Report on "Mountaineers and Guests: Intercultural Interaction and the Development of the Hospitality Industry in the North Caucasus"

On 29 January 2024, within the framework of the regular seminar of the Centre for Sociocultural Research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics "Culture Matters", Daniil Sitkevich, Ph.D. in Economics, researcher at the Centre for Regional Studies and Urbanism of the Institute of Applied Economic Research of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, researcher at the Laboratory of Institutional Analysis of the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, delivered a report on "Mountaineers and Guests: Intercultural Interaction and Development of the Hospitality Industry in the North Caucasus".

The paper presented the results of a study of intercultural interaction between residents of the North Caucasus and citizens from other Russian regions arriving as a result of the surge in tourist activity.The field research in Dagestan and North Ossetia identified the main tensions between local residents and tourist groups and developed strategies for community responses to the conflicts. A variation was found between communities whose inhabitants had already had experience of intercultural communication before the surge in tourist activity and mountain settlements that had previously had little contact with representatives of other ethnic groups. The former are characterised by adaptation to the preferences and customs of tourists, while the latter are characterised by the establishment of informal rules for tourists, the violation of which can lead to denial of service. In some villages there is also a complete ban on bringing tourists, but it is characteristic of small settlements with a clear guarantee of compliance with the ban. Despite the emerging cultural tensions, both regions are still characterised by positive attitudes towards tourism and tourists, and direct conflicts with tour groups are rare. Nevertheless, there is a risk of increasing antagonism towards tourists, related both to fears of cultural expansion of tourists and to economic and environmental factors.