Ethnotourism

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Comment by Roger Vila Orriols on October 31, 2009 at 8:36pm

Hello. The spanish state is not helping at all to develop other languages like catalan, basc or gallego. So this comunities decide to develop alone in all ways inside legal constitution to make stronger the local goverment. we atracted the tourist. If the state doesnt help then we need to show other people that our culture is interesting too. we start to develope our resources to beaches, bars, dicotecs, and putting all in catalan and even flyers in english and catalan and spanish. we offer cuture all year on streets or in close places to show tourists we exists. Tourism can be a problem. Now in Barcelona too much tourism, massive tourism that doesnt care about culture. Thats a problem. With money from tourists we started to create radio programms, television chanels and magazines and people strated to beleive and start to speak and respect lenguage and more important to publish in catalan and not in spanish. Now we try with cinema, half spanish half catalan. 30 years trying. Most important is to make poeple to beleive that their language is good, and at the same lavel as others languages. Give them ways to belief in their culture.

Comment by Oliver Loode on October 31, 2009 at 10:11am

Aivar - Roger's point of view appears to be that tourism helps the community be economically more self-sufficient and, as a result, be better able to preserve and transmit its culture - thus creating a kind of virtuous circle. When I was speaking in Kudymkar last week at the Finno-Ugric youth forum, I brought a similar example based on your own Soomaa.com. My argument was as follows: what truly differentiates your offer is the 'haabjas', ie the dugout canoe / 'lodka-dolbljanka' which is part of the region's ancient cultural heritage. Just a few decades ago, however, the old tradition of building such canoes was at risk of being forgotten. The prospect of using it as a tourism asset helped revive the tradition and, indeed, helps keep the tradition alive. So we appear to see this virtuous circle in action - wouldn't you agree? Also, feel free to add some details on this story. I think this could be a 'classic case' of Finno-Ugric ethnotourism :)

Comment by Aivar Ruukel on October 31, 2009 at 7:37am

Rogers viewpoint is interesting, seeing tourism as an important tool for community, where there is not enough, or not at all, existing public sector support.... do I understand correct?

Comment by Oliver Loode on October 29, 2009 at 3:51pm

Thanks, Roger. Any particular examples in terms of destinations (towns, villages) or tourism companies (tour operators, hotels, restaurants, etc.) that have been particularly good at presenting Catalan culture to tourists? And what makes them so good at it?

Comment by Roger Vila Orriols on October 29, 2009 at 3:18pm

Hello, my name is Roger. Im catalan. In my experience tourism is good for the small comunities to survive when the state is not helping. When you get some money then you can build radio programs, newspapers and television. In catalunya we survive as a comunity because we created our oun tourist business. People after visit Barcelona they learn about catalan culture. ..
I think its necessary for Uralic languages build their business to survive. Modest opinion