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ABSTRACT: Literature on rural and small island tourism critically questions the commodification of culture and landscapes, showing that replacing rural resource based industries with tourism often leads to a mummification of culture and questionable economic payoffs. Using original survey and qualitative data from three communities surrounding Labrador's Battle Harbour Historic District, this paper explores how rural and island communities perceive the benefits of tourism and interactions with tourists. The paper finds that residents value the cultural showcasing of their communities and history, but are ambiguous about the economic rewards of tourism. We conclude by questioning whether the cultural rewards of tourism, around meaning making, outweigh other rewards around promoting economically and socially viable communities.
Keywords: Atlantic Canada, Battle Harbour, Battle Island, culture, development, island tourism, Newfoundland, Labrador, rural tourism
© 2016 - Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Introduction
With the collapse of the ground fisheries in the 1990s, Atlantic Canada increasingly turned to tourism as a means to offset the economic loss (Baum 1999; Binkley, 2000; Corbett, 2005; George, Mair and Reid, 2009; George and Reid, 2005; Mason, 2002; Overton, 1996, 2007; Sullivan and Mitchell, 2012; Tye and Powers, 1998). Newfoundland and Labrador was no exception and since the introduction of the cod moratorium in 1992 its tourism economy expanded from 264,000 non-resident visitors that year to 518,000 in 2010. The tourism industry in the province, moreover, accounts for over 12,000 jobs and is worth over Can$800 million in direct and spin-off economic benefits (Government of Newfoundland & Labrador, 2009).
Much of the focus of the analysis of tourism in Atlantic Canada has been on assessing its economic rewards or costs. Far less research has looked at the more latent social and cultural impacts of the industry on local communities, particularly from the perspectives of residents. On the one hand, the social and cultural benefits of tourism may include an enriched sense of community identity, an enhanced sense of connection to local environments, and increased social capital from engaging with visitors and developing new skills. On the other, some question whether the tourism industry's commodification of local cultures and histories works to mummify rural societies or distract attention from deeper political economic problems in rural areas (George et al.,...