Concepts for managing and sharing cultural resource in tourism product

Tourists and hosts both hold pre-conceived notions about those things that are private to cultural settings, and those that can be made public, to be shared with visitors. Tensions may thus arise as each communicates the content of culture to the other in the framework of cultural tourism across a series of interactions between visitor and host. Such interactions are usually managed within a formal enterprise framework of the commercial tourism industry. However, in contexts whereby cultural resource is initiated and managed by marginalised communities, such as those illustrated by the European-Pacific Island cultural divide, entrepreneurs are located within an informal context of culturally determined structures and networks and business conduct that is not wholly congruous with the expectations of those bringing guests to the location, much less those of the guests themselves. This paper is directed to a conceptualisation of a framework that describes the dynamics of interaction for tourism initiatives based on proximity and / or access to traditional ethnic culture or heritage.