On Tourism and Authenticity

This guy is so hardcore.Central to MacCannell’s thesis that the tourist experience is composed of front and back regions, the latter of which the tourist attempts to gain access, is that the tourist “demands authenticity” in his travel experiences (600). While the desire to experience a place “authentically” is present in a tourist’s travels, I argue that this desire is not the organizing principle of a typical tourist trip.
MacCannell writes, “touristic consciousness is motivated by its desire for authentic experiences, and the tourist may believe that he is moving in this direction, but often it is very difficult to tell for sure if the experience is authentic in fact” (597). In his view, the tourist’s ultimate goal is to achieve an “authentic experience.” MacCannell’s notion of “authenticity” seems to consist of transcending “front regions,” or spaces set up for the sole purpose of facilitating “touristic visitation” (597). However, merely gaining access to a region further from the “front” is not enough to ensure an authentic experience. MacCannell associates the authentic experience with the sharing of the “real life” practices of the places visited, or making “incursions into the life of the society they visit” (594). “Real life practices” or “back regions” consist of the behind-the-scenes spaces: kitchens of restaurants, backstages of shows, mail boats, factories.
While the “off-the-beaten-path” phenomenon is certainly present in the modern tourist mindset, perhaps it is not as prevalent as MacCannell deems it to be. There are certainly tourists who visit a place with a list of objectives to accomplish. For example, in Paris, the formula might consist of taking the requisite photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame; eating the requisite baguette; and making the requisite visit to the Louvre. These objectives drive the trip to Paris, as opposed to the motivation to cross into back regions. If the tourist is fortunate enough to gain access to a back region, it is an added perk to the trip, a bonus point, maybe even a highlight, but it is neither the focus nor the motive of the tourist’s travels.
MacCannell offers an explanation for the difficulty a tourist has in finding himself experiencing authenticity. He cites Daniel Boorstin’s observation that the tourist “is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes ‘sight-seeing.’ … He expects everything to be done to him and for him” (600). When traveling to a foreign place, being “in the know” is difficult; it requires a considerable amount of effort to experience the place visited like a native, to know where to go and what to do. Without actively seeking a more “authentic experience” than formulaic tourist visits, the tourist will unlikely gain access to any back regions of authenticity.
However, MacCannell’s analysis completely omits any discussion of time constraints during travel and the role that they play in shaping the experience of the tourist. A tourist may “demand authenticity” on an indefinite trip abroad. However, time constraints invariably dictate the amount of time a tourist may spend on the seeking of authentic experience. On a condensed trip, a tourist may part with the desire for accessing back regions in order to see the front regions, take the photo, and move on to the next objective. A tourist with four days in Paris may choose to take the open-air double-decker tour bus in the interest of seeing as much as possible in a short period of time. A student spending four months in Paris will have more time to access authenticity, but may choose to spend his last days in Paris visiting the sites that he hadn’t yet seen. The tourist may “demand authenticity,” but only when time permits.