Lorenzo Brutti's contribution to the ESFO 2025 conference

"The Living Museum. Offering “Tradition” in the Hotel Industry in Fiji"

Abstract :

This paper analyzes indigenous social strategies in terms of management of the tourist offer and the cross-cultural representations between Fijians and expatriates. Tourism in Fiji is analyzed from its dual angle of mass industry with an impact on a national scale and local variations of mini-hotel structures: how do the natives react to the tourist industry through the passage from a recent past, with an important cultic and ritual dimension (and still traceable despite the process of evangelization), towards a contemporary situation of rapid transformation? The analysis carried out in Fiji is based on the analysis of tourism as a mass industry based on the case of large resorts – large facilities that can accommodate thousands of tourists – on the western coast of Viti Levu, opposed to local “ecolodges” – micro-structures which have a capacity limited to a few dozen clients – in the northern Yasawa archipelago. The impact of the tourism industry is analyzed on both the culture and economy of Fijian society, made up of both indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijans from immigrant backgrounds. The diversity of types of tourist operations (size, origin and location) appeared particularly important: large hotel resorts such as the Sheraton and the Intercontinental on the west coast of Viti Levu, in the Nadi region, managed by foreign capital has been opposed in the analysis to small ecolodges created by indigenous people such as the Fisherman Bay resort on the island of Nacula, Yasawa.