Commercializing Hospitality A New Concept for Residents of Viengxay, Laos Wantanee Suntikul ABSTRACT: Recently, small numbers of independent tourists and small groups have begun to visit the remote and poor region of Viengxay in northern Laos. This article is based on focus-group interviews and on-site observation in thirteen villages in Vi- engxay, intended to explore the perceptions and expectations of locals regarding their roles as hosts in this emerging tourism context. It discusses the ways in which locals are developing att itudes and practices of hospitality towards tourists. These practices are emerging under the infl uence of factors such as native cultural traditions, individ- ual and communal expectations and att itudes towards tourism, as well as historical factors arising from the area’s history of war and political isolation. Although locals intuitively treat tourists according to their society’s ‘traditional’ treatment of guests, this treatment is also modifi ed to refl ect an appreciation that tourists are a specifi c type of guest for which the rules of hospitality may need to be reinterpreted. Locals’ perceptions of tourists and behaviour in their relations with tourists are evolving as a result of growing contact between locals and tourists and the concomitantly changing expectations from and understanding of the tourism industry. This article articulates common themes for conceptualising the ways in which hospitality practices in the Viengxay villages are emerging from interaction and confl ict of these various aspects. KEYWORDS: cave tourism; development; heritage; hospitality; tourism; Viengxay, Laos; Vietnam War tourism Introduction the number of these visitors from afar will increase steadily in coming years, due in part The district of Viengxay is located in the re- to development projects initiated by interna- mote forested northern Laotian Province of tional organizations. Houaphanh. It is home to members of several This research addresses the question of how diff erent indigenous ethnic groups, many of local people in Viengxay perceive their roles whom live in small villages and maintain vis-à-vis tourists within the emerging tour- many aspects of their ‘traditional’ way of ism context of their local area. Lashley (2007) life. A small but growing number of tourists, has writt en that change in perceptions and mostly independent or in small groups, have practices of host–guest relations in developing been ‘discovering’ and visiting Viengxay in tourism contexts is an important area for re- the past few years. The locals who inhabit search. Tourism and hospitality development the villages of this area are unaccustomed to in Viengxay is still in the very early stages, but receiving tourists, but it is anticipated that it is expected that visitor fl ows will increase Anthropology in Action, 19, 3 (2012): 21–36 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action doi:10.3167/aia.2012.190303 AiA | Wantanee Suntikul signifi cantly. This article captures the cur- society that receives him or her, especially in rent state of intangible cultural factors at this the case of developing societies. Anthropolo- early stage, and serves as a reference point for gists have studied processes of ‘acculturation’ future policy and development in the area. It through which societies that come into con- provides a benchmark against which future tact through tourism borrow characteristics or evolution in local people’s perception of the practices from one another (Greenwood 1977; nature of their role in tourism in their area can Burns 1999). In the anthropological literature, be compared as tourism develops and as local the relations and interactions that happen in people become accustomed to participating in tourism are oft en seen as being characterized the tourism economy. by segregation and asymmetry (Krippendorf 1986; Nash 1989; MacCannell 2001) and even as a type of imperialism (Turner and Ash 1975). Anthropology and Tourism Host societies develop ‘coping strategies’ (Boissevain 1996) to deal with the infl ux of Because of the multidisciplinary nature of tourists and the accompanying commodifi ca- tourism studies, Crick (1989) has doubted that tion of their culture. Other strains of anthro- it could become a unifi ed fi eld, arguing instead pology see commodifi cation as an agent of that tourism must be studied from a number preservation for cultural traditions (Cohen of perspectives. Among these many relevant 1988). Adams (1996) sees culture as being co- angles of approach to tourism studies, Burns constructed by hosts and visitors in the tour- (1999) remarked on the natural affi nities be- ism relation through their interactions, rather tween tourism as a fi eld of knowledge and an- than as something that existed in ‘authentic’ thropology, in that both deal with issues of form prior to tourism contacts (Dicks 2003). human culture and dynamics. An anthropo- Recent anthropological studies in tourism logical approach is particularly cogent in gain- have investigated issues such as cultural sur- ing an understanding of tourism, which tends vival as it relates to tourist host societies’ rights to deal with the interfacing of diff erent cul- to self-determination (McIntosh 1999) and the tures through the interactions of hosts and eff ects of the commodifi cation of culture on lo- guests (Nash 1981; Burns and Holden 1995). cal identities (Medina 2003). As cited in Nash (1996), the original applica- The following section examines in more tion of anthropological concepts to the study detail the particularities of the relationship of tourism has been att ributed to Nuñez’s 1963 between hosts and guests in the tourism and study of tourism in rural Mexico. The growth hospitality context. of anthropological studies in tourism has par- alleled the increase in global tourism over the past fi ft y years (Holden 2005), especially to the The Concept of Hospitality less-developed countries in which anthropolo- gists tend to work (Nash 1996). The cultural The relationship between host and guest is cen- practice of tourism has been associated with tral to the concept of hospitality. ‘Traditional’ post-modernism (Urry 1990) and thus linked cultures associate the host–guest relationship with the discourses of post-modernity within with diff erent degrees and types of obligations, anthropology. while modern societies are less likely to see ‘Culture’ is of course a central concern of hospitality as a matt er of social duty and more anthropology. The tourist becomes an ‘agent of as an economic and commercially institution- contact between cultures’ (Nash 1989: 37) who alised activity. The concept of a ‘hospitality in- can also be an agent for cultural change in the dustry’ and use of the words ‘guest’ and ‘host’ 22 | Commercializing Hospitality | AiA in such commercial contexts is seen by some as tality typically has both commercial and socio- paradoxical or ironic (Heal 1990; Burn 1999) cultural aspects, both of which have been and later Smith and Brent (2001) have edited receiving increasing interest recently (Brother- volumes investigating the nature of the host– ton 1999; Brotherton and Wood 2000, Lashley guest relationship in tourism within diff erent 2000; Lashley and Morrison 2000). This dual cultural contexts, and the impacts of these nature can lead to confl icts in the aims and relations on various host societies. Telfer (2000) values at play in the practice of hospitality, es- identifi es three types of hospitality: that of- pecially from the position of the hosts (Selwyn fered to one’s friends, that off ered to members 2000; Telfer 2000). Of primary interest in this of one’s wider social circle, and ‘good Samari- article is the notion of hospitality as a specifi c tan’ hospitality off ered to strangers in need. discourse by which relations between locals Though the off ering of hospitality originated and tourists, who take the roles of hosts and as a private domestic matt er, the same word guests, are framed. King (1995) has shown that has come to be used to refer to the selling of hospitality is a cultural practice embodied in a similar amenities as a commercial service (Wal- society’s customs and rules. Hospitality takes ton 2000). Tourism can thus be conceptualised diff erent guises in diff erent situations, and as ‘commercialised’ or ‘industrialised’ hospi- evolves within a society over time (Gray and tality (Leiper 1979). While acknowledging an Ligouri 1980; Wood 1994). This evolution has apparent contradiction in the use of the same been described in terms of an increasing shift term to refer to a freely off ered act of generos- towards the commercial aspect of hospitality ity in a domestic context and a commodity and away from the cultural (Greenwood 1977), sold for monetary profi t, the distinction is not or as a transition from a native culture to an always clear-cut. For instance, Telfer (2000) emergent tourism culture (Cohen 1996). fi nds that a commercial operator off ering gen- Hospitality relations are oft en characterised erous service and reasonable prices, with a by contact and interaction between people real concern for the comfort and enjoyment of from diff erent cultures who might otherwise her guests, can without irony be called ‘hospi- never meet. Through the provision of not just a table’. Distinctions between commercial and place to stay but also a venue for intercultural non-commercial practices are not a priori and contact between hosts and guests (as well as are constantly being negotiated (Hochschild between guests and other guests), the ‘life- 2003; Hultman and Cederholm 2009). The per- style values’ of rural host societies become the formance of hospitality relations can serve to ‘tourism values’ that are marketed to and con- reaffi rm existing societal structures and prac- sumed by predominantly urban tourists (Hult- tices, but can also transform such structures man and Cederholm 2009: 128). In assuming and practices (Selwyn 2000).