Cultural Tourism: Exploration or Exploitation of American Indians?

Tourism appears to be a well-documented subject.There is a wealth of literature that discusses tourism as an economic development possibility, but there is a lack of research into tourism as a social development possibility.Further, the available literature does not differentiate between non-Indian and Indian tourism, or does so only through specific tribal case studies.Neither approach is wrong, but neither approach is entirely useful to those in the American Indian community who are considering developing cultural tourism' as an economic or social project.All American Indian tourism is affected in ways not addressed in the general works, 2 from the unique legal status of American Indians, to the issue of who should own the tourism business, to the fact that American Indians have, often without their consent, played host to non-Indians for centuries.While case studies are well researched and highly valuable for what they are, they are often too specific to be of widespread applicability.These studies present excellent ideas for addressing a specific problem associated with a particular tribe, but they do not discuss all the issues, because not all issues affect every American Indian community equally or at all.Consequently, a tribe wishing to develop tourism as an economic venture may read of the success of one tribe and decide to implement the same program.Unless the two tribes are identical, however, the success of one may be the utter failure of the other.This comment is intended to fall somewhere in the middle.Its goal is to *Third-year student, University of Oklahoma College of Law.I wish to thank my parents, Krafton and Elizabeth Moore, for establishing the foundation, Professor Taiawagi Helton for guidance