Klaus Westerhausen on the jadedness of travelers’ ghettos

“With the arrival of ever-increasing numbers of visitors at traveler centers such as Thamel in Kathmandu or Koh Phangan in Thailand, a previously balanced exchange relationship becomes increasingly more asymmetrically skewed against the hosts, who become relegated to the status of service providers. As a consequence, hosts perceive the psychological rewards to be minimal and withdraw their psychological cooperation. Therefore, it is not surprising that the degree of unfriendliness and hostility toward visitors tends to increase over the years and that those returning to a destination have noted a remarkable cooling of relations between visitors and locals.”
–Klaus Westerhausen, Beyond the Beach: An Ethnography of Modern Travelers in Asia (2002)