Re-awakening: How can vibrant tales connect us all through folklore tourism?

In what ways might super­nat­ur­al folk­tales — and their anim­ist char­ac­ter­ist­ics — influ­ence res­id­ents’ and tour­ists’ per­cep­tions of and beha­viours with­in landscapes? 

Vivi­an Sakko invest­ig­ated this ques­tion on the Isle of Skye, Scot­land, for an award-win­ning master’s thes­is about folk­lore tourism.

Thanks to “Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner Tourism’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions for invit­ing Ms Sakko to write this “GT” Insight. 

Once upon a time…

Folk­lore tour­ism has surged in pop­ular­ity over the last few years, enti­cing people from all over the world to explore land­scapes infused with the super­nat­ur­al. Here, folk­lore serves as a teach­ing tool to inter­pret her­it­age, the envir­on­ment, and place.

How­ever, this pop­ular­ity cre­ates ten­sions that require fur­ther insight, espe­cially as des­tin­a­tions incor­por­ate folk­lore into devel­op­ment strategies. These ten­sions include, among oth­er things, cul­tur­al com­modi­fic­a­tion, appro­pri­ation, authen­ti­city issues, and land degradation.

My research aims to address the lim­ited schol­ar­ship in folk­lore tour­ism by look­ing into the rela­tion­ship between tour­ism, the land­scape, and folklore.

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The tourist gaze and folklore

Tour­ists’ per­cep­tion of folk­lore land­scapes sig­ni­fic­antly impacts how these areas are con­sumed and experienced.

Dis­courses sur­round­ing sites like Transylvania (Drac­ula tour­ism) and Roswell (UFO tour­ism) pre­de­ter­mine how trav­el­lers view the envir­on­ment and cul­ture. Folk­lore becomes a product of con­sump­tion, viewed through the lens of enter­tain­ment rather than as a reflec­tion of cul­tur­al val­ues linked to the liv­ing land­scape, her­it­age, and community.

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The folklore-centric gaze

A folk­lore tour­ism strategy that respects the land­scape, the people liv­ing in a place, and her­it­age value can gen­er­ate vis­it­or enjoy­ment while pro­mot­ing respect for the social and nat­ur­al context.

Con­tem­por­ary trav­el­lers crave nar­rat­ives to anim­ate land­scapes. Super­nat­ur­al folk­tales offer trans­form­at­ive exper­i­ences — pos­sibly impact­ing per­cep­tions and beha­viour — by cre­at­ing a ‘lim­in­al space’, a threshold between the real and ima­gined. In this space, people become more recept­ive to new per­spect­ives on, for example, envir­on­ment­al matters.

My thes­is explores the impact of super­nat­ur­al folk­tales on res­id­ents and tour­ists in Skye, par­tic­u­larly regard­ing their inter­ac­tions with the ‘more-than-human’ world. Fus­ing nat­ur­al and myth­ic­al ele­ments, these tales con­vey an anim­ist­ic world­view, poten­tially influ­en­cing how people exper­i­ence, per­ceive, and behave in cer­tain environments.

Inspired by Iron­side and Massie (2020), I pro­pose an anim­ist ‘folk­lore-cent­ric gaze’ for sus­tain­able folk­lore tour­ism. Key top­ics include:

• Folk­lore as a reflec­tion of human-nature rela­tion­ships; and
• Folk­lore and the con­sid­er­a­tion of more-than-human kin­ship.

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An animistic worldview

Accord­ing to Har­vey (2005), the world is filled with per­sons, only some of whom are human, and life is rela­tion­al. Anim­ism involves respect­ful inter­ac­tions with oth­ers, view­ing them as beings rather than objects. Over­all, it emphas­ises learn­ing how to be a good per­son in rela­tion­ships with others.

This world­view com­mits us not to pre­sume we know every dynam­ic aspect of our real­ity. It encour­ages ‘rela­tion­al awake­ness’; refus­ing to take the liv­ing world for gran­ted and instead recog­nising the teem­ing life around and with­in us.

Con­tents ^

Don’t miss oth­er posts tagged “cul­ture, cul­tur­al her­it­age, & his­tory tour­ism”

Folktales influencing environmental experiences

Evid­ent from my phe­nomen­o­lo­gic­al inter­views, nat­ive res­id­ents of Skye felt that aware­ness of loc­al folk­tales enhanced their con­nec­tion to a place, influ­en­cing their over­all exper­i­ence and understanding.

Both res­id­ents and tour­ists noted that these stor­ies could sig­ni­fic­antly shape their per­cep­tions, pos­it­ively or neg­at­ively. While some folk­lore might evoke fear or cau­tion, it gen­er­ally enlivened land­scapes pos­it­ively for people. This involved spark­ing ima­gin­a­tion and adding mean­ing to objects and places, allow­ing people to “see more”.

Inter­views revealed that expos­ure to folk­lore, in some cases, increased aware­ness of the land­scape, prompt­ing indi­vidu­als to seek out its “magic­al” aspects and pay closer atten­tion to the nat­ur­al world.

Nev­er­the­less, this folk­lore-cent­ric gaze can also cre­ate a select­ive focus that lim­its con­nec­tions with the nat­ur­al world. Con­sequently, the impact of folk­tales on envir­on­ment­al exper­i­ences var­ies by indi­vidu­al, influ­enced by their back­ground, interests, and beliefs.

Con­tents ^

Folktales influencing environmental behaviour

Many inter­viewees noted that under­stand­ing a place’s his­tory and stor­ies fosters respect, trans­form­ing it from mere land­scape to some­thing meaningful. 

This aware­ness of a place’s liv­ing char­ac­ter — wheth­er through anim­ism or recog­ni­tion of liv­ing entit­ies — can inspire great­er envir­on­ment­al aware­ness and respect­ful beha­viour among both tour­ists and residents.

Sim­il­arly, how­ever, the influ­ence of folk­tales on one’s envir­on­ment­al beha­viour var­ies by indi­vidu­al, shaped by their val­ues, back­ground, interests, beliefs, and the import­ance they ascribe to folktales.

Addi­tion­ally, des­pite most tour­ists show­cas­ing eco-friendly beha­viour and tour guides edu­cat­ing vis­it­ors bet­ter, envir­on­ment­ally harm­ful prac­tices by tour­ists per­sist in Skye due to insuf­fi­cient man­age­ment capacity. 

Accord­ing to DMO Skye­Con­nect, some of these prac­tices include:

• Stack­ing stones;
• Mak­ing stone circles;
• Going off-trail for the per­fect pic­ture; and
• Dress­ing up and leav­ing ‘gifts’ for the fair­ies.

Hence, vis­it­or man­age­ment will be a key focus for the Isle in the com­ing years.

Con­tents ^

Happily ever after?

Ulti­mately, the pro­cess of let­ting one­self be influ­enced by folk­tales is not about believ­ing in the super­nat­ur­al. It is about want­ing to believe.

It requires an open­ness; to change and to ‘oth­ers’, whatever they might be. Con­sequently, it is up to the indi­vidu­al to decide wheth­er to embrace the nudge that super­nat­ur­al folk­tales provide towards adopt­ing a folk­lore-cent­ric gaze.

Con­tents ^

What do you think? 

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Con­tents ^

About the author

Vivi­an Sakko gradu­ated cum laude with a BSc in Tour­ism (Wagen­in­gen Uni­ver­sity & Breda Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences) before com­plet­ing her mas­ter­’s degree in Tour­ism, Soci­ety & Envir­on­ment at Wagen­in­gen Uni­ver­sity in 2024.

Her master’s thes­is, “Vibrant tales that con­nect us all through folk­lore tour­ism: A case study into the folk­lore-cent­ric gaze using anim­ism”, was awar­ded the Dr Albert van der Zeijden thes­is prize 2024 (Dutch Centre for Intan­gible Cul­tur­al Her­it­age & Utrecht Uni­ver­sity). It also took second place for the ATLAS Mas­ter thes­is prize 2025. She is cur­rently adapt­ing this work for pub­lic­a­tion as a sci­entif­ic article.

Vivi­an cur­rently works as a self-employed pro­ject lead­er on a region­al tour­ism pro­ject linked to her research, yet she remains open to oth­er endeav­ours. Her areas of interest include tour­ism exper­i­ences, her­it­age, nature, storytelling, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, edu­ca­tion, res­id­ent par­ti­cip­a­tion, sense of place, place-mak­ing, and visitor/destination management.

Featured image (top of post)

Isle of Skye, Scot­land, is a land­scape of folk­lore; a des­tin­a­tion for folk­lore tour­ism. Photo by Vivi­an Sakko ©. “GT” added the words: “Do you believe?”

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