Rolf Potts on ethno-tourism

“As isolated cultures come into closer contact with modern visitors, they naturally become more and more likely to seek modern conveniences for themselves. The more these ethnic enclaves accumulate radios and motorbikes, of course, the less “authentic” they seem to appear — and thus they become less appealing to tourists. In places like Bali, ethnic villages have resorted to “staged authenticity” (hiding televisions and swapping t-shirts for ethnic outfits when tour buses show up) just to maintain their tourism-dependent economy. Granted, Balinese villagers are just as Balinese when dressed in blue jeans, but that simply doesn’t jibe with the fickle market demands of ethno-tourism. Consequently, we end up with these surreal scenarios, wherein tourists from Los Angeles will travel to Thailand to see relatively modernized Hmong villagers don ethnic costumes, yet those same tourists would never think to visit a community of similarly modern Hmong-Americans in Los Angeles. As historian Dagobert Runes quipped, “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” Or, to paraphrase a joke from Seinfeld, many ethno-tourists aren’t traveling the world to interact with exotic people — they’re traveling the world to interact with exotic clothing.”
–Rolf Potts, Vagabonding (2003)