Advantages and disadvantages of tourism for handicrafts
In recent decades, the tourism industry has experienced significant progress and growth.
According to Siri in Iran, after the oil and car trade, the tourism industry is a global revenue-generating industry. Most countries have a special view of the tourism industry because of the important role it can play in the economy of countries. One of the economic benefits of tourism is to help the destination country’s handicrafts flourish. Most tourists who travel to a country buy from handicrafts to pave the way for the prosperity of these products.
Benefits of tourism for handicrafts:
The long-standing relationship between tourism and handicrafts and the mutual benefits they have had for each other have led to the strengthening of the relationship between the two today, based on various reasons. The following are some of the benefits of tourism for handicrafts:
1- Handicrafts can provide a good source of income for museums and historical sites and help to better preserve these places.
2. Tourism can provide an alternative market for traditional objects produced in underdeveloped societies and ensure the survival of existing jobs.
3. The instrument of interest of tourists along with visiting the sights of Iran to handicrafts can stimulate the local market and revitalize some of the obsolete arts and crafts.
4. Crafts and their acceptance in the wider world creates a sense of identity for indigenous peoples who come on stage and negotiate their place in the world. When handicrafts are properly valued, they strengthen indigenous identities and encourage individuals to uphold traditions, perpetuate cultural heritage, and maintain the quality of their products.
5. The production of handicrafts is a social responsibility and a sustainable activity that in many parts of the world causes the loss of productivity of the simple director. If people are directly involved in the production and supply of handicrafts, workers also have a clear definition of how to deal with it.
Although handicrafts and tourism clearly create a range of cooperation that can benefit both the tourist and the host community, this practice also carries risks.
Disadvantages and risks of tourism for handicrafts:
1- The development of tourism can lead to the growth of unequal communication between the manufacturer and the consumer against the final seller. The more people go through the distribution process, the higher the final price will be, but a small profit from this high price will go to the original manufacturer. On the other hand, in many cases, the final consumer buys the product at a price higher than its real value, which can eventually lead to his dissatisfaction and sometimes become a deterrent to the purchase of industries. In the meantime, the middlemen get the most profit, and this unequal relationship and the small profit of the main manufacturer can lead to motivation and eventually exit from the production process of handicrafts. Establishing cooperatives is a solution that has worked in many indigenous communities in North America, Australia and Europe. Cooperatives are responsible for all areas of distribution, and therefore their members directly benefit more.
2 – Lack of knowledge of manufacturers of proper pricing methods is another problem. Most indigenous artisans are unaware of the true value that consumers place on their products and do not know enough about the various pricing strategies. As a result, they offer very low prices instead of the real value of their handicrafts, because intermediaries have already bought their products at low prices and convinced them that the real value of their products is the prices offered by them; So in most cases, the handicrafts purchased at the construction site are very cheap. This is true not only for handicrafts, but also for other tourism industry retailers.
3. The popularity that tourism creates for handicrafts may ultimately lead to the exploitation of handicraft producers. On the one hand, the development of tourism in an area increases the demand for handicrafts, and on the other hand, few producers have the ability to industrialize their production process, so most people have to work longer hours. The pressure of high demand can turn an enjoyable activity into a grueling job that does not benefit workers’ efforts and leads to their exploitation.
4. In the case of dysfunctional management, tourism can lead to the dehydration of a region’s handicrafts and lead manufacturers to create stereotypes or works with non-indigenous patterns. This causes producers to produce only works according to the wishes of tourists, without considering the original identity of the works and trying to offer products that reflect a revived cultural tradition with a variety of skills and innovations. The Thai government, for example, tried to produce hand-made textiles with unique weaving patterns that were popular with tourists, so it implemented a program without consulting the local community. The escalation of conflicts between producers and the spread of conflicting tastes of different groups of society have led people to conclude that the need to produce the objects that tourists like leads them to anonymity in making unique patterns of their weaving.