Intercultural Dialogue as a Tool for Maintaining Sustainable Partnerships in Tourism

Introduction

With the advancement of the third millennium, the sustainable development of the countries and of the regions is increasingly dependent not so much on its envisaged goals but rather on its tools. Sustainability is nowadays understood as sustainability on a supranational level (Uyar, Karaman & Kilic, 2019; Rodríguez-Díaz & Pulido-Fernández, 2019; Lim, 2017; Anastasiadou, 2007). For this reason, sustainability is very often treated as an inherent goal of all nations and cannot be an isolated phenomenon. Researchers are inclined to think of sustainability only as a part of a larger international system and to define it as a main feature of the global world. Much in this vein, the present authors have decided to have a closer look at the dialogue between cultures. Firstly, because it belongs to the scope of the international environment, and secondly, because, in its role of a tool, the cultural dialogue can contribute to achieving the global goals of sustainable development. One of its main functions is to maintain good partnerships and to manage international connections. In this regard, the intercultural dialogue has a close relation to Goal 17 and being not limited to any specific field (Ognjevic, 2019; Vicentijevic, 2016; Castro, Lundgren & Woodin, 2019), it can be investigated in view of the partnerships of tourism. This chapter considers one specific aspect of sustainable development (i.e. with respect to tourism), but the described interconnections can be transferred to other scopes of economic activities or human relations. The viewpoint presented here is that in the modern global tourism may be affected by many unpredictable factors, but more than ever, it desperately needs the support of good cooperation, partnering and skills for achieving dialogue between cultures.

Moreover, the achievement of best results, guest satisfaction and partnerships in the scope of international tourism requires not only the ability to communicate in a foreign language, but also awareness towards different types of cultures, such as the host culture, the guest culture and the culture of tourism itself. Many aspects of host and guest cultures have been studied so far (Tasci & Severt, 2016; Travis, 2011; Canavan, 2016; Mansfeld, 2019; Sonuç, 2020). Researchers and practitioners have long seen the benefits of optimising bilateral and multilateral relations (host and guest culture) through intercultural relations and intercultural dialogue (Truong & King, 2010; Castro, Lundgren, & Woodin, 2019). Educators have also acknowledged their significance and have included intercultural relations and intercultural dialogue in different disciplines of applied character in the scope of intercultural education (Aman, 2017; Gonçalves, 2011). The practical and theoretical achievements in the field still need optimisation, and there is only a limited number of studies devoted to the dialogue between cultures as a contributing tool for the development of partnerships and sustainable relations. For the reason that participants, especially in the sphere of tourism have two main roles – as service providers or as guests, and hence the above participants interact with each other on a daily basis, whereby mutual trust and respect are an indispensable part of the overall process, one can assume that the good skills for intercultural dialogue can be seen as a decisive advantage when choosing a destination to travel to and stay for a certain period of time.

In order to explore partnership relations in the tourism industry, the present chapter will discuss the role of partnerships and their management from the viewpoint of a chosen mega tourism event. It represents a stage where intensive intercultural dialogue takes place. Based on the authors’ preliminary analysis, such a stage has been identified, when lots of tourism partnerships from different tourism branches are established, many roles are assumed, and the intercultural dialogue occurs in a natural way. Specifically, this is the stage of international tourism fairs and, consequently, the research focus comes on the partnerships taking place there.