| Abstrakt: |
Goffman conceived a division of social establishments which he called region. A region for him was any place in some way limited by obstacles to perception. He distinguished two regions: 'front' and 'back'. In turn, MacCannell applied Goffman's classification to tourism. According to him, tourists show a special fascination with the 'real lives' of others. These 'real lives' can only be found in the back regions. MacCannell argued that, in the face of an influx of mass tourists, host communities seek to protect and isolate their culture by creating back regions. In these, the natives continue their significant traditions outside the eyes of tourists. Conversely, it is in the front regions that the natives perform a limited range of activities for tourist audiences. The tourism front region (or front stage) is, therefore, the place where hosts and guests meet and the tourism back region (or backstage) is the place where the hosts retreat, during the performance interval, to relax and prepare. This study aims to demonstrate the applicability of this concept to the interactions between hosts and guests that occur in Historic Housing Tourism (HHT). The results presented here emerged from a qualitative study in which 53 homeowners of HHT units were interviewed. The technique used for data collection and analysis was Grounded Theory (GT). In this study we found that, in the first phase of implantation of the HHT, which we called improvisation (1980s in most houses), the propensity for informalization was more evident. At this stage, there was a tendency to transform almost every region of the house in backstage. In the current phase of implementation of HHT, which we called the professionalization, formalization begins to acquire more and more importance. Hence, there is a tendency to erect more pronounced front regions and there is less fluidity between regions than in the improvisation phase. From the theory that we developed, using GT, two properties of HHT emerged which we named 'segregating' and 'approaching' that brought an empirical confirmation to Goffman's theory. Spatial segregation is, thus, a means of preserving the intimacy of the HHT unit's host family. In an interdisciplinary perspective, this study presents preliminary contributions in the management of historic housing tourism and tourism management (e.g. companies and destinations perspective). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
