Abstract
Culture and heritage make an important contribution to South Africa’s competitiveness as a tourism destination. By focusing on South Africa’s cultural diversity as a unique competitive factor, more tourists can be attracted to the country. Between 2012 and 2019, an average of 11,03 million tourists visited South Africa annually. The COVID-19 pandemic unfortunately had a devastating impact on many industries in the tourism sector. Apart from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa’s cultural industry within the tourism sector is no longer growing and new tourism development is needed to stimulate tourist numbers that visit cultural attractions.
In multicultural societies such as South Africa, it is more difficult to prioritise specific cultures’ attractions, yet tourism can be used to fill the gaps. The Afrikaner culture is one such group that can be preserved by generating income through tourism. An Afrikaner cultural attraction is a place where Afrikaner cultural elements are presented around a specific theme, and the necessary facilities and services are available to tourists. Afrikaner attractions include the Kasteel de Goede Hoop, Huguenot Monument and Museum, Voortrekker Monument and National Women’s Monument and War Museum. Most Afrikaner cultural attractions have static presentations of Afrikaner culture (e.g. information boards and pamphlets), which only attract a specific cultural tourist interested in museums and monuments. This is problematic because Afrikaner cultural attractions do not offer tourist satisfaction, leading to a decrease in tourist numbers that visit these attractions.
A possible solution to this problem is creative cultural tourism, which focuses on creating a participatory experience for tourists. Creative cultural tourism is a global trend and actively involves the tourist in creating their own experience, through for example workshops, participating in traditional dances and other interactive ways of interpretation. Unfortunately, there is a gap in the literature on Afrikaner culture as a contemporary tourism attraction and limited literature on the creative principles that should be used to offer tourists a creative Afrikaner culture experience. The study determines which cultural elements should be presented at an Afrikaner cultural attraction and how the cultural elements can be creatively presented.
Fourteen creative principles were identified in the literature; however, for the purpose of this paper, five overarching principles were tested, namely active participation, interaction, authenticity, a learning experience and a polythematic approach. The theoretical foundation of this paper focuses on creative cultural tourism, the creative principles as part of the tourist’s experience and the developments and challenges of creative cultural tourism within South Africa. The empirical study was carried out by following a qualitative research method, a phenomenological research approach to obtain cultural tourists’ experiences of creative tourism. The researchers designed an invitation for research participants and distributed it on the Facebook pages of Afrikaner cultural attractions, after which participants could email the researcher. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to put questions to the research participants. The interview schedule comprised mainly open-ended questions pertaining to demographic information, Afrikaner cultural elements and creative principles of tourism. The results obtained were captured via voice recordings, transcribed into Word and categorised in themes and subthemes according to Creswell’s six data analysis steps.
Interviews were conducted with 15 national and international cultural tourists who had visited an Afrikaner cultural attraction. The results show that the five most important cultural elements to be presented at Afrikaner attractions are, in order of importance, history, language, music and dance, food and traditional way of life. Tourists want to experience these cultural elements, especially through active participation, interaction and a polythematic approach. Furthermore, results revealed that participants in the study considered food to be the most suitable cultural element that could be creatively presented at cultural tourism attractions. As the participants suggested, cultural tourism attractions could integrate culinary tourism experiences with the current cultural experience by offering food workshops, tasting experiences and food festivals. An on-site restaurant would be ideal to continually present traditional dishes and involve the tourists in the preparation. History is also considered a very important element in the creative presentation of culture. Here the focus is on learning experience, active participation, interaction and a polythematic approach. Cultural attractions can focus on using technology and well-trained tour guides to convey history more creatively. Using applications, virtual technology, computers, and electronic games can enable children and teenagers, in particular, to gain a more valuable learning experience. The traditional way of life has been indicated as one of the cultural elements that should be promoted through active participation and interaction. It is also the only element where authenticity is identified as an important creative aspect. The traditional way of life of the Afrikaners can be presented creatively by means of storytelling, role-play and events such as a barbecue or market day. However, it is essential that the cultural attractions carry out careful research and training to ensure that the traditional lifestyle being transmitted is completely based on facts and history. Overall, the results emphasise the importance of interaction and active participation. Consequently, the renewal of cultural attractions is essential; tourists no longer want merely to see and read. Tourists want to understand and be part of what they experience.
The study’s recommendations are aimed at marketers and managers of existing or prospective Afrikaner cultural attractions, academics and the general public, focusing on Afrikaner cultural tourism. The results confirmed that cultural tourists desire a creative presentation of Afrikaner cultural elements and that these elements and the creative principles should be integrated to offer a positive cultural experience. The research has several contributions to literature and the tourism industry. Creative tourism can be used at Afrikaner attractions and other cultural tourism attractions to enhance the experience and expand the cultural tourism market.
Keywords: Afrikaner culture; co-creation; creative cultural tourism; cultural elements; cultural tourism; experiences
Lees die volledige artikel in Afrikaans:
Die kreatiewe aanbieding van kultuurelemente binne Afrikanerbesienswaardighede