The Creative Destruction of Ainu Community in Hokkaido, Japan

Abstract

Indigenous tourism has become a global phenomenon. The diverse indigenous communities offer natural tourism attractions, unique cultural performances and various diverse heritage commodities. The implications of such developments on an Ainu community in Hokkaido, Japan, are explored through the application of the model of creative destruction. By adopting a qualitative approach, collecting data on tourist arrivals, investment by entrepreneurs and collecting residents' attitudes, it is shown that this tourism destination is in the second stage, advanced commodification, of the process of creative destruction, with signs that it is moving into the third stage, early destruction. Findings should be useful for other indigenous communities that are basing their development on cultural heritage tourism.

Keywords:

• Ainu
• Japan
• indigenous tourism
• tourism development
• creative destruction

Acknowledgement

The first author is very grateful for the funding support provided by the National Science Council of Taiwan (96-2415-H-034-006-SS2).