This paper is concerned primarily with the article ‘Why Cultural Tourism is not a Quick Fix’ by Helen Palmer. The article appears on the website of the UK broadsheet newspaper ‘The Guardian’ and was published in April 2013. It concerns the phenomenon of ‘Cultural Tourism’ in which people visit places in order to sample and to gain an understanding of its culture and its output. It focuses on what the author believes should happen in terms of organization, preparation and planning in order to facilitate the best returns from cultural tourism in the UK. The central claim of the article is that cultural tourism requires a large degree of cooperation between different parties and that a successful return from it can only be seen after years of hard work and organisation. As such, it should not be seen as a quick fix. This paper will argue that, while Palmer makes important points about the nature of tourism and culture she fundamentally misunderstands how people understand the culture of a place when they travel and that, therefore, she places too much emphasis on organisation when it may not be necessary.

Palmer describes a successful plan for cultural tourism as needing to understand ‘the collective cultural destination, matching that offer to (and connecting with) the ‘wraparound’ industries (food, drink, hotels, shops and so on) and making sure that it’s all packaged in a way that is meaningful to the consumer.’ (Palmer, 2013) Palmer argues here that cultural tourism is simply the consumption of a pre-packaged commodity by the tourist and that this commodity is what one understands as ‘culture.’ In order to bring about this packaging then it is necessary for several industries to be involved. It also requires a ‘brutally honest appraisal of that collective cultural offer – everything from exhibition programmes to public transport, the public realm and places to stay.’ (Palmer, 2013) In order to achieve this then, she argues, it is necessary to implement several things. The first, and most important of these, is the idea of a ‘focused leadership, based on genuine partnership..’ (Palmer 2013)

It is necessary to understand this partnership as extending between the tourism industry itself and the culture industry; i.e. museums, galleries and theatres. If these are not organised in relation to each other then there is a danger that one may be presented with ‘a tourism sector often working two years ahead and a cultural sector supplying information months (and sometimes only weeks) ahead.’ Here Palmer’s essential claim is that tourists are attracted to a place by the tourism industry alone and that it is therefore essential for the cultural industries to keep pace and to make sure that the two spheres can co-ordinate their efforts in order to facilitate cultural tourism. Palmer then claims that tourists, whether cultural or not, are essentially passive individuals and as such they must be catered for accordingly. She writes; ‘potential visitors don’t want to be presented with everything that every venus is doing. They are already overloaded with information and choice. They want to know what’s relevant to them – and it’s the job of those of us working in cultural tourism to do the selecting for them.’ (Palmer 2013) Palmer calls this an ‘Editorial Approach’ and goes on to call for organisation to help in its streamlining and production. She ends her article with statement that really excellent cultural tourism is about ‘people and partnerships, good leader and ace-collaborators…without them its just another marketing gimmick.’ (Palmer 2013)

Throughout the article Palmer does not offer any empirical evidence to back up her claims. Rather, it all stems from her own personal opinion, although this opinion may well be based on a degree of experience. The most important point to critique in her article is that she consistently assumes that tourists are merely passive consumers who will only seek to experience what is given to them, and will become put off if they are offered too much, or if they do not understand precisely why they are being offered this. It is just as possible, and perhaps much more important, to argue that many many people travel to a place because they wish to explore it on their own terms and to understand the culture by making their own way through it. Many people choose to avoid heavily patrolled tourist sites for precisely the reason that they feel that they are being spoon fed experience which they could have in a more authentic way elsewhere or in a different guise. Palmer’s writing may work for one particular model of cultural tourism, but this model is certainly a reductive one.

It is also possible to criticise Palmer’s view of culture in general. She assumes that cultural tourism can only involve visiting the most common tourist point on the map, and that these collected together will somehow inform the tourist and will create a satisfying experience of ‘culture.’ However, when many people travel to a place they seek to understand its culture not merely in its tourists site but in the everyday life of the people who live there. They may wish to eat at local restaurants which lie off the beaten track, or simply to walk around neighbourhood and attempt to experience life from a local perspective. While this is certainly just as much an experience of tourism as anything else, these very common desires do serve to problematise an easy conception of cultural tourism as simply involving the most direct and obvious interactions with a place and its history. Once again, Palmer offers no evidence of what draws people to certain places, neither does she suggest that tourism can exist outside of her own views of it as a commodified entity to be passively consumed.

In conclusion, Amanda Palmer’s piece serves to provide a useful way of thinking about cultural tourism. However, it fundamentally misunderstands both ideas of ‘culture’ and of ‘tourism’ and because of this can be seen to have a very limited and reductive scope.