Tourism commercialisation and the frontstage-backstage metaphor in intangible cultural heritage tourism

Resolving tensions between tourism commercialisation and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding is an important objective. Using the frontstage-backstage metaphor as an analytical lens, we investigate how tourism promotes ICH safeguarding and how detrimental aspects of tourism commercialisation can be handled in Miao silverware tourism in Fenghuang, China. Results show that tourism commercialisation is beneficial because it provides new possibilities and promotes the transformation of ICH. However, fake ICH products are detrimental, prioritising commercial value over ICH value. ICH inheritors create two separate commercial spaces to handle the segmented tourism market. The frontstage-backstage metaphor helps to investigate the transformational process of ICH in tourism and socio-psychological dilemmas of cultural practitioners in dealing with the multiplying realities of ICH.