Exploring the authenticity of the tourist experience in culture heritage tourism in South Africa

[摘要] The research question addressed by this dissertation is: How is the tourist experienceformed and what constitutes the authenticity of the tourist experience for two marketsegments (motivated and not motivated by learning) of tourists visiting (political) culturalheritage sites in South Africa. The study explores the correlation between three types ofauthenticity, namely objective, constructed and existential on two independent touristsamples, motivated and not motivated by learning.This research was initiated for three reasons. The first reason forms part of the researchproblem; South African cultural experiences received the lowest ratings from theinternational tourists despite the fact that culture and heritage play a role in reimagingSouth Africa from Big 5 destination into It's possible' and Leave ordinary behind'. It wassuspected that not all types of cultural heritage products justify such a low ratings,especially not the political cultural heritage sites South Africa is famous for. The secondreason emerged from the academic literature on authenticity theories and calls from theinfluential group of postmodernist scholars to declare the objective authenticity obsoleteand replace it with the existential authenticity. The argument that; the hyperreal nature ofthe postmodern experience and its detachment from reality makes the authenticity of thesite redundant, seemed inapt for cultural heritage sites exclusively dependent on theirhistorical and authentic values. The third reason was the inability of the postmodernparadigm to explain the new tourism phenomenon driven by the tourists search for selfdevelopmentthrough authentic experiences. The new emerging paradigm, transmodernityseemed to offer better theoretical framework in explaining the omnivorouessness oftourists' consumption and the authentic nature of tourist experiences.The correlational character of the research question required a descriptive correlationaldesign and quantitative methodology. The selected research instrument for primary datacollection is a self–administered questionnaire. The sampling strategy is a non–probabilitysampling, and the sampling method is a convenience or accidental sample. The data wascollected from November 2010 to February 2011 at the Constitutional Hill National Heritage Site in Johannesburg. The final sample (436) consists of 254 foreign and 182domestic tourists.The questionnaire was designed to identify the variables pertinent to each type ofauthenticity of tourists experience and of the resultant tourist experience. The dataanalysis provided very interesting results. Firstly, the results of crosstabulation proved thatmore than half (56%) of the tourists expressed strong agreement that the Constitution Hillprovided them with authentic experience, hence a proof that political heritage sites are notresponsible for the overall low experiential ratings of the country's culture and heritage.Secondly, the results of the Spearman's correlation coefficient proved that objectiveauthenticity as an independent variable have strong positive correlation with constructedand existential authenticity hence a proof that objective authenticity cannot be declaredobsolete and replaced with existential authenticity. Finally, the results of the t–test provedthat motivation for learning and place of birth do not play an important role in how touristevaluate and experience the authenticity of the site pointing to the omnivorous nature oftourist consumption. In line with the transmodern paradigm, motivation for learning plays acritical role in triggering the transformative, authentic experience distinctive of theexistential authenticity. The results of the study also showed that 32% of tourists are infact the purposeful, New Age, transmodern Cultural Creatives. Proposed theoreticalmodel of authenticity of tourists experience presents a theoretical platform for futureresearch studies.

[发布机构] North-West University