Model Cultural Tourism: Bali and Hawaii

In different parts of the world tourism receiving countries have developed several types of model cultural centers like Williamsburg, Plymouth Plantation, Old Sturbridge Village, and Mystic Seaport in the United States, as well as in many folk museums of Europe. This is a kind of reconstruction of a historic past. These turn time back a century or two, affording a scale against which visitors can measure progress, and be reminded of the hardships encountered by their forebears. Many are also “living museums” where school children may spend a day or two and learn firsthand history. In addition to Hawaii’s Polynesian Cultural Center, other ethnographic models include Fiji’s Orchid Island, Bangkok’s Rose Garden-Thailand in Miniature, and korea’s Folk Village. Smaller versions operate in cities such as Jakarta, Manila, and Cairo. Popular and profitable, these models appear to meet the ethnic expectations of the tourist. Although only a reconstruction of the life-style they had hoped to observe, these models offer a more accurate ethnographic view than is reflected in the modern native culture, and allow the visitor the freedom to wander and photograph at will. Model cultures also offer another distinct advantage, especially at tourist sites where the physical presence of humans may cause damage. The actual Paleolithic caves of Lascaux (France) with their world-renowned polychrome paintings are now closed to the public to prevent exfoliation of the paint. However, the surrogate display is in some ways more graphic than the original. Similarly, the Viking settlement at L’ Anseaux meadows in northern Newfoundland would have been destroyed by visitors tramping through the archaeological pits, but now-reconstructed village provides a fine interpretive center that documents the Viking ventures into the New World, and fully merits its number one rank on the United Nation’s World Patrimony list. Even the spread of popular fantasies, in the Disneylands of Tokyo and Paris, provide forms of model cultures for “children of all ages” for they too have internal “theme villages” and fairy-tale motifs.

Further construction of model cultures is to be expected and should be warmly received as long as the models remain reasonably accurate. Model cultures have the great advantage of structuring tourist visits to a site away from the daily lives of ordinary people.