Tourism is one of the most important commercial and social activities of human being in our era. If we consider approximately 1 billion people is getting involved in tourism activities today, we could better comprehend how that sector is important in terms of business and social processes of our life. According to the statistical data of the United Nations World Travel Organization, UNWTO, the number of international tourists will exceed 1,5 billion in 2020 while the revenue from that economic activity would reach 1 trillion US dollar. It is obvious that as the economic welfare of the world people is increasing, the number of individuals making international tourism is going up. Within this process, its economic dimension and commercial significance is inducing innovative marketing strategies in the sector and emergence of new touristic destinations all over the world. In parallel to that progress, postmodernity appeared as the most influential social current prevails our century. As it appeared as a reaction to, or as some ague, within modernism and modernist values of enlightenment philosophy. After positivist, progressive, westernist and anti-traditionalist discourse of modernism, postmodernity defended subjectivity, importance of sub-cultures and tradition. We will not focus on postmodernism theories and go into details of that current but rather will seek to search the behavior of postmodern global tourist under influence of social and cultural signals of our time.
It should first be pointed out that in the current era, tourism cannot be explained only by visiting a touristic place and spending cheerful time over there, but what is more is that we must talk about a process of “commodification” in postmodern sense. Therefore, tourism should be perceived as a “product” or “a package of merchandise”, in which there are many different goods and services that a tourist is coming to consume. However, unlike modern tourism, postmodern tourists are striving to experience locality, authenticity and tradition that is distinct from western style. They usually escape from mass tourism, famous places and commonly preferred sea-sun-sand destinations. Quite contrary, postmodern tourists mainly chose nature based activities, mountains, extraordinary places where they can get enough adrenalin and feel authenticity. That newly emerging tourist type is adequately aware of limits of natural resources and their major focus are “green” and “natural environment”; therefore, one of the most fashionable destinations for them is: mountains. Franch formulates this type as “4-L tourism”, that is: landscape, leisure, learning and limit. 4-L tourists are quite responsible for nature, having high profile, global citizens those who are very sensitive about environment and sustainability of global resources, very respectful and curious about local culture and tradition. Furthermore, they tend to convert their experiences in a local area into a learning process[1].
If we would derive some results for the tourism of of Mount Erciyes from the aforementioned theoretical perspective and the effects of postmodernity on global tourists, then the first thing we must be careful about is to keep the authenticity of Erciyes. The most probable mistake in that process is to try to convert Erciyes into an Alpine fashion; that includes not only the style of skiing activities but also transformation of local attitudes, tradition, gastronomy, patterns of behavior etc. This is a very challenging, westernist and modernist trap for us to try to resemble European style mountain tourism by arguing that place is attracting millions of tourists from all over the world. What is vital and substantial stance in that process is to keep the authenticity of Erciyes in order to offer local taste, distinctive experiences, Kayseri’s specific cultural outlook and different traditional behaviors. Instead of ordinary marketing and introduction methods, our technique must be based on reading contemporary prevailing tendencies in tourism theories. Our major task must be to keep Erciyes as original as possible while providing visitors with the best social environment and most developed amenities along with the possibilities of 6000 civilization history of Kayseri.
Dr.Murat Cahid CINGI
Ph.D., European Union Politics and International Relations
[1] Franch, M., Martini, U., Buffa, F.,& Parisi G.(2008). 4L Tourism (landscape, leisure, learning, and limit): responding to new motivations and expectations of tourists to improve the competitiveness of Alpine destinations in a sustainable way. Tourism Review, 63, 4-14.