Más allá de la Globalización: La «Glocalización» del Turismo

Abstract

In tourism studies, globalization and localization are often conceived of as as a binary opposition. The ethnography of an Indonesian group of tour guides presented here illustrates how the global and athe local are intimately intertwined through what has been described as the process of «glocalitation». The guides studied are remarkable fornt-runners of glocalization. They fully participate in global popular culture and use new techonologies in their private lives. While guiding. however, they skillfully represent the glocalized life around them as a distinctive «local», adapted to the tastes of different groups of tourists. It is concluded that tourism offers excellent opportunities to study glocalization, but that more grounded research is needed.