Yes, I do agree to a certain extent that the growth of tourism has led to the commodification of culture and traditions. From the moment tourism is introduced into a certain country as a revenue-generating sector, culture and traditions were basically transformed from something sacred and valuable into a tourism tool. Who did this?
Humans. The human nature of greed has gradually turned these once important culture and traditions into something not worth more than just monetary value. From there, we could actually see how tourism brought about by globalization has devastated the cultural aspect in that country. Now, let's take a look at the country which i have chosen, Spain.
In Spain, the tourism sector is flourishing. In fact, according to world tourism organization, Spain is the third most visited country from year 2006 to 2009. Spain is widely known for its great cuisine, beautiful architecture and amazing Spanish traditions and culture. The most popular cities of Spain include Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. Spain is a very vibrant country and a sure must visit place. It is also very globalised as there are good transportation systems in the country, and the people lead a busy yet fulfilling lifestyle. Yet, on the other hand, Spain has successfully preserved its local culture and traditions well. This can be seen from the unique showcase of flamenco and bullfights. These are some of the events which represents Spain. Of course, when we talk about Spain, famous football clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona definitely ring a bell. This shows the Spanish's enthusiasm for the sports arena.
Looking at those festivals and events held in Spain, we would not have imagined that such a globalised country like Spain actually has a flair for the culture and traditions. They manage to preserve these important cultural assets amidst the growing trend of commodifying your own culture. This makes me feel that this is something worth applauding. As Spain is separated into many cities and islands, there are a lot of different cultures an traditions in one single country. Each city is unique in one way or another. It is rather impressive that people actually come from all over the world just to participate in their festivals.
We shall now take a look at Spain's Gross Domestic Product, and how it has changed over the years, particularly the tourism sector. Spain has a tourism sector which contributes nearly 11% to the country's GDP, employing about 2 million of the labour force. Although most Spanish hold proper office jobs, there are still some parts of rural Spain where people are fishing and doing agriculture for a living.
It may seem that Spain's culture has not been lost even when the effect of globalization dwells on them. It may have somehow been commodified brought about by tourism. However, this does not apply to all. Perhaps, the whole festival and event gets a littlle too commodified as it is now attended by loads of tourists and not only locals. During a certain period of the year, the price of visiting Spain would be higher than other non-peak periods due to these festivals and events. In a way or another, this is a fact that we can't deny that cultures and traditions are being commodified to showcase that a country is unique in its way. The recent building of many theme parks in Spain has showed that country is trying to feed the demands of the tourist and are not willing to miss out on current trends of the tourism industry.
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