ABSTRACT
During the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in indigenous tourism. By utilising Ryan’s (2005) considerations on the issues in increasing the focus on indigenous tourism research, the main reasons for the touristic interests are related to the changes in the tourism industry and indigenous societies themselves. Although cultural elements and differences have attracted tourists for a relatively long time, the recent changes in the modes of tourism production and consumption have created growing markets for new and varying forms of cultural tourism activities, such as indigenous tourism. These changes in tourism are largely based on wider movements in Western production systems and related consumption modes from Fordism towards post-Fordism (Urry 1990), or from a mass scale to more individualised patterns of production and consumption. This has created growing and new kinds of demands for tourism, involving possibilities for a wide range of activities, attractions and cultural learning opportunities (Poon 1993; McIntosh 2004), for example, including the emergence of indigenous tourism.
