Abstract
With the increase in large-scale cruise tourism worldwide, researchers have highlighted the inauthenticity of the cruise experience and the reconstruction of space. This research deals with new aspects: fast tourism through time-space compression, and the formation of enclosed, customized ‘tourist bubbles’ that confine the tourists and promote a constructed authenticity of the experience on-shore. The second aim is to advance applied research in slower cruise excursions, especially in emerging cruise destinations. The research is based on extensive field work conducted during nine cruise-excursions to the sand desert and an oasis in the Sultanate of Oman. Oman is in the early stages of developing mega-cruise tourism while having received little attention in tourism research. For this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with German-speaking cruise tourists, cruise employees as well as with local cultural brokers and the Minister of Tourism. Moreover, participant observation, travel ethnography and photography were applied. Results indicate while moving from one customized ‘tourist bubble’ to the next one, time is controlled and enhanced through fast modes of transportation and a tight schedule of the excursion. The tourists and their cultural brokers are ‘contained’ in time and space, while some are struggling for more authentic experiences. They are shielded off from the local environment, ‘grazing’ destinations within a short time.
Introduction
Mobility is changing the ways in which we experience the world around us, changing the appreciation for our physical, natural and social environments (Urry, 1995: 144). In cruise tourism, the environment has been compared to a ‘tourist bubble’ inhabiting the tourists’ own physical and psychological environment with their motivations, attitudes and belief systems (Jaakson, 2004; Weaver, 2005c). A ‘tourist bubble’ is similar to a ‘playscape’ (Junemo, 2004) or a ‘cocoon’ which has ‘a closed and autonomous insularity’ (de Certeau, 1984: 1681) like an island (Minca, 2012b), cut off from society for a certain time and fully controlled (Weaver, 2005c). It shields tourists from uncomfortable realities (Williams and Lew, 2015) and creates a ‘happy community’ (Baumann, 2000) within imagined islands of ‘ephemeral togetherness’ (Minca, 2012a: 753). Cruise tourism enhances nostalgia, promising an escape from everyday life with its constraints (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013: 74). However, community-life on board a cruise ship offers reliability, predictability and routine—characteristics that are increasingly rare in everyday life in the West (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013: 74). As part of the cruise culture, tourists follow daily routines with sports classes, lectures and evening events. The behaviour of tourists and employees is extremely scripted (Ritzer and Liska, 1997: 100). In addition to this containment on board, excursion experiences on shore are contained as well (Weaver, 2005c). Klein (2011) points out the homogenisation of port experiences and the sociocultural authenticity including a lack of interpretation (Klein, 2011: 113). Usually, itineraries follow a strict ‘time-space compression’ (Lopes and Dredge, 2018; Yeoman et al., 2007), within a strange but apparently secure environment (Shepherd, 2015). Jaakson (2004) studied cruise passengers’ behaviour patterns in a port in Mexico, conceptualizing a ‘tourist bubble’. Similarly, Gutberlet (2016a and 2016b) analysed sociocultural impacts of mega-cruise tourism in a market opposite the port in Muscat. Vanolo and Cattan (2017) investigated visual representations of cruise experiences in promotional brochures, focusing on gender and mobility. Most articles focus on the economic, social and environmental impacts of cruise tourism (Cusano et al., 2017; Gutberlet, 2016b; Hritz and Cecil, 2008; Larsen et al., 2013; Larsen and Wolff, 2016; Lűck et al., 2010; MacNeill and Wozniak, 2018) the globalization and its effects on the production and consumption on board (Da Cruz, 2018; Wood, 2000) as well as on the work environment on board (Gibson, 2008; Weaver, 2005a). However, the real, lived on-site experiences of tourists on-shore are absent. Due to tight restrictions for researchers imposed by cruise companies, research on tourist experiences within enclosed holiday environments is limited (Weaver, 2005c).
Saarinen (2017: 433) called for more case-studies about tourist enclaves while Wilkinson (1999) expressed the need for more research on the ‘cruise inauthenticity’ (p. 279). One-third of the total revenues of cruise operators are on-board revenues including excursions (Cusano et al., 2017). These excursions and their impacts on ports, cruise communities and cruise services in various geographical locations are under-investigated (Cusano et al., 2017; Renaud, 2017). Lopes and Dredge (2018) and Johnson (2006) argued that local stakeholders need to enhance their dialogue to create more sustainable cruise excursions. Vogel and Oschmann (2013: 77) asked whether cruise passengers can ‘individualize their time’, ‘finding their own rhythm’ on shore and on board. Farías (2010: 399) compared the performance of a bus tour through the city of Berlin with cruising, where the ‘cruise-speed’ is a special, relaxed mode of movement enabling a laid-back mobility that is oriented to a detached, relaxed way of viewing the landscape. Referring to previous studies and their call for ‘individualized time’ of cruise passengers, the following case study fills a research gap on ‘time-space compression’ and the ‘authenticity’ of a cruise tourist experience during an on-shore excursion within a ‘closed bubble’ in an emerging cruise destination in Arabia where cruise tourists wish to connect with their inner selves (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005), an ‘intra-personal authenticity’ (Wang, 1999: 363). It aims to answer the question, how do German-speaking cruise tourists experience a day excursion and the places visited within tightened time constraints? Given the rapid growth in mega-cruise tourism activities worldwide, the second aim of this article is to improve cruise destination management by creating awareness about the fast, unsustainable consumption of cruise tourism on land while promoting slower cruise excursions that create fewer sociocultural impacts and fewer ‘enclosed bubbles’.
The following research confirms the ‘grazing behavior’ through tight time-space compression as a result of scripted, choreographed excursion schedules that meet the ship’s sailing times. According to the results, some tourists and tourism providers wish to slow down to experience the different destinations while moving from one ‘bubble’ to the next one – ‘from here to there’. This is the result of a rapid increase in cruise passenger volumes, to be transported and ‘processed’ from one place to another while travelling with a mega-ship. Therefore, there is an urgent need for further research from a mass-cruise tourist perspective.
The article starts by briefly introducing the research setting, the theoretical concepts used such as ‘time-space compression’, ‘cruise tourism’ and ‘authenticity’. It concludes by arguing that the excursion is commoditized. Time is speeded up for the tourists to experience a ‘constructive’ (Wang, 1999) or ‘customized authenticity’ (Wang, 2007) of the Omani culture. The tourists experience different enclosed ‘tourist bubbles’ (Jaakson, 2004) and a ‘displacement of cultural production from one place to another’ to suit new conditions of time and place (Chhabra et al., 2003). From a cruise tourist and a destination perspective, there has been a need for further research on this phenomenon. The case study assumes a high political importance: It was conducted just before the start of major large-scale cruise tourism development in Oman—the planned construction of the cruise port and the Waterfront Project in Muscat in the next years and the planned expansion of cruise tourism to other ports, from currently three ports to another four ports (Muscat Daily, 2018), thus dispersing mega-cruise tourists to various locations in the interior of Oman. The research is also important since artificially created islands or ‘closed bubbles’ were developed recently for cruise tourists only on the Arabian Peninsula. In Abu Dhabi (UAE) the first cruise beach, Sir Bani Yas Cruise Beach, opened in December 2016. The beach was developed ‘in accordance with the local culture and the growing demand for world-class cruise infrastructure and experiences’. It was estimated that the beach will attract more than 60,000 passengers each cruise season (Travel & Tourism News Middle East, 2017).
Research setting
There has been a dramatic increase in cruise tourism worldwide: from 1.4 million cruise tourists in 1980, to 15 million tourists in 2006, to 21 million in 2013, to 27 million cruise travellers in 2017 and projected 30 million in 2019 (Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), 2019). Hence, there has been increasing investment in the industry. For example, in 2017 a total of 17 new ocean and river ships were ordered creating a new capacity for more than 30,000 passengers (CLIA, 2016). At the same time, the travel time onboard a ship has decreased. The majority of cruise tourists travel for 7 days, followed by 4–6 days and 8–13 days (CLIA, 2018). To describe the scale of a ship, notions such ‘megaships’ (Klein, 2005: 15) or ‘mega-liners’ (Weeden et al., 2011: 26) have been applied for ships, accommodating more than 2,000 passengers and crew members.
Compared to other Arab countries, tourism is a new phenomenon in the Sultanate of Oman. The country only opened up slowly for international tourists in the 1980s. In the beginning, tourism was a small-scale activity, focusing on luxury tourism infrastructure including hotels, roads and airports, predominantly located in the capital Muscat. There are three cruise ports in Oman: Muscat, the capital, is the main port, in addition to Khasab in the North, and Salalah in the South of the Sultanate. In future, it is planned to open more Omani ports for cruise liners: Suwaiq, Duqm, Sur and Sohar (Muscat Daily, 2018). The cruise liner of this case study stopped in Muscat only. Oman is part of the ‘Cruise Arabia Alliance’ that aims to promote cruise tourism in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The members of that alliance are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar (Travel & Tourism News Middle East, 2017). Large-scale cruise tourism started in 2004 when the first AIDA mega-cruise liner arrived in Muscat, followed by Costa Cruises and others in the following years. Due to the rapid increase of large-scale cruise tourism, the Omani government is planning to transform the port of call in Muscat into a cruise liner port or ‘home port’ (Muscat Daily, 2016). In a first step, the commercial activities of the port were largely shifted to another city in 2015.
Since 2004 cruise tourism arrivals in Oman have increased steadily in scale from 25 ships and 7,783 tourist arrivals in 2005 to its peak of 135 ships carrying 257,000 tourists in 2013 (Ministry of Tourism, 2015). In 2014, the number of cruise tourists dropped to 125,375 while in 2015 the number of passengers rose again to 146,509 (Ministry of Tourism, 2016b). In 2017, a total of 221,800 cruise tourists arrived in Oman (Muscat Daily, 2018). German-speaking tourists are the second largest group, visiting Oman on-board cruise liners, after British people and Italians. Cruise tourism currently represents around 10% of the overall tourist arrivals in Oman. However, the impact of cruise tourism on the social carrying capacity of the community is high due to limited geographical space and the number of inhabitants in the district where mega-cruise liners arrive in Muscat (Gutberlet, 2016b). In 2016, a total of 213,996 people lived in Muttrah, the district of the port, 89% of whom were expatriates (National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), 2017).
The oasis and the desert
The Sharquiyah Sands desert and its surrounding oases have developed as a ‘transit destination’, where tourists mainly pass through. The ancient trading oasis of Al Muthairib is a relatively new tourist destination, on the edge of the desert, about 2.5 hours drive from Muscat (figure 1). The oasis offers a privately owned heritage museum, a falaj system (ancient irrigation system) and an old souq (market), built of traditional sarooj building material, which however dissolves with each rainfall. These old buildings and the market place are public spaces shared by locals and tourists alike. Tourists usually come to the market place in the morning hours, while locals meet during the cooler evenings. Since the introduction of tourism in Oman, old oasis settlements, forts, castles, museums and archaeological sites have been promoted as heritage sites and connected with the capital Muscat by roads. Since 2013 a highway connecting Muscat and the periphery, including the oasis and the desert of this case study, has been constructed. The distance from Muscat to the desert is approximately 250 km. Until the 1970s, the majority of the population lived in rural areas and around 80% of Omanis derived their livelihood from agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing (Merschen, 2007: 190). Agriculture has been ‘the cultural and economic backbone’ (Lűdeling and Bűrkert, 2010: 26). In northern Oman, a total of 2,663 oases were identified (Lűdeling and Bűrkert, 2010: 28). Since the oil discovery and the socio-economic changes in the 1970s, the importance of oasis settlements has reduced (Gaube and Gangler, 2012; Merschen, 2007). Roads were built in Oman from the 1970s onwards. Before that time, there were only a few kilometres of roads in Muscat. That was the time when cars were introduced as part of the social and economic development of the country. Prior to this, camels and donkeys were the main means of transportation and a travel from the interior to the coastal city of Muscat took many days. Nowadays, cars are a symbol of modernization and of social status, whereas slow modes of transportation are seen as a symbol of backwardness. Camels and donkeys are occasionally used as modes of transportation in some remote areas that are not accessible by cars, for example, on hiking paths. Bicycles are used for leisure purpose by male Omanis or Europeans or by Asian expatriates who cannot afford a car.
Map of the Sultanate of Oman including Muthairib.
In the following section, the theory used in this article including the concepts of time-space compression, the authenticity of tourist experiences as well as mega-cruise tourism and its impacts will be outlined.
Theoretical background
Time-space compression and the search for a community
Since the 19th century, postmodern societies have accelerated ‘the turnover time of capital’ (Harvey, 1990: 285) leading to ‘the visualisation of culture, the collapse of stable identities and the transformation of time’ (Urry, 1995: 219). ‘Just-in-time’ production and improved information technologies accelerated the speed of consumption, financial services and exchange (Harvey, 1990: 285). This has resulted in a ‘democratisation’ of travel, the ‘cultural globalisation’ (Mowforth and Munt, 2009: 45) that was followed by an increased consumption of services (Harvey, 1990: 285) and more flexible forms of tourism in less developed countries (Mowforth and Munt, 2009: 45). The spatial shrinking of our planet through globalization has resulted in a ‘global village’ (Harvey, 1990: 240) and an increased interdependence between people and places (Mowforth and Munt, 2009: 4). The time-space paths of individuals are desynchronised leading to more consumer segmentation of travel products, a ‘compression of eternity’ (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013) where time is speeded up (Harvey, 1990; Urry, 1995). For example, in places for mass-consumption or ‘playscapes’ (Junemo, 2004), such as theme parks, shopping malls and cruise liners (Baumann, 2000; Urry, 1995), ‘the world’s geography can be experienced as a simulacrum’ (Harvey, 1990: 300) that enhances nostalgia (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013) and the feeling of being transported somewhere else (Baumann, 2000: 98). The time-space compression results in a ‘three minute culture’ (Urry, 1995: 216) and the ‘cult of speed’ (Howard, 2012: 501) that emphasize the ‘instantaneity’ of satisfactions (Harvey, 1990: 286), where consumers focus on the present only. The temporariness of consumer products, values and personal relationships is the most important result (Urry, 1995: 217). For Krippendorf (1987), Ryan (2002) and Yeoman et al. (2007), time has become a precious commodity that influences leisure activities, resulting sometimes in time pressure.
Because this continuous ‘bombardment of stimuli’ creates problems of sensory overload in our everyday lives (Harvey, 1990: 286), there is a search for a shield against time-space compression through authenticity (Harvey, 1990: 292) and nostalgia. The tourists want to get away from their everyday life (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005: 373), searching for a deeper meaning beyond consuming. Any space, tourist experience and perception can be perceived as being authentic, where the tourist community shares a ‘well-organized collectively experienced nothingness’ (Minca, 2012a: 703). Their experience helps them to overcome their main travel motivation, an inauthentic life (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013; Wang, 1999). Hence, the ‘community’ (Baumann, 2000, 2001) as well as authenticity or genuineness are seen as emerging in contrast to globalization and modernity and as a way of romanticism. Holidays onboard a cruise liner can be seen as a refuge from a hectic life promising ‘reliability, predictability and a routine’ while being surrounded by like-minded people (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013: 74). ‘Community stands for whatever has been left of the dreams of a better life shared with better neighbors all following better rules of cohabitation’ (Baumann, 2000: 92). The longing for being part of a community stands for a warm, cosy and comfortable place (Baumann, 2001: 1) and as a source of ‘being-in-the-world’ (Heidegger, 2010). Moreover, in parts of Western societies money-mindedness is being replaced by ‘time-mindedness’ and social needs (Krippendorf, 1987: 87), as well as simplicity and ‘slowness’ (Howard, 2012: 632).
It has been argued that a modern, consumption-oriented society within ‘liquid modernity’ and its quest for escape and ‘nostalgia’ has enabled especially cruise liners to develop into a huge business (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013: 63).
Authentic tourist experiences
It has been asked: How real is the destination that tourists visit on shore? (Wilkinson, 1999). This questions the authenticity of their experiences, including the length of time spent at a destination (Klein, 2011: 113).
Tourism places are increasingly socially constructed to reflect the tourist rather than the places and the communities visited (Williams and Lew, 2015: 161). Ritzer and Liska (1997) and Wilkinson (1999) argue that tourists are increasingly searching for ‘inauthenticity’ but for ‘things they are familiar with’ (Ritzer and Liska, 1997: 98). Tourists want their experiences to be controlled and homogenized as much as their everyday lives (p. 99). As a consequence, destinations have been homogenized, remade as objects for the gaze (Saarinen, 2004), where ‘there is no simple reality’ (Urry, 1995: 149) and where services are staged to create value (Pine and Gilmore, 2011). During a bus tour through Berlin, destination space is experienced as a whole and as a ‘spatial continuum’ while moving from ‘here’ to ‘there’ (Farías, 2010: 404). Authenticity is pluralistic, depending on the type of tourist (Williams and Lew, 2015: 128). Tourists perceive the world through a certain ‘filter’, according to their class, age, gender, ethnicity (Urry and Larsen, 2011) and the type of travel. Authenticity is a projection or a ‘label’ of the tourist’s own beliefs, expectations and preferences of something familiar, a ‘customized authenticity’ (Wang, 2007). Reflecting on that idea, Wang (2007) notes that tourists visiting homestays in a Chinese village were searching for a ‘home’, an ‘objective authenticity’ of the host culture, in which tourists play a proactive rather than a passive role in the encounter with their hosts, who present a ‘customized authenticity’ of their Chinese culture (Wang, 2007: 801). Such a ‘customized authenticity’ is influenced by a ‘symbolic authenticity’ which is the projection of a certain view or stereotyped images circulated within the mass media and tourism marketing brochures (Wang, 2007: 355). Tourists move from one place to another, where different authenticities are influenced by the places visited (ibid.: 682). The production of an authentic tourist site is influenced by on-site brokers who interpret and mediate the tourist gaze (Salazar, 2010: 49), constructing ‘imagined communities’ (Baumann, 2000; Urry, 1995). Cultural brokers direct, choreograph, educate, manage and monitor tourists to ensure appropriate performances and that the revenue of the tourism business is increased (Mordue, 2007: 182). A ‘staged authenticity’ may relieve pressure from host communities, protecting them and their culture from curious tourists (Wang, 1999; Williams and Lew, 2015). While visiting especially a heritage site, it is a continuous struggle and search with ‘realising and repositioning individual selves’ (Park, 2014: 67). Being on holidays incorporates a sense of enjoying a good time, being infinite and ‘timeless’ (Ryan, 2002: 202) while realizing one’s own self, an ‘existential authenticity’ where one is true to oneself or an intra-personal authenticity, for example, within family ties or within a guided group or a cruise community (Wang, 1999). This is in contrast to MacCannell (1999) who argues that tourists search for authenticity and the original within a ‘participation in a collective ritual’ (MacCannell, 1999: 137), an ‘objective authenticity’, representing the uninterrupted ‘flow of life’ at a site (Pearce, 2012: 271). As a result of the search for authenticity and ‘home’, there is an emerging phenomenon of the concept of slow travel, which promotes authenticity within time and the relationship between places and people. It questions ‘the cult of speed’ (Markwell et al., 2012). The main features of slow travel are the value of time, locality and activities at the destination, the mode of transport, the travel experience and environmental consciousness. Slow travel involves more quality experiences compared to a large quantity of experiences (Les Lumsdon and McGrath, 2011: 274). This means a more sustainable travel involving less driving time, being less energy intensive, allowing tourists to enjoy their on-site experiences by valuing socialization with each other and the local community, the scenery and diverse landscapes (Singh, 2012: 5895), while increasing benefits for local stakeholders (Conway and Timms, 2012: 368). It therefore creates a physical and mental wellbeing through meaningful experiences (Smith and Diekmann, 2017: 10). The speed of mass tourism can impact the concept of time in destination communities. In Oman, time is largely oriented according to the five Muslim prayer timings daily. This spiritual ‘time-off’, automatically slows down daily-lives. An Arab proverb says where there is haste there is regret, but there is peace and safety where there is time and care.
Cruise tourism and its impacts
The rapid increase in large-scale ocean cruise tourism with short, compressed 1-week circular itineraries is in line with globalization and ‘time-space compression’ (Harvey, 1990), where several destinations and even continents can be ‘packaged’ and toured within one trip. ‘For the passengers, the journey is the destination, new experiences are its purpose and the cruise ship is the vehicle to take them from one experiential grazing ground to the next’ (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013: 72). Ozturk and Gogtas (2016: 207) conclude that on-shore excursions play a secondary role in the overall satisfaction of the cruise tourist experiences, compared to safety and the overall high quality of the service in the destination.
Cruise liners are like ‘environmental bubbles’ (Jaakson, 2004) that offer ‘McDonaldized tourism’ for the masses (Ritzer and Liska, 1997: 97), meaning standardized products and experiences that are highly efficient, calculable, predictable and dominated by non-human technologies (ibid.). The pre-packaged travel arrangement allows ‘metropolitan companies to influence the tourist volume and gain a competitive advantage over local tourism operations’ (Britton, 1982: 337), thus ‘containing’ or ‘bordering off’ local communities (Saarinen, 2017) while reinforcing a gap and dependency between the capital and the periphery, the global North and the South, but as well between the capital and the countryside (London and Lohmann, 2014). However, it has been argued that a destination space is not bounded, even though for instance bus tours separate the inside of the bus from the urban environment they are driving through (Farías, 2010: 405). The formation of special enclavic spaces for cruise tourists and the dependency of the local community has been confirmed by Renaud (2017) in the Caribbean where cruise tourism modifies and defines territorial relations between the different stakeholders involved in cruise tourism. This dependency empowers foreign interest groups and privileged social classes in the destination, instead of fostering ideas from a broader political consensus, from stakeholders within the community (Britton, 1982; London and Lohmann, 2014; Saarinen, 2017). Consequently, the local community has limited involvement. Therefore, there is a demand for greater, more responsible power and profit sharing between the cruise liner and local stakeholders (Da Cruz, 2018; Del Chiappa and Abbate, 2016; Font et al., 2016; Hritz and Cecil, 2008; Klein, 2011; London and Lohmann, 2014; Lopes and Dredge, 2018; MacNeill and Wozniak, 2018; Renaud, 2017). This has been confirmed in Norway (Larsen and Wolff, 2016), in Denmark (Lopes and Dredge, 2018), in Italy (Del Chiappa and Abbate, 2016), in Mexico (Jaakson, 2004) and in a local market in Oman (Gutberlet, 2016b). Font et al. (2016: 183) even go so far to say that ‘society is being used by the cruise industry, instead of the optimal situation of society using cruising’. The researchers suggest that cruise liners should find opportunities to steadily create value for the society. In this line of thought, Da Cruz (2018) and Renaud (2017) question the territorial expansion and power of cruise liners within a destination. Sustainable cruise tourism development is seen as ‘very difficult’, requiring ‘collaborative policy-making among local authorities, government agencies, businesses and host communities, who must work together to plan and regulate the development’ (Del Chiappa and Abbate, 2016: 1381). Otherwise, benefits for the destination fail when cruise tourism is developed without direct investment and local involvement of communities (MacNeill and Wozniak, 2018: 399). Then only foreign investors and local elites will gain from cruise tourism development. Saarinen (2017: 433) mentioned that tourism enclaves such as cruise liners are ‘highly undesirable’ for sustainable tourism development.
The overall fast pace of growth of mega-cruise tourism creates challenges to the sustainability of the tourism industry, to ports and local communities (Klein, 2011: 114). For instance, through power relations (London and Lohmann, 2014), sociocultural impacts and culture shock situations are enhanced due to different moral and value systems (Gutberlet, 2016a). To minimize the social contact between tourists and port communities, there has been an increasing focus on the ship as the main destination, which is ‘secure, comfortable, and tightly controlled’ (Jaakson, 2004: 57), forming a ‘temporary, exclusive community’ (Minca, 2012a: 703) or even ‘an independent nation’ (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013) where the goal is to ‘encapsulate individuals’ (Weaver, 2005c) in order to maximize containment and profits (Larsen et al., 2013; Weaver, 2005b; Weeden et al., 2011). Compared to hotels, cruise liners with their ample leisure facilities offer much more freedom and experiences for tourists (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013). A critical inquiry into cruise tourism development and its activities in destinations and in tourist experiences can illuminate the understanding of the relationships between all stakeholders. Those involved in the cruise phenomenon are the ships, destinations and other local stakeholders, who should cooperate for the benefits of a long-term sustainable future (Hritz and Cecil, 2008; Weeden et al., 2011). Following these enquiries and the rise of circular mega-cruise tourism with its time-space compression and the formation of constructed ‘enclosed tourist bubbles’, this article aims to fill a research gap in cruise destination management and the cruise tourist consumption on land. It will analyse primarily the on-site experiences of German mega-cruise tourists participating in an excursion to an oasis and the desert in an emerging cruise destination on the Arabian Peninsula.
Research methods
This research is part of an extensive field-study in two tourist attractions in Oman, one urban attraction in Muscat and one in the periphery, examining the construction of space, tourist experiences and sociocultural impacts (Gutberlet, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2019). Qualitative methods including participant observation, travel ethnography, photography and in-depth interviews were conducted during nine cruise excursions. Interviews with cruise tourists and with local stakeholders were held between 2012 and 2014. In order to frame the qualitative interview questions and the demographics of the cruise passengers, a questionnaire survey in German was distributed among cruise tourists of a mega-cruise liner, prior to the qualitative methods. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate ideas about the tourist’s pre-travel preparation, their imaginaries, the on-site experiences and their overall satisfaction. The concepts of the survey were later on explored during the in-depth interviews.
The mega-cruise liner was unnamed by request, carrying mainly German tourists. Since several mega-cruise liners that offer the same itinerary arrive in Muscat in the winter season, it is difficult to identify the cruise ship. All marketing brochures involved in the research results are unnamed. The ship brand cannot be identified.
The primary method through which the qualitative data were documented was field notes while applying a ‘social interactionist’ perspective which acknowledges the social and physical environment (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005: 370). I actively participated in nine identical day-excursions being part of the ‘group of Germans’. The excursions included an oasis and the Sharquiyah Sands desert. Following Schmid (2008) and Pink’s (2008) ethnographic approach, cruise tourists, 10 tour guides and drivers and an Omani ‘coffee man’ were observed and interviewed during the tour, on the road or during one of the stops while socializing with them, walking, eating or contemplating the scenery. Therefore, following the tourist’s routes and familiarizing ‘bodies, rhythms, tastes, ways of seeing and more to theirs’ (Pink, 2008: 193) helped an understanding of how tourists and cultural brokers imagine and make sense of the environment around them. Through travel ethnography and open participant observation, I explored the group behaviour between the tourists (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005) and between the tourists and their cultural brokers such as tour guides (Rantala, 2010; Weaver, 2005a). I was presented by the local tour guide as a tourism researcher. However, at times I served as an additional German-speaking tour guide. This helped me to have closer contact with the cruise tourists and the on-board tour guides and to be immersed in the setting. My overall prolonged involvement, language skills and insights in tourism in Oman enabled me to be seen as an insider and to be accepted as ‘one of them’ among local guides and drivers, but also among the tourists. I have worked in Oman as a full-time and freelance tour guide for German and French-speaking tourists, where I conducted numerous day excursions with cruise tourists and other types of tourists between 2004 and 2013. Moreover, I worked as a journalist for a local newspaper and wrote about the society and tourism in Oman.
In-depth interviews were used to give a voice to the different views while adding depth and understanding (Jennings, 2005: 114). During the excursions, 12 cruise tourists between the age of 25 and 82 years were interviewed individually and six tourists were interviewed as couples. In addition, five on-board cruise guides, an on-board photographer and an on-board lecturer were interviewed. Sharing the same cultural background was helpful in understanding their narratives (Lewis, 2003: 65). During semi-structured interviews the tourists were asked about their pre-travel preparation, their pre-travel imaginaries, their motivation to go on excursion, their on-site experiences, their level of satisfaction and whether they wished to return to Oman. The tour guides, drivers and cultural brokers from the ship were asked about their experiences with tourists. The interviews were conducted anonymously in German, English or in Arabic. Their responses were noted down in a notebook or recorded and transcribed later on in Muscat.
To complement the interviews and the observation and to capture ‘the expression of encounters that would otherwise remain excluded from conversations’, (Scarles, 2010: 918) photography was applied while at the site. To gain deeper insight into local views on cruise excursions, the Minister of Tourism and two local tour operators were interviewed in their offices in Muscat. The key concepts that developed during the qualitative research such as ‘time-space compression’ and ‘authenticity’ were discovered through the research process. I wrote down the transcript of the interviews, which was followed by a comparative analysis, that I conducted manually. Social representations and images from pre-travel information such as websites, marketing brochures and daily newsletters from the cruise liner as well as German guidebooks and travel magazines were analysed (Santos, 2005: 150). The secondary data helped to analyse some imaginaries created before the excursion. The results were moulded into the analysis and supported my qualitative research results.
The credibility of the results was validated through the application of research procedures (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005); qualitative methods were supported by demographic data and the analysis of official statistics and of marketing material as well as regular interaction with local gatekeepers; thus an immersion in the research setting was optimized.
The cruise liner in this case study is a ‘contemporary’ mega-cruise liner with so-called ‘club ships’, carrying more than 1,800 passengers weekly, plus crew. According to the survey, the majority of the tourists surveyed, 99%, were from Germany. The mega-cruise ship travelled around the Canary Islands in spring/summer 2012. It arrived for the first time on the Arabian Peninsula in October 2012, where it spent the next 5 months. During an 8-day trip with five destinations (Dubai, Muscat, Manama, Abu Dhabi and Dubai), the cruise ship departs from Dubai the first day and it docks the next morning in Muscat, where it stays for 11 hours. A local tour agency offers eight ‘packaged’ culture, seascape and nature excursions by bus, 4 × 4 cars or by boat, among which are a full-day tour to an oasis and to the Sharquiyah Sands desert titled ‘A Unique Desert Experience by Jeep’ (cruise excursion brochure, November 2012/March 2013). For around 100 euros per passenger that excursion is one of the most popular and most expensive ones. For most cruise tourists it was their first time ever to travel to a desert and an oasis. According to my own experience in guiding cruise tourists as well as prior interviews with local tour operators, the 4 × 4 excursion to the oasis and the desert was chosen as one of the most popular cruise excursions, representing an adventure, and heritage experience greatly different to that of everyday life in Germany. The tour starts in the morning from the port (Figure 1). It includes a roadside stop along the way, in a motel where some initial explanations are given. The second stop is the oasis, then the tourists proceed to the desert where dune driving and lunch in a desert camp are on the programme, before heading back to Muscat. The driving time is around 5 hours. In the following research findings, I analyse parts of the tourist experiences while on tour. As such the text is structured as a flow of the tourist’s activities and experiences while on tour (from the beginning of the tour until the end of the tour) alongside the views of cultural brokers within these tourist experiences, tracing their views and paths throughout the excursion.
Research findings
Collecting destinations
Within 1 week of travel, cruise tourists visit five destinations on the Arabian Peninsula. According to on-board guides, a lecturer and tourists interviewed, this ‘time-space compression’ (Harvey, 1990) and the opportunity to ‘graze’ on various destinations (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013: 75) is the main travel motivation. Most tourists and on-board employees mentioned that they wanted to collect and consume a variety of destinations similar to consuming commodities in everyday life. ‘The world is beautiful, there are many destinations to discover’, said a male tourist in his 60s. Another male tourist mentioned, ‘it is too boring to travel to just one destination’, thus linking the speed of the one-week journey with an increased pleasure while ‘grazing’ and consuming destinations, promoting a ‘global miniaturisation’ (Urry, 1995). An on-board guide in his late 20s said that he is ‘collecting the soils, even if it was very briefly’. If the tourists travel to Oman, ‘they will only see one country, for the price of two cruises’, explained the on-board guide the tourists’ wish to visually consume as much as possible for a discounted price. At the same time, the tourists experience their own selves and save money and time, compared to a land-based travel.
A lack of travel preparation and cosmopolitanism
Some tourists do not even know the entire itinerary of the ship, except the main port of embarkation Dubai. This indicates the importance of the ship as a tourist destination in its own right (Weaver, 2005b) as well as the tourist’s lack of ‘aesthetic cosmopolitanism’ (Urry, 1995) conceptualized as a lack of travel experience, a lack of pre-travel preparation about local values, customs and the culture as well as a lack of geographical orientation. A male tourist in his 60s even proclaimed, ‘We are in Dubai’ while being in the Omani desert. Some thought Oman would be similar to Dubai, where the desert is located near by the port. As Urry (1995) and Gössling (2002: 546f.) argued, travel encourages ‘the process of disembedment in the countries visited’, also conceptualized as ‘decapsulation’ (Jansson, 2007). This ‘disembedment’ is a ‘lifting out of social contexts’ (Urry, 1995: 143), which also depends on trust in the means of transportation used, that leads through time and space. A cruise marketing brochure promises,
You arrive safe and straight to your destination – and you will be back to the ship in time. Enjoy the excursion. We will take care of everything. (translated from German, cruise excursion brochure, 2011/2012: 26)
Hence, promising a risk-free travel through a standardized excursion. The car constructs a shell with luxury leather seats and AC, shielding the tourists from the soaring heat outside while providing a sense of familiarity and security. The walled environment of a 4 × 4 car symbolizes a protection, a mobile ‘tourist bubble’ (Jaakson, 2004; Weaver, 2005b), and an extension of the cruise liner. On board the cruise ship German is the main language of communication, so that tourists ‘feel at home’, creating an artificial ‘simulacra home’, a temporary ‘community’ (Baumann, 2001) among German-speakers and ‘a customized authenticity’ (Wang, 2007). ‘It is difficult for us to communicate in English’, said an elderly male tourist, a frequent cruise traveller, in his 80s. ‘Often we realize that cruise tourists are afraid, when they find themselves immersed in a different culture’, explained an on-board guide. This confirms that mass-cruise tourists who travel on short cruises may not reflect on, appreciate and respect the uniqueness and culture of the destination (Hritz and Cecil, 2008: 178). This is due to the limited time in the destination and the enclosed environment, apart from the local community, who serve as a visual backdrop.
Time is controlled and speeded up and labour processes are rationalized
Certain forms of tourism such as cruise tourism within ‘enclavic spaces’ (Saarinen, 2017) create the necessity to adhere to tight schedules and a certain community, placing individuals under pressure (Ryan, 2002: 205) while restricting their freedom to move around (Saarinen, 2017). From the beginning of the day-excursion that started in the morning at 8.30 am from the port in Muscat, the overall travel experience including the interpretation through cultural brokers had to be rationalized, controlled and speeded up in time (Harvey, 1990; Urry, 1995). Due to that acceleration of time and space, labour processes had to be rationalized as well (Harvey, 1990: 285). The drivers and the guide had to be at the port very early morning and work long hours, similar to workers onboard a cruise ship and their payment was little (Weaver, 2005a). To raise local profits, the Omani drivers were freelancers, for example, students, teachers or employees in the oil industry. They had received little training in guiding tourists. Hence, time-space compression confirmed a shift towards organizational disintegration and sub-contracting employees (Harvey, 1990: 284). Referring to the high accumulation and turnover of capital through services, a representative from the local tour operator said that ‘A cruise liner is a money machine. This is a massive business’, demanding high-quality low-cost products and tight timelines (Lopes and Dredge, 2018). For the local tour operator it is a challenge to hire and pay for knowledgeable multilingual tour guides, drivers and cars for 1 day, who cannot be used for longer trips. The price for the cruise excursion was 100 euros per person. However, since the cruise liner keeps 50 percent or more of the income of the excursion, the profit for the local tour operator was little, affirming the hierarchical power structure of a global network of cruise companies. This confirms a lack of social responsibility from the cruise liner towards the local community (Font et al., 2016; Klein, 2005; Lopes and Dredge, 2018; Renaud, 2017), at the same time increasing the dependence from the centre.
One Sunday morning in January, at Port Sultan Qaboos in Muscat, cruise tourists left their ship and were distributed between twelve 4 × 4 vehicles, plus a lead car for the Omani English-speaking guide and the German cruise guide. This represents a large number of cars that drive in a convoy through urban and rural areas, having the capacity to impact and damage the host environment (Johnson, 2006). Families and friends were sitting in groups together in one car. In the front car, the female German cruise guide remarked as follows: ‘Now they are all seated. For sure they do not know where we are heading and the drivers do not speak any German’. There was no time for an introduction, and local cultural brokers were not skilled in cross-cultural communication and in giving in-depth information. ‘Generally they (the tourists) need an introduction. Today, I just woke up five minutes ago’, said the German on-board guide nervously, referring to her overall scripted and pressure-loaded work environment (Weaver, 2005c: 350), where the behaviour of cruise employees is homogenized and that of cruise tourists as well (Ritzer and Liska, 1997: 99).
The guide acted as a kind of mother or parent, treating cruise tourists like children who need to be observed, instructed and controlled. ‘We usually welcome the guests at 8 am and sticker them’, she added, while explaining that she got up late and there was no time for an introduction that day (Fieldnotes, January 2013). The reference to sticker means that they put stickers of the car number on the tourists’ shirts; therefore, treating the tourists as commodities (Shepherd, 2015: 65). They were then escorted by an on-board guide from an assembly point on board to their ‘mobile tourist bubble’ on-shore, the 4 × 4 car.
The tour agency and its employees were under enormous pressure to maximize the demand and to provide quality shore excursions (Lopes and Dredge, 2018). The time of the excursion is planned by the tour operator in the capital Muscat and by the cruise company in Germany, empowering foreign interests and capital, while creating a dependency between the North (Germany) and the South (Oman) as well as between the capital (Muscat) and the periphery (Britton, 1982; London and Lohmann, 2014). ‘It is a 15 minute trip. We will stay 15 minutes in the first stop, then we drive for 15 minutes to the oasis and from there it will take us 15 minutes to reach the desert’, said the Omani guide during one of the excursions referring to the tight schedule and the time pressure caused. In case of any delays, the departure of the cruise ship would be delayed. Tourists might complain and ask for compensation. These financial consequences can be compared with a controlled, standardized McDonalds food preparation (Weaver, 2005c: 351). Therefore, leaving few opportunities for improvisation and a slower involvement in the destination. In addition, it leads to compromises on safety while driving. Although the speed limit was 80 km/h the lead driver sped up to 100–130 km/h along the narrow, winding mountain road between Muscat and the interior. The landscape was passing by quickly. There was no time to engage with the environment along the road, consisting of ‘series of swiftly passing panoramas’ (Urry, 1995: 144). A tourist noticed, ‘Our driver was driving too fast all the time’, wishing to slow down. Similarly, a tourist, an engineer in his 50s, questioned the sustainability of the excursion while driving a total of four hours. The tight schedule puts enormous time pressure on the drivers and the local tour guide, who according to their culture and the hot climate follow a rather slower time schedule. An Omani lead driver in his 30s said he preferred a slower travel experience, so that he can offer additional value to the excursion. ‘The tourists don’t get the feeling. They don’t experience Oman … We have to hurry all the time’, he said.
To slow down time
After a 2-hour drive (from the port in Muscat) during a pause in a motel, that symbolized another ‘tourist bubble’ or a ‘non-place’ (Augé, 2010), the convoy stopped a few kilometres away from the oasis. The cultural brokers briefly prepared the tourists for the visit in the oasis, focusing on the qualities of the landscape and heritage, within time-space compression and its high abstraction of space. The young Omani guide addressed the cruise group for the first time in English while the German cruise guide had to translate his explanations. He highlighted the location of one of many historical watchtowers on the roadside, thus locating the tourist gaze. The production of places with unique qualities is an important feature for the worldwide competition between localities (Harvey, 1990: 295). In the German cruise excursion brochures, the oasis is socially constructed in the past, as a ‘picturesque landscape’ (Huijbens and Benediktsson, 2013), an imaginary, ancient village that has not been transformed by modernity:
You will reach the village, where it seems time has come to a standstill. (cruise brochure, 2012/13)
Therefore, creating a space ‘without time’. This is in contrast to the hectic, modernized urban spaces and the speed of the excursion, realizing a ‘symbolic authenticity’ (Wang, 1999), mediated by the cruise marketing material. In reality, the oasis is surrounded by walls and many closed entrance gates, restricting the view and access for outsiders. The imaginary open space is used as private gardens, where male Asian workers can be observed. The cruise brochure and a brochure from the Ministry of Tourism (2016b) draw a nostalgic, romantic image of ‘original Omani villages’ (cruise brochure) and of openly accessible oases gardens:
Head inland to the rural oases to explore traditional mudbrick villages. Their gardens of roses, apricots and pomegranates are watered by the centuries-old falaj irrigations system of communal underground channels (aflaj). (Ministry of Tourism, 2016a: 11)
In reality, the use of the falaj irrigation system for the local agriculture has been reduced in recent years. Asked about their perception of an oasis, the tourists had such a nostalgic image from the media in their minds, expressing this dichotomy between old and new, ‘an aura of distinctiveness’ (Urry, 1995: 189). ‘There are these old mudbrick houses. When you travel to Oman, you still find the old. When you travel to Abu Dhabi or Dubai, you find modern cities’, said a female tourist in her 20s, reaffirming an appeal of the past and nostalgia as an escape away from urban life and modernity. Inside the oasis town, the group of cruise tourists gathered in its centre, at the market place underneath a large Omani tree. They were surrounded by an old multi-storey mudbrick house, the Heritage Museum and the extensive remains of the old mudbrick shop boxes of the market place, the old irrigation system (falaj) and the wall hiding the oasis lush greenery. The Omani tour guide who originated from a city close by the oasis was important to the authentically performed experience, reliant on his interpretation, his ‘local memory’ (Urry, 1995: 166) and the stories communicated. He was drawing a ‘nostalgic’ picture of the date palm tree and its usage, as conveyed by the cruise brochure, depicting the palm tree in the past creating nostalgia, when palm trees were commonly used as sustainable building materials. Some Bedouins still use palm fronds to construct easily set up and dismantled huts in the desert, so-called barasti (Keohane, 2011: 58). However, nowadays the construction material has been replaced by cement, a less sustainable material used for housing in the new town of the oasis.
Slowing down: having coffee like a sultan
The market place was empty at mid-day (Figure 2), and the shops were closed. Some tourists questioned the authenticity of the place. ‘We do not see any locals. Where are they?’ referring to their European perception of a centre of a town filled with people as a symbol for life. Residents avoid the heat and leaving their homes during the day, and they gather outside in the late afternoons and evenings.
The centre of the oasis town with an old watchtower and shops.
To slow down time and to welcome the tourists in the oasis within a quiet place, natural Omani hospitality within the bubble of ‘the cruise communita’ were simulated. Underneath a large old tree, on a plastic table covered with a plastic table cloth, a “constructed authenticity” (Pearce, 2012) was created by tourism providers. This can be seen as a planned “pseudo-event’ (Boorstin, 1961), staging ‘open hospitality’ as the naturalness of the Omani hospitality to the tourists, a belief that an outsider deserves a special welcome, an ‘elite ethos’ (Heal, 1990, in Urry, 1995: 147). Here the staging involved a ‘displacement of cultural production from one place to another’ to suit new conditions of time and place (Chhabra et al., 2003: 715). The authenticity of the place was influenced by Oriental myths and by the hosts themselves. The local guide explained that Omanis receive guests with coffee, dates and halwa (a kind of spicy pudding) at their homes. The cruise brochure referred to an authentic setting where the tourist is transported back in time through the taste of Omani coffee:
Surrounded by old mudbrick huts, you will taste Arabic coffee specialities and fresh dates. (cruise brochure, 2012/13)
Another brochure exaggerated the social representation of coffee:
‘Having coffee like a sultan’ … ‘Its aroma will take you back to the times when spices were transported with camel caravans through the desert’. (cruise brochure, 2015/2016: 135)
Through imaginary geographies time is slowed down and the past when caravans passed through the desert oasis is being romanticized. As a result, the tourist shall transform into a ‘different self’. To authenticate the coffee break, an elder Omani coffeeman and two young Omani helpers distributed coffee in small porcelaine cups, along with white plastic plates and spoons with one dry date and a spoon full of halwa (Figure 3).
The constructed coffee break.
Traditionally, offering Omani hospitality means taking time, having Omani coffee that is given free of charge along with fresh or dry dates. It is a time to sit down and socialize with others, exchange news, a kind of slow tourism. Here, the coffee break was rationalized and speeded up in time and space. It was a planned, staged ‘pseudo-event’ (Boorstin, 1961). Coffee was served only once and most of the tourists were standing while having coffee which is uncommon, as the tight travel itinerary had to be followed. Typically, halwa is served from a bowl where everybody serves himself with a spoon and with the right hand while seated. The sweets were standardized mass products. They did not originate from the oasis, although date farms and a date factory are close by. Fresh dates are harvested during the summer months, whereas tourists visit the oasis in winter, when only dry dates are available. Due to a lack of time and interpretation as well as a lack of curiosity or ‘cosmopolitanism’, most tourists did not try halwa. ‘It’s like Nutella’, said one male tourist in his 20s comparing the sweets with something familiar to him at ‘home’. For others the place, the people and the food were part of an activity-related ‘existential authentic’ experience. This confirms earlier research about slow tourism by Everett (2008) and Gutberlet (2017) whereby tourist sites are activated through ‘multisensory immersion’. A tourist, in his 80s, reflected on the visual experience: ‘It is interesting to see the Orient. When we stopped and had dates and saw the Oriental’, he said, thus gazing at and objectifying the local, ‘Oriental Other’. The drivers and the guide, wearing dishdasha and kumma (the local male dress and a small cap) were seen as a visual attraction. The tourists were taking photos of them. The intercultural exchange between drivers and tourists remained superficial. Instead, the authentic ‘we’ within the cruise tourist ‘communita’ was promoted (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005: 375). ‘Usually I do not speak with the tourists, only sometimes’, the coffeeman said, pointing out a communication barrier. His English language skills were limited. Few tourists said that their drivers spoke about local customs such as weddings and the daily prayers. Although Omanis generally like to communicate, most of the drivers were quiet with the tourists and low-skilled in English. Hence, along the road the tourists received hardly any interpretation, confirming earlier research on unskilled employees in cruise tourism (Klein, 2011). The lack of interpretation influenced the tourists’ perception of the drivers and some complained as follows: ‘He does not communicate with us’. Due to the communication gap, a lack of interpretation and the long driving time, the tourists’ perception of the country was mainly built on their visual, fast-passing impressions from their window screens and Oriental place-myths. A brochure promised,
The Sultanate has a spectacular landscape, that can be enjoyed comfortably from your jeep. (cruise brochure, 2011/2012: 125)
Both sides – cruise tourists and guides/drivers – remained among their social group, realizing an ‘inter-personal authenticity’ within the cruise communita, the ‘German group’ or the local guide/driver communita (Wang, 1999). Within their group the tourists asked the on-board guide or the researcher about everyday life in Oman. The Omani driver communita kept a distance, sitting apart from the group on a picnic mat. They had a pot of halwa and coffee and were gazing at the tourists (Fieldnotes, February 2013).
Experiencing nature
Following the brief introduction of the oasis by the tour guide, some tourists were walking along the irrigation system, which made them feel at ‘home’ (Wang, 1999: 351). ‘Look we have “MacFish” in here’, said a female tourist referring to the global ‘fish spa’ brand. Some females rolled-up their trousers and walked through the water of the falaj, which was filled with small fish. Some tourists realized discarded metal ring pulls, a symbol for a ‘throwaway society’. Other tourists were observed taking a photo of the old houses from one of the old watch towers. One tourist couple was observed posing in front of a garbage bin and the watch tower as their backdrop. Here authenticity is personal, visual or tactile and ‘a subjective immersion in the place’ (Mordue, 2007: 193) within the ‘cruise communita’ and a staging of the communita through photography (Bærenholdt et al., 2004). The most important is the tourist’s individualization and their habitus or social reputation within a customized environment. After 45 minutes in the oasis the excursion continued through the narrow streets of the lush greenery (Figure 4).
A drive through the oasis.
Tourists could gaze from their car windows passing by the trees behind the walls, thus glancing at the landscape. A male cruise photographer in his 20s said that he would rather prefer to bicycle through the oasis, wishing to experience, ‘immerse’ into the oasis at a slower pace, outside the enclosed ‘cocoon’ or ‘mobile tourist bubble’. A female tourist in her 60s said, ‘We thought that we would drive through an oasis, meet Bedouins and then drive through the desert’, adding that she prefers to travel individually and slow while meeting locals. Mobility changes the aesthetic appreciation of landscapes and societies (Urry, 1995). The results indicate that cruise tourists were satisfied with experiencing the oasis briefly, a strange but safe and customized environment within a constructed authenticity (Wang, 2007). This is in line with Everett (2008) who suggested that post-tourists are content with the inauthenticity of the experience. The Minister of Tourism, Ahmed bin Nasser Al Mahrizi, said as follows:
We want to attract tourists through the stories of each village. (Interview on 18 July 2012)
Hence, the ministry is planning to reactivate the old villages as show-villages, similar to Moroccan villages. A simulated, artificial village shall be developed where locals could not live in. It is a kind of ‘pseudo-event’ (Boorstin, 1961) or ‘miniaturisation’ (Urry, 1995). The objective is thus to transform the place-identity of the oasis into ‘a marked tourist site, a spectacle and affirmation’ (Shepherd, 2015: 69), characterized by surface appearances.
In the sand desert the convoy stopped for a photo in front of a group of camels, which was not a planned or staged event. Some tourists thought it was staged. ‘If we would see a camel walking around in the desert, it would be more authentic than a camel that is just there for the tourists. What is missing is that you pay money for nature, similar to what we experienced in Thailand. There you pay to sit on an elephant’, said a male tourist in his late 20s, referring to his view of an inauthentic, commercialized setting for tourists. Camels are often seen moving around freely in the desert; however, here the camel was kept on a rope, objectified and staged for the photo. Further into the desert, dune driving was the main attraction and seen as an adventure. A brochure of the Ministry of Tourism (2016a) promises,
On a 4WD journey into the desert, you can learn how the Bedouins steer across the sand, then dash down the dunes on a board or on foot – it is fantastic fun.
For many cruise tourists this was the highlight of the entire tour, similar to a ‘roller coaster’ enforcing the community spirit, enjoying the speed of the drive through the dunes and the time with friends, producing an ‘existential intra-personal authenticity’ (Gutberlet, 2019; Wang, 1999). On the other side of the dunes, the majority of the cruise group was waiting in the soaring, mid-day heat, gazing at the cars and taking photos of the staged performance. The tourists also gathered in pairs or in the entire group for a photo shooting, realizing an ‘intra-personal experience’ (Shepherd, 2015) within a group of friends, a family or a couple. Such a group photo materializes the memories of the tourist site and their cruise community back home. To further memorize their experiences, tourists collected samples of the sand, filled in empty water bottles or in small plastic tissue bags. This can be seen as another pause to stop, to experience and to conserve nature, while taking a break from the fast speed of their travel. ‘At home we fill them in small glass bottles and name the desert’, said a female cruise tourist in her 20s who travelled along with her husband. She wished to preserve an embodied, objective authentic souvenir of the Omani desert experience (Figure 5).
A tourist collects sand in a bottle.
During the lunch break in a luxury desert camp hotel, both groups, tourists and guides, were separately eating from an international buffet, served by expatriate waiters—yet another customized enclosure, a ‘closed tourist bubble’. Traditionally, Omanis sit on the floor and eat with hands and from one large plate, enhancing a feeling of togetherness, community and ‘home’. ‘When we have round trips we always eat with the guests; however, when there are cruise tourists, we are separated’, said a young Omani driver. Due to the construction of these ‘tourist bubbles’ during the excursion, some tourists questioned the authenticity of the camp. ‘Isn’t this all artificially created?’ asked a female tourist in her 50s after the lunch break.
On the way back to Muscat, some tourists expressed their desire for slower and deeper experiences with the natural environment and the people. ‘We leave the ship and two hours later we are in the desert. Then we drive up and down and back’, said a male tourist in his 50s. Another female tourist in her 30s expressed her disappointment about the standardized excursion: ‘We did not have an “Aha illumination”. What we see is not very exciting. I am sure there are many more things to say and to show’. Similarly, a female traveller in her mid-30s said, ‘Actually, after that tour I do not know anything about Oman. Next time I will travel with a backpack, that is slower and more intensive. I wanted to discover the original Oman’, referring to her expectations to learn and know more about the identity of the country while travelling slowly, engaging with the landscape and with locals in the countryside. The tourists were searching for ‘the unexpected’ and a deeper meaning beyond time-space compression and mass-consumption. Reflecting on the proliferation of choice in tourism (Urry, 1995) and the tourists’ over-consumption and ‘grazing’ of destinations, an on-board guide confirmed that only around 10% of the cruise tourists that visited Oman briefly may come back another time. A female tourist in her 50s said, ‘I doubt that I will return to Oman only. I have got a glimpse of the desert’.
After 9 hours, at around 5.30 pm, upon returning to the harbour, tourists were observed leaving the car in a hurry, many of them without saying goodbye to the local tour guide. They were hastening to the gangway, where they then had to queue. Some took hand sanitizer from a dispenser, and cold soft drinks were served to welcome them back to their temporary ‘home’. They disappeared inside the mega-ship to proceed for their dinner, where they may take some time to think about their experiences.
Concluding remarks
The article contributes to the discussion of the ‘overaccumulation’ of places and services (Harvey, 1990) conceptualized in mega-cruise tourism in a small, emerging destination. It enhances our understanding of consumption practices and the value of cruise excursions on land, where services are staged to create value (Pine and Gilmore, 2011). The excursion to the desert is a customized mass-product that is accelerated in time and space (Figure 6). The excursion practices are adapted to the fast speed of the overall cruise travel that aims at visually consuming, collecting or ‘grazing’ on as many places and images as possible within one week while simultaneously reducing the objective authenticity of space.
Framework for time-space compression during the cruise excursion.
The results confirm that due to speed of the travel, mass-cruise tourists may not reflect on, appreciate and respect the uniqueness and culture of the destination (Hritz and Cecil, 2008: 178). As Urry (1995) argued, in disorganized capitalism with its time-space compression, the visual consumption and the aestheticised social life increases, leading towards an end of ‘meaningful tourism experiences’. The sites visited are socially constructed for the gaze of mass tourists, involving a ‘displacement of cultural production from one place to another’ to suit new conditions of time and place (Chhabra et al., 2003). I agree with Urry (1995) and Harvey (1990) that the circulation of goods, services and images through mass tourism promotes a continuous ‘global miniaturisation’ and ‘disembedment’ of space in ‘liquid’ modernity (Baumann, 2000). The cruise excursion ‘decontextualizes and dissolves relationships’ people normally have with their social and natural environment (Gössling, 2002). The tourists are not ‘feeling at home’, but disoriented. There is a lack of interpretation and the tourist experience such as the coffee break or the lunch in the desert camp become staged, ‘unreal’ and less sustainable within the social, cultural and natural environment. The intercultural exchange between Omani drivers, guides and cruise tourists remains superficial. The cruise tourists move around within a customized, ‘luxury mobile tourist bubble’ which controls them as well as their cultural brokers. While on tour, the tourists and their guides/drivers are under continuous social pressure. The most important travel motivation for the tourists is to consume as much visual experiences as possible and to realize an activity-related ‘existential authenticity’ (Wang, 1999). The authentic ‘we’ within the cruise tourist ‘communita’ is reinforced not only on board (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005) but as well on shore. I agree with Everett (2008), Ritzer and Liska (1997), Wilkinson (1999) and Williams and Lew (2015), German-speaking mega-cruise tourists are searching for inauthenticity and most of them seem to be happy with it. Whether the sites visited are authentic or not is not important (Shepherd, 2015; Wang, 1999), as long as it represents an experience different from everyday life. For some even the travel itinerary is irrelevant. They cruise through ‘liquid modernity’ (Vogel and Oschmann, 2013). Once they stop, they are in another artificial ‘tourist bubble’ while their travel is a continuous struggle to position themselves. A feeling of belonging and a sense of ‘home’, for example, while having lunch with locals, cannot be developed. In the end, the tourists wish ‘to graze’ the next destination. The travel experience is in line with de Certeau’s (1984) thoughts of travelling within a mobile, closed bubble, shielded off from the local society, collecting destinations and attractions within a short time. ‘There comes to an end the Robinson Crusoe adventure of the travelling noble soul that could believe itself intact because it was surrounded by glass and iron’ (de Certeau, 1984: 1726). Some cruise tourists wish to slow down time to discover the places, engage with locals, learn and experience the objective authenticity. Therefore, there is a search for a shield against time-space compression through authenticity (Harvey, 1990: 292) and nostalgia. This would require a slower mode of travel, involving more time, money and resources as well as more active involvement of the local community. Given the large number of cruise tourists, an enclosed ‘tourist bubble’ may relieve social pressure from the host community and their culture (Gutberlet, 2016a; Williams and Lew, 2015).
The cruise excursion is managed by the tour operator in the capital and the cruise companies in Europe who want to economize time and human resources on land while maximizing their profits and power (London and Lohmann, 2014; Lopes and Dredge, 2018). Efforts should be made by tourism practitioners and cruise operators, ‘to make the big better’ (Singh, 2012), thus to make mega-cruise tourism more sustainable and beneficial for the local community. The volume of tourists and cars need to be considered as well as the duration of the excursion. Alternatively, activities involving slower modes of travel, such as cycling, hiking or nature walks, could be offered in proximity to the port. The reduced duration or distance of travel may offer opportunities for the tourists to adapt gradually to the new environment and to be part of ‘the flow of life’ in the destination.
The research responds to calls on investigating the sociocultural sustainability and value of cruise excursions in different destinations (Cusano et al., 2017; Klein, 2011; Lopes and Dredge, 2018; MacNeill and Wozniak, 2018; Renaud, 2017). Wilkinson (1999) explicitly calls for research on the ‘cruise inauthenticity’ (p. 279). It fills a research gap on mega-cruise tourist experiences ‘in situ’ while on tour in the destination; thus representing a valuable addition of applied research to the current body of research (Lopes and Dredge, 2018; MacNeill and Wozniak, 2018; Vogel and Oschmann, 2013; Weaver, 2005c; Wilkinson, 1999; Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005).
In conclusion, this article has provided some insights into understanding the nature of large-scale cruise consumption on shore and particularly during day-excursions with their time-space compression. They promote fast travel and the formation of standardized ‘closed tourist bubbles’ on land and multiple authenticities. Although it contributes to investigating a research gap in on-shore experiences, it has limitations, such as a field-work experience during one particular excursion and the practices of German-speaking tourists of one cruise brand during nine excursions. To further explore tourist experiences and to record changes over time, in-depth interviews among different stakeholders involved in cruise tourism should be conducted. As we seek a better understanding of cruise tourism, those findings can enrich research on slower, more sustainable excursions.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all interviewees for their openness and for agreeing to be part of my field-research. I also acknowledge all thoughtful comments of annonymous reviewers. I would also like to thank Carmella Pfaffenbach and Dieter Mueller as well as Jarkko Saarinen for their their comments on earlier versions. Finally I am grateful to Priyanka Sacheti and Terence Adby for proof-reading my work.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
