Im Zillertal. Gespräche über das Leben in einer Tourismusregion
In Zillertal. Talks on Life in a Tourist Region

Summary/Abstract: In comparison with the research into life in a tourist resort at the Istrian coast, conducted by Lidija Nikocevic (1994:209-220), the aim of my paper was to take a deeper look into how people live with tourism - or, rather, with and from tourists in the Alpine valley of Zillertal (Tyrol, Western Austria). At the first glance the two regions do not have a lot - if anything - in common. Not only being geographically different, they have different histories of tourism and their territories had both been coined by unlike structural frames. Zillertal is a classical vacation location in the Eastern Alps - there are skiing areas used during the intense winter seasons, while the traditional hiking and recreation tourism has been declining for years. Furthermore, the political, social and economic situation in the Croatian part of Istria at the time of Nikocevic’s research can hardly be compared with the area of my research. I carried out narrative interviews with eight inhabitants of the valley, all of them to some degree involved in tourism. In order to get the impression on how they manage their everyday lives, to find out how they deal with the tourist industry and how they incorporate tourism in their household of meanings, they themselves were taken as experts. Their “first-hand interpretations” served as a basis for further analyses, that also contained the critical consideration of the source. The “text of culture” was subjected to a historical anthropological reading. I aimed at, at least partial, reconstruct of the contexts and at tracing the formation of the structures of meaning. By doing so, by taking the closer look beyond the evident differences between the two holiday areas, I came across quite a few analogies and similarities. People who earn their living by being part of the tourist industry at the seaside resort in Istria use very similar strategies and draw conclusions very much alike the interviewed Tyrolese. For example, the relationships between the tourists and locals, at least as they got represented by the informants, are characterised as being very constant. Another point that overwhelms the differences between the two regions in the Tyrolese construction of self-image, that corresponds with the results acquired in Moscenicka Draga by Lidija Nikocevic. Tourism acts as the “constitutive element of culture” (Nikocevic, 1994:220) in both of these environments.

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