Some people assume that travelling plays an essential part in connecting people from different nations to make them understand each other’. While tourism can boost international cultural understanding, it is not always the case.
Admittedly, travellers can gain practical knowledge about indigenous lifestyles and culture through exploring tourist destinations in other countries. By directly joining the daily activities, visiting nature or communicating with dwellers, newcomers can understand more about the way of native life. For example, many foreigners experiencing rice harvest in Vietnam are offered a chance to be exposed to a signature activity as well as interact with locals. These exposures lead to better agricultural culture and local people understanding.
Despite the benefits tourism offers, it is not always a force for this understanding purpose. This can be seen in mass tourism, where some tourists focus mainly on comfort such as merely living in resorts, enjoying food in luxury restaurants or only communicating with servers in these places, instead of experiencing local food or local activities. Such convenience doesn’t offer any local understandings for these visitors, even sometimes resulting in culture misunderstanding due to the discrepancy between their experiences and the reality of local life.
In conclusion, in spite of valuable knowledge provision, travelling abroad is not always considered as a force in understanding locals’ life due to some unrealistic experience of tourists.