eager to read about the current trends in self-identification of young travellers' new generation, as well as about the specific results and useful tools the Cultsense project will deliver. Best wishes!

I've always found that a short drop-in workshop to weave a very small item to take away is enjoyed by all ages. Am often impressed by the persistence of young students making the simplest item- a woven leaf or a rattle. It also gives them a chance to experience my working environment, to see and experience the life of a basketmaker working in the traditional way, following patterns laid down many thousands of years ago.