Tourism development and cultural commodification in Bali, Thailand, and Vietnam

This qualitative study employs a comparative ethnographic approach across three rapidly developing Southeast Asian tourism destinations in Bali, Thailand and Vietnam to examine complex impacts on intangible cultural heritage and everyday cultural realities as international visitor flows accelerate. The project encompassed 18 months of immersive multi-sited fieldwork engaging 96 participants through in-depth semi-structured interviews and 15 focus group discussions. Over 500 hours of systematic participant observations occurred across both mundane public spaces and ritual ceremonial events. Discourse analysis examined policy and media materials regarding cultural tourism and heritage planning. Triangulation compared emergent themes across varied data types to discern multifaceted dynamics intermixing ongoing tradition, adaptation and change. Descriptive statistical analysis of tourism growth indicators from 2000-2020 supplemented qualitative interpretations. Multiple regression analysis identified significant sociocultural, economic and political predictors of perceived commodification pressures across settings. Similarities and differences in change dynamics and planning regimes emerged between religiously and politically diverse sites through systematic comparative analysis. Key dimensions investigated encompass shifts in meanings, practices, productions, sense of identity, community relations, ritual performances, representation disputes and intergenerational negotiations amidst tourism expansion and globalized mobility. Findings reveal uneven blends of risks and opportunities around intangible cultural heritage persisting, adapting or transforming as locales balance enduring local life-worlds with heightening transnational interconnectivity.