Paper short abstract:

In this paper i examine one particular case of anthropological research in tourism, which involves working with subsequent groups of tourists who explore the same cultural (Aphrodite's) route in Cyprus.

Paper long abstract:

My research involves working with subsequent groups of tourists who explore the same cultural route. This kind of participant observation is a unique kind of participating research: there is a similar tourist-setting (borrowing from the same cultural theme),the same cultural and physical landscape, a standard team of tourist professionals (the hosts: tourist guides and professionals) but different informants coming from a number of northern European destinations and diverse socio-cultural contexts. The field-site is Cyprus, known also as the birthplace of Aphrodite, and the cultural route followed by the tourists is one carefully designed by the Cypriot authorities to unite a number of known localities associated with this ancient Goddess. My overall research is concerned with the ideologies and practices involved in the promotion of cultural tourism in Cyprus. In this paper, however, i focus on the methodological parameters related to a unique anthropological positionality. The researcher has no other alternative but to follow successive groups of tourists who are in constant motion in space. The major challenge of this approach is to compare the hosts' and guests' expectations through the tourist experience, the tourists' perceptions, the tour, and the ethnographer, but without undermining the fact that the informants are still tourists in search for authentic experiences and totally indifferent to the priorities of the researcher. In this effort i draw some links between the methodological perspective of conducting anthropology at home and the theory on the anthropology of tourism.

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