Open Conference Systems, Nordic Geographers Meeting 2011

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Between Tourists and Local Copenhageners – the Guided Tours as a Negotiated Performance
Jane Meged

Last modified: 2011-03-26

Abstract


The guided tour has often been depicted as a rehearsed, highly choreographed and superficial performance taking  place in an environmental bubble with no real contact to local life (see Boorstin 1977, Schmidt 1979, Edensor 1998 )  In the recently defended Ph.D. "The Guided Tour - A Co-produced Tourism Performance", it is argued that the guided tour has an open format of dialogic interaction  (se Bruner 2005) which not only takes place between tourists and guides, but also between the two parties and third persons like local police, custodians, shopkeepers, local by- passers etc, who constantly enter and leave the scene (in a Goffmanian sense) From a rich empirical material based on video observations, participant observations and follow-up interviews of 17 guided tours in and around Copenhagen, it is explored how the locals may be dragged on or invite themselves on the scene. Contact with locals (including the local guide) may add to the excitement and elevate the credibility of the performance, in particular when the actors apply the strategy of intimacy sharing their private and personal selves. At the same time controversial or social weak locals are generally ignored when they conflict with the overall promoting and positive ethos of a guided tour, just like some encounters between tourist and local, may be negative and to prevent this the guide apply the logistic strategies. It is investigated how the tourism performance is negotiated both in the actual encounters, but also behind the scene where the tourists use and access to public space may be restricted in some areas of the city, while they are warmly welcomed in others.