Ghost tourists in Gondar: Sustainable tourism and archaeological heritage

Summary

Literature in heritage and tourism usually addresses the multiple benefits of visitors, their threats and the controversial concept of ‘return’. As heritage managers we usually focus our efforts on these visitors, as the panacea for everything. In the context of postcolonial theory and public archaeology, there are two factors of this equation that we usually forget; local communities and the real recipients of the money.

Working in Gondar (Ethiopia) I have come to define the concept of the ‘ghost tourist’ in the context of a World Heritage Site and a great affluence. The concept of tourism in local education is far from being sustainable and, therefore, the alleged benefits of this tourism are questionable. Trying to change the model is a challenge, but it can address the problems the current situation and help building new capacities and real benefits in the way other projects are already working.

This paper will address the phenomenon of the ‘ghost tourist’ in Gondar and the solutions are being proposed to engage a sustainable model of tourism where archaeological heritage has a lot to say.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Archaeology and Tourism

Keywords

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