Tourism and Cultural Interaction: A Paradoxical Relationship

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to discuss and contribute to the understanding of the relationship between tourism and cultural interaction, as well as the relationship between people of different cultural backgrounds in tourist context. The interaction between cultures framed by an ideal intercultural communication is frequently the center of a tourism discourse, promoting a possible heavenly world brought by tourism. This paper argues that its relationship is, by definition, problematic because of the complexities of the tourism and the cultural phenomena, clearly shown on the contemporary social and scientific debate about monoculturalism, multiculturalism and interculturalism, and the problems and paradoxes it entails. The discourses of international organizations on the specific subjects of cultural issues and relationships, having in mind their institutional roles, also reflect, in their choices and silences, the complexity of the subject. The main conclusion of this piece of research is that such a relationship is inescapably complex, and sometimes paradoxical and contradictory or irreducible due to the complex natures of tourism and intercultural communication themselves.
 
 Received: 18 January 2021 / Accepted: 2 March 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021

From a Communist Heritage to an Unwanted Past: The Case of Romania

“…Our research was focused on the following themes: tourism, politics and ideology, through its theoretical implication in the world (10,18,19,20); the modern history of Romania, so as to understand its inherent nationalism and political background (3,4,6); the concept of 'Communist Heritage' and its application in Romania, in order to better comprehend the communist regime's cultural legacy in the country (8,21); the history of communist tourism in the Romanian post-communist age, so as to understand its phases and influence on the 21st century Romania (5,14); comparing the communist tourism in Hungary, in order to formulate different approaches to a similar ideological background (1,21,22); types of tourism inherited from the communist age, constituting a better knowledge of what was offered in the socialist period and in present times (7,9); nation branding strategies in current Romania, so as to comprehend the drifting from the communist past to other mediums of tourism offering (12,13).…”