Highlanders and guests: intercultural interaction and development of the hospitality industry in the North Caucasus

On January 29, 2024, as a part of the regular seminars of the Center for Sociocultural Research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics "Culture Matters", Daniil Anreevich Sitkevich, Ph.D. in Economics, researcher at the Center for Regional Studies and Urbanism of the Institute of Applied Economic Research of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, researcher at the Laboratory of Institutional Analysis of the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow State University presented with a report on the topic “Highlanders and guests: intercultural interaction and development of the hospitality industry in the North Caucasus”.

The report presented the results of a study devoted to building intercultural interaction between residents of the North Caucasus and citizens arriving from other Russian regions as a result of a surge in tourism activity. During field research in Dagestan and North Ossetia, the main contradictions that arise between local residents and tourist groups were identified, and strategies were developed for communities to respond to emerging conflicts. A variation was discovered between communities whose residents, even before the surge in tourist activity, had experience in intercultural communication, and mountain settlements, which had previously rarely come into contact with representatives of other ethnic groups. The former are characterized by adaptation to the preferences and customs of tourists, while the latter are characterized by the establishment of informal rules for tourists, violation of which may lead to denial of service. In some villages, there is also a complete ban on bringing tourists, but this is typical for small settlements with a clearly defined guarantee of compliance with the ban. Despite emerging cultural tensions, both regions still have a positive attitude towards tourism and tourists, and direct conflicts with tour groups are rare. However, there is a risk of increasing antagonism towards tourists, related both to concerns about the cultural expansion of tourists and to economic and environmental factors.