A study on tourists’ perceived authenticity in Gala Village, Nyingchi Prefecture

ABSTRACT

Tourism is the process of escaping everyday routines and seeking out authentic experiences of ‘the others’. Under the backdrop of social development, tourists’ definitions of authentic experiences differ in varying social contexts. Through a qualitative study of tourists in the minority ethnic village of Gala in the Nyingchi Prefecture, this study finds that the authentic experiences of such tourists are composed of objective authenticity, constructive authenticity and existential authenticity as part of circles of representation, ritual, nostalgia, and interactive authenticity. However, Authenticity is perceived differently by Han tourists and Tibetan tourists. Simultaneously, in the process of the tourism experience, tourists reshape self-reflection and self-significance. The results of this study have implications for the further development of the tourism authenticity framework, for exploring the process of tourism authenticity evolution, and for refining the concept of tourism authenticity.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism authenticity
• social context
• Gala Village
• Nyingchi Prefecture
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Senyao Sang, PhD, is a lecturer in the School of Tourism and Foreign Language, Tibet University. His research interests include tourism geography, tourist behavior and tourism sociology.

ORCID

Senyao Sang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1660-1006

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China under grant number 18CGL023; Humanities and Social Science Research Project for Colleges and Universities of Tibet Autonomous Region under grant number SK2017-10.