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Abstract

As tourist-sending organizations involved in humanitarian-oriented tourism, like volunteer and sustainable tourism, become more aware of the criticisms regarding their activities, and thus more concerned about their impacts, they increasingly utilize a discourse that encourages their participants’ deference toward the host populations. While discourse is acknowledged as integral to tourism, rarely are the behavioral impacts of discourse evaluated, and the discourse of deference circulating among tourists has never been examined. By looking at the specific case of the Presbyterian Church of the United States and a group of U.S. Presbyterian missionaries traveling to Cuba, this article provides an example of (1) what the discourse of deference is; (2) how it circulates, becomes internalized, and influences behavior; and (3) how those behavioral changes impact tourist–host power relations. Ultimately, this case provides awareness about the discourse of deference that circulates in broader, humanitarian-oriented tourism contexts.

Keywords

discourse of deference mission trips tourist–host power relationship volunteer tourism sustainable tourism

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The Discourse of Deference and Its Impact on Tourist–Host Power Relations

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Keywords

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