The guided tour in Vietnam was billed “Off the Beaten Track” and promised an “authentic” experience in Hanoi, including a visit to a local food market.
Yet the day proved too authentic for one traveler, who complained after seeing a “whole fried dog,” according to Matthijs Keij, CEO of the tour company Withlocals.
“This situation triggered a healthy discussion in our team about the balance between offering authentic experiences and being mindful of our guests' diverse sensibilities,” Keij wrote on LinkedIn. “‘Off the beaten track’ tours are designed to show the unfiltered realities of local life, which can sometimes include aspects that are surprising or challenging for travelers.”
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His post stirred a lively debate in travel circles. What responsibility does a tour operator bear while filling in clients on what they might see on a guided experience? And what responsibility, if any, does the traveler hold?
“There is not really a right or wrong answer,” Keij told PhocusWire. “There are a lot of details that come in[to] play here.”
The experience led Keij and his team to address whether Withlocals can do more in terms of education and training - and if there’s a limit to what “off the beaten track” should entail.
As he wrote on his LinkedIn post, “the line between authenticity and sensitivity is delicate.”
Preparing for a “lifestyle that is not your own”
Responsibility for preparing to encounter unfamiliar cultures falls on both tour operators and travelers — and in different ways, said Madeline List, senior research analyst at Phocuswright.
“It's extremely helpful for the tour operators to be there to prepare people for what they might encounter … and provide to them some context, some advice and, hopefully, also some richer cultural backgrounds because they're the local experts,” she said.
On the other hand, travelers bear some responsibility, she said, “when you're going to a foreign place … a place that you understand does not reflect your own cultural upbringing or your own cultural values.”
Many travelers agree with List, according to Phocuswright research published this year. According to its report “Beyond Climate Change: Cultural and Economic Sustainability in Travel,” which List worked on with research manager Coney Dongre, 40-51% of travelers believe they “hold the primary responsibility” to respect local ways of life and traditions.
But not every traveler is putting in the work to prepare themselves to experience unfamiliar cultures. Only 20-34% of travelers included in Phocuswright’s research proactively looked into local culture and traditions ahead of traveling.
Those travelers might be setting themselves up for an unwelcome surprise.
“It's important to prepare yourself for what that might mean and understand that you might be put in some situations where you're forced to be culturally relative, where you understand that people are living a lifestyle that is not your own and is not reflective of your own choices,” said List.
That doesn’t mean travelers have to approve of everything they encounter, she added.
“But you have to be prepared for the fact that you're going to be exposed to two extremely different ways of life and that there are a lot of people around the world who make very different choices than you do about how they're going to live every day.”
How tour operators define their experience matters
What a traveler might expect from an experience starts with the operator’s outline of what a tour might be.
Isaac Caballero Suey, a political scientist and founder of travel experiences company Planetwonk Experiences, said in a comment on Keij’s post that “off the beaten track” might be perceived by travelers in different ways.
“Some folks see it as exploring hip, gentrified spots similar to their places of origin, like Brooklyn or East London,” he said. “Others are all about getting into the nitty-gritty, embracing the real and raw side of a place — even if that means dealing with things like unconventional local foods, dogs included.”
For “avocado toast lovers from Brooklyn,” the idea of consuming a dog might come as a shock, he added, while other travelers “seeking a culture shock” might expect something like that.
Malvika Nighojkar, production lead at tech-forward experiences company Holibob, weighed in too.
“My personal philosophy is that if travel doesn’t surprise you, or educate you, or perhaps even shock you from the norm, you’ve experienced a nice, clean and aloof version of a destination,” Nighojkar wrote. “I think clear messaging of what ‘off the beaten track’ looks like is an indicator of expectations.”
My personal philosophy is that if travel doesn’t surprise you, or educate you, or perhaps even shock you from the norm, you’ve experienced a nice, clean and aloof version of a destination. ... I think clear messaging of what ‘off the beaten track’ looks like is an indicator of expectations.
Malvika Nighojkar - Holibob
After the incident - and following the discussion thereafter - Keij said his company’s philosophy has changed a bit, starting with preparing travelers.
“I think we can do that in a more general way like, ‘Hey, we're going to visit a local market. … That also means that we might encounter some things that you are not familiar with, or maybe that are unsettling. If you would like to avoid that, yeah, then we should skip the markets,’” he said.
Expectation management is the key.
“You tell people that there could be some surprises, things they don't know,” said Keij. “They know, and if they don't want to do it, they still have the choice.”
It’s not simple to please everyone
While tour operators can work to give a more expansive definition of what travelers might see, many industry members said travelers have some responsibility.
It’s just not possible to account for everything a traveler might see on something labeled an “off the beaten track” experience, Mike Newman, managing director of b2me Tourism Marketing, wrote in a comment on Keij’s post.
“Either they want a sanitized experience or they want an authentic one,” Newman said.
While operators might note markets are catering to local requirements and point out some might not find those needs tasteful, Newman questioned whether travelers should avoid scenes that might make them uncomfortable “in the name of good taste.”
“The visitor can be pre-informed,” he wrote, “but once in the market (literally and metaphorically) they should see what there is to see even if it is offensive.”
But Mateja Kregar Gliha, a tourism entrepreneur based in Slovenia, was more empathetic towards travelers. She said tour operators need to be “very sensitive” to bring different worlds together.
“Being a traveler is not so easy - you put [yourself] out of [your] comfort zone and you should be ready for unexpected, unusual and unpredictable situations - food as well,” she wrote. “The task of us tourist guides is to interpret the heritage - to adjust the local habits to the level of the travelers.”