ABSTRACT

Some form of socio-cultural impact is an inevitable part of the hostvisitor relationship because tourism brings together regions and societies that are normally characterised by varying degrees of difference. The visitors will tend to originate in a developed, urbanised and industrialised society and will carry with them the beliefs, values and expectations that such societies promulgate. But as the spatial range over which tourists roam is extended (and given the predisposition of many tourists to seek out places that are different), so the likelihood increases that encounters between hosts and visitors will bring together opposing tendencies and experiences: development and underdevelopment; pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial; traditional and (post)modern; urban and

rural; affluence and poverty; etc. It has also been observed that such encounters are often unequal or unbalanced in character, not just in terms of material inequalities but in context too: the visitor at leisure and probably enjoying novel situations, whilst the host pursues the familiar routine of work.