Just as modernization is so often equated to Westernization, tradition often means, in the context of third world travel, authentic, real, or pure. Traditions are indispensable, but they are seldom adequate. Traditions change because they are never good enough for all the people who have received them.
Some traditions die, others grow.
When we look at our own culture, it is difficult to locate tradition. In our own society, change is progress, yet in the Other, change is destructive. This ties back to the need for the West to own progress, as if it were a commodity, an invention of the Western world. Advertisements in America are taking a turn toward the concept of tradition. For example, with the growth of the micro-brewery, beers are now claiming to be tradition.