Achieving Authenticity through Ethnic Tourism: A consumer perspective

Ethnic tourism is considered a unique type of tourism since it enables the tourist to experience and learn about other cultures through their traditions, customs lifestyle and practice. Authenticity is an important concept in ethnic tourism studies as well as a critical issue in tourism practice. This article examines tourists' participation in ethnic attractions and products, and the levels of satisfaction with their experiences based upon empirical research conducted in a number of Nubian villages which still exist north of the Dam.The Nubian culture and society is considered an important part of the Egyptian culture and traditions. Field research was done through visiting, interviewing some of the local people and observing their lifestyle. A survey of 600 visitors to Nubian villages was also conducted, only 560 questionnaires were valid to analysis out of which 89.2% was international and 10.8% was domestic.
The study results showed that authenticity is a major concern among international tourists. Most of the tourists were interested in seeing the culture, traditions and way of life of such people in their local area. Although it was the first experience for large number of tourists but they have different reasons for getting through this experience.