Discuss the Relevance of Studying Guest Host Relationship.
The Guest Host relationship is a very sensitive area and needs to be researched before a policy can be evolved. In most cases a trial and error method prevails with hit and miss stories of the consequences of tourism abound.
There are two aspects of this relationship:
The Host Expectation
- Income
- Employment
- Consumer Goods
- Social interaction
- Respect and dignity
- Culture, private and public
- Living within a community
- Tourism Consciousness
The Guest Expectation
- Stranger/other
- Resources and Attractions
- Transport and infrastructure
- Transport and infrastructure
- Safety/Security
- Curiosity and novelty
- Value for money
- Cultural interaction
After studying the above list one can very easily see how the guest host relationship has to be handled at the policy level before tourism defeats the very purpose for which it is liked.
The reason problems like volume, type of tourist, type of tourism and the nature of the tourism industry have to be determined by local and national participation is that both the guest and the host are likely to be safeguards of the industry and the bureaucracy. The Government and the industry looks only at the bottom line and not at human elements that go to make for a fruitful exchange of civilizations.
As culture on the one hand becomes more homogenized and on the other less eurocentric resistance to western style tourism is going to increase both for inbound and outbound tourism unless this consciousness is communicate both to the tourist and the people at the destination a healthy guest host relationship will hover around a relativistic ideal which fails time and again.
