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Heritage and Tourism
Landscape and Heritage Studies Landscape and Heritage Studies (LHS) is an English-language series about the history, heritage and transformation of the natural and cultural landscape and the built environment. The series aims at the promotion of new directions as well as the rediscovery and exploration of lost tracks in landscape and heritage research. Both theoretically oriented approaches and detailed empirical studies play an important part in the realization of this objective. The series explicitly focuses on: – the interactions between physical and material aspects of landscapes and landscape experiences, meanings and representations; – perspectives on the temporality and dynamic of landscape that go beyond traditional concepts of time, dating and chronology; t he urban-rural nexus in the context of historical and present-day – transformations of the landscape and the built environment; – multidisciplinary, integrative and comparative approaches from geography, spatial, social and natural sciences, history, archaeology and cultural sciences in order to understand the development of human-nature interactions through time and to study the natural, cultural and social values of places and landscapes; – t he conceptualization and musealization of landscape as heritage and the role of ‘heritagescapes’ in the construction and reproduction of memories and identities; – t he role of heritage practices in the transmission, design and transformation of (hidden) landscapes and the built environment, both past and present; t he appropriation of and engagement with sites, places, destinations, – landscapes, monuments and buildings, and their representation and meaning in distinct cultural contexts. Series Editors Prof. dr. Gert-Jan Burgers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Dr. Linde Egberts, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Rita Hermans, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, secretary to the board Dr. Sjoerd Kluiving, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Dr. Freek Schmidt, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Heritage and Tourism Places, Imageries and the Digital Age
Edited by Linde Egberts and Maria D. Alvarez
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: Tourists visit the Begijnhof in Amsterdam, August 2017 Photograph by Linde Egberts, used with permission Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Typesetting: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 535 3 e-isbn 978 90 4853 644 3 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462985353 nur 680 / 740 © Linde Egberts & Maria D. Alvarez / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.
To the memory of Frank M. Go (1948-2017)
Table of Contents
Foreword 11 1 Tourism and Heritage
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2 Tourism Conflicts and Conflict Tourism
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3 Heritage Landscapes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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4 Revealing and Presenting the Past(s) for the Public
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5 Who Takes the Lead in Initiating Cooperation in a Cultural Network and Why?
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Crafting experiences through innovation Linde Egberts and Maria D. Alvarez
Curating “Holoscapes” in Europe’s Age of Crisis Rob van der Laarse
Huong T. Bui, Kaori Yoshida and Timothy Lee
Fethiye Mosque and Museum as a cultural heritage site in Istanbul Mariëtte Verhoeven
The case study of a rural Finnish destination Arja Lemmetyinen, Lenita Nieminen and Johanna Aalto
6 Sustainability of Heritage-Tourism Destinations
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7 Localising National Tourism Websites
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8 Enhancing the Tourist Heritage Experiencethrough “In-Situ”, Customisable, 3D-Printed Souvenirs
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A demand-based perspective on Cusco, Peru Begüm Aydın and Maria D. Alvarez
The case of World Heritage sites Emanuele Mele, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni
Constantia Anastasiadou, Samantha Vettese Forster and Lynsey Calder
9 Tracking the Heritage Tourist
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10 The Construction of a Tourist-Historic Icon
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11 Conclusion
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Heritage tourism and visiting patterns in a historic city Karim van Knippenberg and Linde Egberts
The case of the Palace of Westminster, London Linde Egberts and Renée Melgers
Linde Egberts and Maria D. Alvarez
Index 221
List of Figures and Tables Figure 2.1 Visitors at Auschwitz II-Birkenau Figure 2.2 Tourist facilities in Jewish-Kazimierz Figure 2.3 A group of tourists posing in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in the former Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw in 2005 Figure 2.4 Jodenbreestraat in 2017 Figure 2.5 Rooms at the Anne Frank House Figure 2.6 Tourists are lining up to visit the Anne Frankhuis in Amsterdam in 2017 Figure 3.1 A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima tourist brochure Figure 3.2 The ruins of Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki Figure 4.1 Fethiye Museum, exterior, situation in 2017 Figure 4.2 Fethiye Museum, interior, view toward the east, situation in 2017 Figure 4.3 Fethiye Mosque, interior, view toward the east, situation in 2017 Figure 4.4 Fethiye Mosque, view of the former Parekklesion from the north-west, situation in 1937 Figure 4.5 Fethiye Mosque, exterior view from the southwest, situation in 1937 Figure 5.1 The stakeholder groups in the Ironworks Village network Figure 5.2 Today’s Blacksmith’s – parts of the network have melded together Figure 7.1-7.2 An example of localisation of images
35 36 37 40 44 45 64 67 78 79 80 85 88 101 107 144
Figure 8.1 Example of display in Historic Scotland gift shop in Stirling Castle 159 Figure 8.2 Examples of unicorn imagery in Stirling Castle 159 Figure 8.3 Location of display in Stirling Castle 160 Figure 8.4 3D printer display at Stirling Castle 160 Figure 8.5 3D printed “give-away” unicorns 161 Figure 9.1 Classification by McKercher 175 Figure 9.2 Image created by Karim van Knippenberg 176 Figure 9.3 CBS (2016) Gemeenten 2016 184 Figure 9.4 Map created by Karim van Knippenberg using ArcGis data 184 Figure 9.5 Map created by Karim van Knippenberg using ArcMap 10.3.1 185 Figure 10.1 Site demarcation used in this study 198 Figure 10.2 Westminster Hall in 1647 across the river, painting by Wenzel Hollar. Westminster from the river, state 2 (n.d.) 203 Figure 10.3 Tourists walking on the Westminster Bridge towards Westminster Palace 203 Table 5.1 Interaction with data sources Table 6.1 Model of sustainability of heritage-tourism destinations from a demand-based perspective Table 7.1 Proposed adaptation (written in italics) of the cultural framework by Tigre Moura et al. (2014) for the evaluation of cultural values on tourism destination websites Table 7.2 Explanation for cultural categories Table 7.3 Means of cultural dimensions and cultural categories Table 8.1 Visitor perceptions of 3D-printed objects Table 8.2 Visitor enhanced feelings towards their mementos Table 8.3 Emotional engagement with 3D-printed souvenirs
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Foreword Tourism offers the possibility of benefitting from the economic dimension of heritage and harnessing it to help fund cultural and natural conservation. In a resource-constrained world, material and immaterial heritage can be used to support two extremely different narratives concerning development. The neoliberal narrative holds that technological solutions reduce resource use and therefore conserve cultural and natural resources. Heritage and tourism have become complex phenomena due to their political, economic, social, cultural, aesthetic, and environmental dimensions. A satisfactory balance between tourist expectations and the aspirations of residents to enjoy an undisturbed life in their local community has often proven hard to achieve both in theoretical debates and in practice. One argument is that host communities and local property owners should be involved in planning for tourism and conservation, since the latter enhance natural and cultural-heritage features and these people profit from them economically. However, to what extent does existing research on the subject address this issue? In any case, what research there is has not been widely disseminated enough to be of benefit to practitioners. Improving heritage tourism practice will ultimately require bringing the academic and practice communities together to conduct research. With this end in mind, the Second Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality International Conference 2015 held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (26-27 November 2015) placed the paradoxical theme “heritage meets innovation” centre stage. Initiated by the Rotterdam School of Business of Erasmus University, Elgin & Co., the research institute CLUE+ of the Vrije University Amsterdam, and the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture of the University of Amsterdam, the conference underscored the urgent need to make strategic decisions concerning the future of the heritage enterprise. Heritage decision makers must f ind ways of analysing the underlying market structure of their domain, and of questioning whether current trends are somehow interrelated, so that they can better plan for the future. Granted, at the same time, they must acknowledge that a lot in the future is fundamentally uncertain. The past 25 years have witnessed a profound shift brought about by computing, which has dramatically reduced the time needed to communicate information, easily bridging great distances and producing a new global connectedness. Currently, sensing devices are creating self-organising processes and new relationships that may lead to crucial
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changes in market structure. As a result, heritage-tourism organisations and destinations will have to answer a key question: “How can they succeed in attracting tourists while simultaneously persuading the relevant stakeholders to contribute to the conservation of tangible and intangible heritage?” These organisations and destinations do not function in isolation; they interact with clients, suppliers and other partners within a systematic framework – a relational network – comprised of nodes and resulting from investments of resources and previous interactions with stakeholders over time. How can decision makers become more fully aware of their position and relationships in this network – in the past, present and future? The editors of this book, Linde Egberts and Maria Alvarez, along with the contributing authors are in search of what we may call a relational heritage tourism, i.e. a pairing of two fields, heritage and tourism, which often operate in isolation from one another, both academically and administratively. One of the reasons for the distance between the two fields may be that defining and valorising heritage tourism is a “tricky” matter. As a field of study heritage tourism can become quite overwhelming due to the multitude of topics, theories, and examples it encompasses. Moreover, it draws on many different disciplines, ranging from anthropology, geography, and history to political science and economics, which adds to its complexity and can easily give rise to conflicting perspectives. While the case study possesses many advantages, its major disadvantage is that it is difficult to generalise about a set of factors that has contributed to success in a given situation, because every historical-cultural context is unique. The HTHIC 2015’s response to the lack of a “shared constellation of beliefs, values and techniques… models and examples” was a call for setting a coordinated Common Research and Applications Agenda. The latter is designed, f irst, to analyse the areas and tensions that inhibit finding creative and innovative ways to foster the development of academic-business-government relationships that are sufficiently robust to handle the problems now facing heritage tourism. Second, it aims to shape new institutional arrangements suited to nurture productive relationships and lessen the chances of contradictions, tensions and misrepresentation between stakeholders. Third, it seeks to create, where appropriate, the standardised methods and well-defined topics that are essential for casting research in forms that transcend the particular contending points of view, thereby making it possible to promote cultural heritage as a relational asset. The latter, in turn, can serve as a mechanism for joint-value creation and offer a solid foundation for securing a competitive advantage.
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Against this backdrop, the editors of this book start by outlining the various factors which contribute to the intricacies of heritage-tourism relationships. What is it that renders these relationships so difficult to understand? Whereas cooperation expresses a willingness to assist or engage in an economic venture, a relationship is more obscure, because it is a connection based on an association existing between social actors within a community or at the intra- and inter-organisational level. The editors reflect on the complexity of relational theory, showing implicitly a concern with the issue of how individuals and organisations behave towards each other. This is relevant considering that in heritage tourism the past (historical-cultural values) and the future (net present value) come together in contexts that must accommodate the profit motives of tourism and hospitality companies, making for some “uneasy” heritage-tourism alliances. The behavioural approach in relationships theory raises the question of how to coexist in such an uneasy coalition within a system characterised by partners whose actions are based primarily either on a belief in extrinsic goals (fame and fortune) or on intrinsic goals (social relationships and personal growth). The heritage-tourism market faces a volatile competitive market, which is taking the form of a worldwide scientific, technological, cultural, and economic race for pre-eminence. The result of this intense rivalry is the emergence of new alliances. The editors’ effort to help readers understand heritage in relationship to tourism is a fruitful point of departure, and it is buttressed by cases illustrating how the management of heritage-tourism organisations and destinations is rapidly changing in post-industrial society. In particular, the new media have made possible numerous technology-mediated interactions that have brought the past and the “original” back to life in previously unimaginable ways. Heritage-tourism stakeholders use the steadily growing interest in history – extending to historical films, adventure games, war commemorations, vintage cars, retro fashion, and music performances on authentic instruments – to satisfy modern consumption demands. Each of these types of experiences however, exploits memories, monuments, relics, and place-associations as “price/quality carriers” to optimise return on heritage as a relational asset. The intricacy of the relationships involved here derives from their multifaceted nature. In this regard, we can distinguish three significant aspects of heritage-tourism relationships. They can be viewed as devices, as assets, or as problems. The latter arise due to the intricate arrangements that relationships can create due to internal influences (e.g. marketing, financing, management) and external developments (competitors, suppliers,
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distribution channels, and information and communication technologies). For example, just consider how the rapid expansion of private museums may accelerate the eclipse of public museums, which may face increasing marginality in the future. Disruptive conditions raise the following important questions: What opportunities will arise from device-driven and self-organising processes as they create new relationships between heritage tourism and its (non-) stakeholders? What shared infrastructure do the parties involved need to develop? The chapters of this book distinguish three analytical perspectives on heritage-tourism relationships: those that emphasise, respectively, pull factors, push factors, and critical issues. “Pull factors” refer to selected organisational characteristics that function as a focal point and “magnet” to attract a particular segment of the tourist market to a destination. By making careful choices, a destination can concentrate its resources and use relationships as a means of efficiently delivering to the tourist segment being targeted value which is perceived as greater than that being offered by its rivals. Some of the chapters in this book present a methodology, concepts, or illustrations for packaging a variety of cultural values in a way that creates a specific and attractive product, or, in other words, a brand – one which is easily presented, say, on a website aimed at a specific audience. In “dark tourism”, for instance, site branding emphasises images of human suffering and trauma. Finally, in heritage-based brand building it is possible to create joint value if multiple stakeholders enter into networked relationships designed to reach and “enrich” (e.g. by way of narrative content) specific cultural markets. Other chapters highlight “push factors”, which refer to personal, psychological characteristics or needs that push or motivate tourists to participate in heritage tourism. These factors are especially prominent at sites which use technology and augmented-reality applications to enhance tourist experiences; and such applications can be incorporated in a narrative about the heritage site, which may also seek to include the participation of the local community. Other push factors tap into a broader trend of intensifying audience engagement by personalising experiences at heritage sites, for example, through co-creation and customisable 3D-printed souvenirs. Such organisation-to-client relationships serve as a means to attain innovation; for they match up an individual’s own resources and activities with those of organisations or of other individuals, thereby fostering new opportunities for innovation. A critical study explains how a content analysis of reviews of heritage destinations posted by tourists on the online platform TripAdvisor allows
Foreword
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us to gauge the degree of interest in and/or respect they have for selected characteristics of a local community, including local-product offerings, the quality of the environment and the preservation of cultural heritage. Individual tourists, heritage professionals, and experts can agree that these characteristics are significant for anyone involved in designing and implementing practices, such as those, for example, which can contribute to sustainable development. Engagement in relationships can be a means of influencing others if they foster intensive mutual learning and critically informed opinion, thereby building trust and leading, ultimately, to a more integrated stage of institutionalised heritage tourism. The critical importance of relationships is evident, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly throughout this book. The latter’s principal contribution is that it highlights the significance of relationship theory as a systematic framework for the development of heritage tourism, showing how it enables the sharing of memories and place-associations through a variety of means, including social media. The editors’ and authors’ approach truly reflects the motto of the HTHIC 2015, “Heritage meets innovation”, and their work is an encouraging sign that further advances in our understanding of the field will soon be forthcoming. Frank M. Go (1948-2017), Professor Emeritus Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands
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Tourism and Heritage Crafting experiences through innovation Linde Egberts and Maria D. Alvarez
Throughout modern history, tourism and heritage have had an intimate and reciprocal relationship (Ashworth & van Vroger, 2005). Heritage generates tourism, and the latter, in turn, shapes the meanings, uses and physical characteristics of places of heritage, such as monuments, archaeological sites and museums, as well as townscapes and landscapes. However, academic research into this relationship has been minimal. Occasionally social scientists or economists contribute to international discussions of heritage tourism,1 but our understanding of the historical and cultural dimensions of the relationship between the two domains is still meagre (Lasansky & Mclaren, 2004). This book aims to venture across the divide of heritage studies on the one hand and tourism studies on the other. It immediately acknowledges that by pioneering into this underexplored field, it stumbles upon a myriad of academic paradigms, methodologies, and understandings of concepts that are central to this topic (such as tourists, heritage, history, experience, place, image and identity). The book does not choose one approach over another, but rather demonstrates the width of approaches that are used by academics from various disciplinary backgrounds to entangle the intricate relationship between heritage and tourism. By doing so, it adds to the existing corpus of works on this matter, which often focuses on management and preservation issues (cf. Orbasli, 2000; Comer, 2012), leaving conceptual and representational issues out of view. Others address tourism mainly in the context of World Heritage sites (Bourdeau et al., 2015), that form a specific category due to the fact that World Heritage sites are recognised internationally as being valuable and can therefore count on different management structures and intensified tourist destination development due to their high symbolic value. By gathering case studies from Europe as well as other parts of the world, this book illustrates that conflicts, the process of appropriation, and the impact of digitation sometimes have comparable roots, but take on 1 These are impressions based on the presentations and discussions held during the Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality International Conference 2015, in which some 150 people from Europe and elsewhere participated, many of them social scientists.
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different forms and meanings in varied cultural, geographical, and heritage contexts. This book addresses heritage that is often perceived as being cultural, to make a clear distinction from natural heritage. Although in many ways this distinction complicates matters more than it solves any conceptual issues, it might be important to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that all chapters in this book address places and narratives from human history. In order to make more sense of the relationship between heritage and tourism, it is important to make clear how important the role of heritage and culture is in tourism. Indeed, heritage tourism can be understood as the use of the human past as a resource for tourism (Timothy, 2011, p. 3), and is a sector of the industry that has been growing rapidly in the past few decades. The eagerness of tourists to pursue distinctive experiences, and the increasing curiosity of travellers about history, have given heritage tourism a large boost in recent years (Apostolakis, 2003). As travellers become more interested in experiencing history, “heritage tourism offers opportunities to portray the past in the present” (Nuryanti, 1996, p. 250). Thus, as Rob van der Laarse states (in Chapter 2), heritage tourism is about selling experiences of the past. Heritage’s ability to attract tourists is well documented (Apostolakis, 2003), and, not surprisingly, cultural and heritage attractions that are perceived to be more significant, or that are more visible, are more likely than others to benefit from this trend (Nuryanti, 1996). A destination’s attractiveness to tourists is determined to a large degree by how effectively it tells its stories and stirs the emotions of its visitors. In some cases, a sense of nostalgia (Lowenthal, 1979) and a wish to re-enact historical narratives is the main inspiration. In others, interest in a specific historical event and the desire to know more about it is the dominant motivation for tourists. In some instances, however, heritage tourism enables visitors to explore their own identity, or, alternatively, to become immersed in someone else’s culture (Yu Park, 2010). These and still other reasons bring visitors to heritage sites, so that often one needs to accommodate a heterogeneous tourist group with varied motivations and requirements (Apostolakis, 2003). Chapter 8 addresses this by stressing the need to customise and localise how heritage is presented to various audiences. Although heritage tourism is considered to be an attractive market with a high potential for growth (Garrod & Fyall, 2000), it is also fraught with challenges. Managers of heritage-tourism destinations not only need to consider a multitude of reasons that tourists may have to visit these sites (as discussed in Chapter 9); they also must take into account that
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heritage resources have many different stakeholders, often with conflicting interests. Indeed, heritage resources are public goods, making them very different from other tourism sites, and their managers thus take on the role of guardians committed to keeping them in pristine condition (Garrod & Fyall, 2000). Yet, heritage sites are also part of the tourism industry, in which marketing and profitability issues need to be considered. When heritage sites become tourism destinations, managers come under increasing pressure to achieve both conservationist and commercial goals (Garrod & Fyall, 2000). This conflict of interests often becomes most apparent in the interpretation of the heritage and in issues concerning authenticity, as well as in approaches to the possible commodification of the resources involved (Nuryanti, 1996). Very often, accounts of heritage tourism focus on the possible negative effects of tourism, especially in connection with the commodification of culture, gentrification of the site and surrounding areas, along with physical damage to the sites caused by intense visitation (Kaminski et al., 2014). From an experiential point of view, heritage tourism may be described as “an experience which is produced by the interaction of the visitor with the resource” (Moscardo et al., 2001, p. 5). This vision focuses on the tourists (Apostolakis, 2003) and includes their interpretations and perceptions concerning the heritage site in their overall experience. However, as a result of the increased interest in heritage sites, the latter risk becoming destinations where the practices associated with them are turned into “performances”. This transformation is a form of commodification, and in consequence the meaning of the heritage in question is inevitably altered. In other words, the demand for heritage transforms remnants of the past into part of the tourism industry and thus into a consumable resource. Tourists come to heritage sites for many different reasons, ranging from a deep educational interest to the mild curiosity they may feel when stumbling upon something old during their vacation (Salazar & Zhu, 2015). But whatever the reason may be, the meanings and values of heritage change in the course of its being consumed. This is the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as discussed in Chapter 3 of the book, which contends that these cities have become intrinsically tied to their dark past. Tourists’ desire to consume heritage confers on these resources a definite monetary value, which in some cases may result in a “process of tourismification” which threatens the uniqueness of the place as it tries to adapt to the requirements of tourism (Jansen-Verbeke, 1998, p. 739). Thus, managers of heritage-tourism destinations are often confronted with the need to “package” the site and sell it to visitors in the most attractive way. In this case, the culture and values associated with it may wind up being
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compromised for commercial gain (McKercher et al., 2005). These issues are touched on by Aydın & Alvarez in Chapter 6, where they reflect on what the sustainability of heritage-tourism destinations means to tourists. Visitors, they find, do take an interest in their experience of a heritage resource and want to interact with what they perceive as the authentic culture of the destination. Yet, they are frequently incapable of determining what is authentic, and authenticity, in any case, is often subject to interpretation (Timothy & Boyd, 2006). Commodification of heritage can be both a negative and positive process (Chhabra, 2009), since the conversion of heritage into a consumable product may, at the same time, reinforce the feeling of local identity among the inhabitants and strengthen the community’s sense of pride (Cohen, 1988). Heritage tourism may also give rise to competition between traditional values and modern lifestyles. This is also one of the issues often raised in urban renewal projects, which are becoming increasingly urgent for modern cities to undertake as they confront a globalised competitive environment. Because renewal requires a trade-off between tradition and change, the need arises for cities to decide what to preserve and what to change. This process is often affected by political concerns, which may influence the interpretation of a particular piece of heritage, as well as the decision concerning what to preserve or even whether to conserve a particular site at all (Nuryanti, 1996). This is especially evident when there are opposing views concerning the historical facts, and the right to interpret the heritage in question is disputed by contending groups (Timothy & Boyd, 2006). Heritage tourism may also be enlisted to create or confirm national identities or to represent certain political ideas (Timothy & Boyd, 2006). In general, urban renewal projects run into opposition when, as is often the case, they are imposed from the top down and lead to gentrification, usually in accord with a certain political perspective that is likely to be contested by some of the residents affected (Schuitema, 2016). In some other cases, however, a consensus is built through the creation of networks of stakeholders that come together to build a particular heritage destination, as is described in Chapter 5 of this book. On the other hand, scholars with backgrounds in the humanities do not primarily focus on the monetary, economic, and social aspects of heritage tourism, but rather on the processes of creation of meaning and values of heritage in the context of increasing touristic interest. This is for example the case in Chapter 4 by Mariëtte Verhoeven, who discusses the conservation, interpretation, and presentation of a heritage site in the context of a multilayered past. The author examines the challenges of presenting heritage
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that spans several periods, some of which lie in contested territory in the current political scene. Thus, this and other chapters in the book discuss the subject of conflict in the interpretation and creation of a certain narrative of the past. In this sense, tourism gives weight to a certain perspective of the past, discarding other competing views, as a particular image of the place and its history are conveyed to the visitors. A dominant perspective in this field has long been the preservationist perspective on heritage, which sees tourism mainly as a threat to the authenticity of historic material, traditions, and rituals. It fits very well with the critique expressed by historians like Lowenthal regarding the dominance of heritage in comparison to other forms of retrieval (Lowenthal, 1997). Whether or not we like it, writing history and sharing memories are forms of past presencing (Macdonald, 2013), which have more in common with doing heritage than this polarising debate on heritage appears to suggest. After all, in order to write history we need heritage. Moreover, the research agendas that historians follow in large part because of the funding resources available are just as politicised as the heritage practices studied in this book. Our basic assumption is that tourism does not diminish cultural identity; in many cases, in fact, it fosters the affirmation of identity. Tourism informs the way people perceive their surroundings, and this process is mediated by the professionals and institutions that support their tourist gaze (Urry & Larssen, 2011). Pratt seeks to show how colonial travel writing “produced” “the rest of the world” (Pratt, 1992, p. 4). By writing about the foreign places they visited, authors in a certain sense shaped the reality of the subordinated peoples in those places in European terms. Since this framing was passed on to their readership and to other authors, the periphery came to be shaped by the (European) metropolitan centre. Although we have moved into a postcolonial era, the constructive effect exercised by travel writers and other authors on the identities of the people and places they saw has not lost any of its relevance. Moreover, because images have become such dominant carriers of values and meanings in society, the framing of tourist destinations via images is a highly constructive practice. Tourists thus do not simply gaze upon destinations and heritage; by taking pictures of them and sharing these, they actually construct and frame what is heritage and what is not. The tourist’s gaze (Urry, 1990) is thus not only a matter of his or her quest for authenticity; it is also a constructive factor of heritage. Travel should not be seen as an addition to stable settlement and a transfer of cultural meanings, but rather as a constitutive force. An example of this identity construction is discussed
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by Melgers & Egberts in Chapter 10, as they review the transformation of the Palace of Westminster into a historical icon and a symbol of Britishness. Tourists are inextricably linked to a large industry of travel agents, brokers, marketers, local entrepreneurs, and authorities, all of whom contribute to building tourism imaginaries (Salazar & Zhu, 2015). This is effectively illustrated by Hermann, who makes explicit how the social and cultural practices of tourism shape and define which of the remnants of the Cold War in Britain are perceived as heritage (2012). She maps how networks of actors, policies, discourses, and values are involved in the construction of an authorised heritage discourse, a framework that is decisive in determining what material remnants are regarded as heritage and protected as such. At the same time, she argues that tourists question and negotiate the conception of heritage offered to them by site managers, despite the relative passivity of their behaviour as consumers. While heritage resources are used to transmit stories of the past, it is often necessary for the receiving party to exert his or her imagination to reminisce the tale. When left to the imagination, the narrative conveyed may get lost or lose part of its appeal. Among increasing competition for a share of the visitor’s attention, heritage sites attempt to use various tools to craft experiences and create ever more vivid images. An attempt towards differentiation causes heritage-tourism destinations to embrace innovation and adopt new technologies that allow them to portray the heritage resource and convey the desired image. However, as Stamboulis & Skayannis (2003) contend, new technologies are successful in conveying desired images only when tied to specific desired tourism experiences. The focus of experience-based tourism being on intangible aspects of the destination, technology is useful to create a story, a myth that visitors will live through (Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003). However, a challenge for contemporary heritage sites is to ensure that the myth stays alive even after the tourist has left the destination and returned home (Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003). The reproduction of the experience may be achieved through, for example, 3D-printed souvenirs (as discussed in Chapter 8 of this book) that symbolise the heritage and culture in question, and that tie in to a desired narrative.
Places, imageries and the digital age This book encompasses ten chapters in which the intricate relationship between heritage and tourism is explored from multiple perspectives.
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Its authors come from a wide spectrum of academic fields, ranging from tourism marketing, communication sciences, tourism management, and economics, to heritage studies, cultural history, and applied art. The ability to draw on this wide variety of academic disciplines enables us to shed light on many different aspects – social, cultural, historical, and economic – of the tourism-heritage relationship. Within this perspective of the symbiotic but conflicting relationship between heritage and tourism, the focus of this book is on the creation of tourism experiences that are rooted on a deeper understanding of the heritage at the destination. Thus, three main topics are explored: the interpretation of places as heritage sites; the crafting of heritage experiences and imageries; and the innovation and use of digital technologies to present and communicate the heritage-tourism experience. As destinations are competing with each other for a share of the tourists’ time and attention, they strive to create something unique, to forge their identity. Heritage sites attempt to attract visitors by highlighting their unique ties with a particular history. Thus, heritage-tourism destinations often define themselves through their past, deriving a sense of identity from their geographical location as a place where certain historical events occurred. However, the definition of the place’s unique identity and creation of specific experiences that will take the visitor to the past is not always straightforward and may in many cases require interpretation and focus. Heritage sites are often places of differing narratives, or they may be part of a contested past. These ideas are discussed in the opening chapters, which address the issue of the consumption of conflicting or troubled history. Authenticity and construction of chronicles to create certain imageries of the place are part of the ideas deliberated in these opening chapters. This taps into the second main theme that addresses the crafting of heritage experiences and imageries. Chapter 10 also addresses how iconic images of heritage sites are constructed, sometimes over the course of centuries, in which the public and touristic image of a site is shaped by and at the same time influences the physical design, preservation, and management of the site. Dominant heritage narratives push other interpretations of the past to the background. As Chapter 4 illustrates, digital media can help heritage professionals in conveying more layered and multidimensional interpretations of heritage sites to visitors. Because even though a well-preserved heritage site may convey certain imagery, its ability to vividly portray history and culture is often limited. Heritage professionals are using technologies to dig deeper into the cultural resource (Richards & Wilson, 2006), and to provide the ability to engage
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different audiences. Digital content, augmented reality, 3D printing, are just some of the current technologies that are being used to display and communicate heritage to audiences that demand more engaging and personalised experiences than before. From the perspective of the heritage-tourism researcher, the Digital Age, which we understand as the era in which digital technologies have come to play a central role in communication and the storage of information, also offers new research areas as well as new methods to assess the experience and behaviour of individual and group tourists. The valuation and representation of heritage online is the subject of Chapters 6 and 7, whereas Chapter 9 utilises new digital instruments to track the behaviour of tourists while exploring a heritage environment. Chapter 10 then ties into the awareness that online images and social media can personalise and reinforce long-standing dominant narratives on the heritage value of an iconic site.
Structure of this book These three themes interact with each other throughout the book, revealing different perspectives of the same matter: the construction of experiences based on heritage resources. The book starts by considering conflicting and dark-heritage sites, which are fashioned to reveal their troubled past to the tourist gaze. Chapter 2 addresses how tourism related to heritage of Second World War conflicts in present-day Europe and beyond. Its texts evolved from the keynote lecture of Rob van der Laarse during the HTHIC 2015 conference that was held in Amsterdam and hosted by CLUE+ of Vrije Universiteit and Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture of the University of Amsterdam. He problematises the consumption and experience of sites that are testimonies to Europe’s conflicted pasts as tourists visit holocaust museums, the Warsaw Ghetto, Anne Frank’s House, or make Jewish-themed city walks in Amsterdam. Tourist activities change the framing and meaning of these sites of conflict that can only prove the city without the Jews they refer to. Van der Laarse describes how authenticity works when such an experience of conflict heritage becomes “delocalised” and becomes accessible in other parts of the world. In that way, heritage of past conflicts leads to conflicts of heritage in the present. In Chapter 3, Huong Bui, Kaori Yishida & Timothy Lee take the topic of war-heritage tourism to Japan, by discussing the self-representations of the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as dark-tourism sites based on an analysis of their tourism brochures. Despite differences in other respects, both cities
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display a strong consciousness of victimhood, and in both of them suffering and trauma have become part of their branded urban tourist imaginaries. The focus on the construction of a heritage-tourism identity is continued in Chapter 4 by Mariëtte Verhoeven, who sheds light on how the multilayered heritage of the Fethiye Mosque in Istanbul relates to its Byzantine past. She argues that if we consider this site as a legacy of Istanbul’s complex religious past, we become aware of the ways in which this complex has acquired value and meaning as part of the larger city. She suggests that this multilayered past could become the narrative of this site by developing augmented-reality applications which include the participation of the local community. Thus, this chapter also points to how technology may be useful in order to delve deeper into the history of the site, another recurring idea throughout the book. Following on the notion that varied stakeholders may have diverse interpretations of heritage and different ideas concerning how it should be presented, Arja Lemmetyinen, Lenita Nieminen & Johanna Aalto, in Chapter 5, focus on the case of a former industrial village in Finland in order to analyse how cultural networks are organised and how regional branding works at heritage destinations. They conclude that the key element in the process of building a brand based on heritage is the joint creation of values by multiple stakeholders within a network. The local governmental authority initially took the leading role, but the branding process is evolving into a polyvocal affair in which the cooperative cultural network devises a number of ways to link the brand to the community’s attachment to heritage. Begüm Aydın & Maria D. Alvarez in Chapter 6 continue to explore the idea that different stakeholders may have varied understandings of heritage resources. Focusing on the tourist’s perspective, they also address the question of presentation and communication of heritage. Based on an analysis of how the notion of sustainability is presented in TripAdvisor reviews of heritage destinations, they argue that the respect shown to the culture and values of local communities, as well as offerings of local products, is one of the dominant aspects of sustainability in the minds of those tourists who are willing to share their thoughts on the matter on the online platform. Thus, these authors argue that if the sustainability practices of heritagetourism destinations are going to attract visitors, then these practices need to increase the value of the destination for the tourists and be tied to positive experiences. Thus, sustainability is regarded as important not only by heritage professionals and experts; it is also receiving an increased amount of attention from tourists. This is a hopeful development, as it
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might indicate growing attention on their part to the meanings of heritage for local communities and to the sustainable development of heritage as an important factor in ensuring that a whole range of worthwhile tourist experiences will be available in the future. The focus of Chapter 7 is on how national tourism websites are localised in order to reach specific markets and cater to their particular cultural requirements. Thus, this chapter also touches on the theme of differing stakeholders, while also considering technological solutions to address a diverse audience. It offers a methodological exploration of the cultural values represented in tourism destination websites which are aimed at specific markets. Mariëtte Verhoeven introduced the application of technology for the enhancement of tourist experiences in Chapter 4, and in Chapter 8 Constantia Anastasiadou, Samantha Vettese Forster & Lynsey Calder take this topic a step further, analysing the effect of creating customisable 3D-printed souvenirs on the tourist experience at heritage sites. The device taps into a broader trend of enhancing audience engagement by personalising experiences through co-creation and customisability. Thus, innovation and technology are introduced in order to present heritage and to create and convey a specific identity ascribed to the heritage-tourism destination. In Chapter 9, Karim van Knippenberg & Linde Egberts retake the theme of experience crafting, focusing on the interaction between people (i.e. heritage tourists and their motivational factors), product (i.e. cultural assets, such as heritage) and place (i.e. actual space use patterns). The purpose of this research is to elaborate on and clarify how the people-product interaction is expressed in place. The knowledge gap is addressed by using an innovative methodology: matching and mapping of two distinct georeferenced data sets: the space use patterns and the indicators of heritage in the historic city. Besides, the combination between data collected from a questionnaire and geo-referenced data offer an approach to gain more insight into how the people-product interaction is expressed in place. The analysis of GPS-signals shows that the main tourist space appears to be highly concentrated. The chapter concludes that the number of respondents visiting Maastricht for sightseeing reasons is relatively large, whereas only some respondents are primarily motivated by heritage. It can be concluded that heritage tourists do not form a homogeneous group with a wide variety in the level of engagement, motivation, and interest in heritage sites. The book is rounded off by Renée Melgers & Linde Egberts, who study the process in which tourist-historic icons are constructed. Taking the work of
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MacCannell (2013) they analyse how the Palace of Westminster developed into a tourist historic icon. They particularly focus on the development of the area as a centre of empirical and ecclesial power that turned into an icon for London and Britishness through representations in travel guides, paintings, photography and other media. They argue that the process of sacralisation (MacCannell, 2013, pp. 44-45) of tourist attractions is not applicable to sites that have a long history as heritage in a linear way. Rather, they argue that this sacralisation process is inextricably linked to the long history of political and symbolic valorisation of the area that commenced long before modern-day mass tourism. Like the other chapters in their own ways, this finalising contribution shows how new reflections on tourism can emerge from a combination of humanities-based perspectives on the history and heritage of places with insights into contemporary tourism from social sciences.
References Apostolakis, A. (2003). The Convergence Process in Heritage Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 30(4), pp. 795-812. Ashworth, G., & Vroger, B. van (2005). Heritage and the Consumption of Places. In Laarse, R. van der & Vree, F. van. Bezeten van vroeger. Erfgoed, identiteit en musealisering (pp. 193-206). Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Bourdeau, L., Gravari-Barbas, M. & Robinson, M. (eds) (2015). World Heritage, Tourism, and Identity: Inscription and co-production. Farnham: Ashgate. Chhabra, D. (2009). Proposing a Sustainable Marketing Framework for Heritage Tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17(3), pp. 303-20. Clifford, J. (1997). Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, E. (1988). Authenticity and Commoditization in Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 15(3), pp. 371-86. Comer, D.C. (2012). Tourism and Archaeological Heritage Management at Petra: Driver to development or destruction? New York: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-1481-0. Garrod, B., & Fyall, A. (2000). Managing Heritage Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(3), pp. 682-708. Hermann, I. (2012). Cold War Heritage (and) Tourism: Exploring heritage processes within Cold War sites in Britain. PhD thesis. University of Bedfordshire. Jansen-Verbeke, M. (1998). Tourismification of Historical Cities. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(3), pp. 739-42.
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Kaminski, J., Benson, A.M., & Arnold, D. (2014). Introduction. In Kaminski, J., Benson, A.M., & Arnold, D. (eds), Contemporary Issues in Cultural Heritage Tourism (pp. 3-18). Oxon: Routledge. Lasansky, D.M., & McLaren, B. (eds) (2004). Architecture and Tourism: Perception, performance and place. Oxford: Berg. Lowenthal, D. (1979). Environmental Perception Preserving the Past. Progress in Human Geography, 3(4), pp. 549-59. Lowenthal, D. (1997). The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacCannell, D. (2013). The Tourist: A new theory of the leisure class. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Macdonald, S. (2013). Memorylands: Heritage and identity in Europe today. Abingdon: Routledge. McKercher, B., Ho, P.S., & du Cros, H. (2005). Relationship between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management: Evidence from Hong Kong. Tourism Management, 26(4), pp. 539-48. Moscardo, G., Faulkner, B., & Laws, E. (2001). Cultural and Heritage Tourism: The great debates. In Faulkner, B., Moscardo, G., & Laws, E. (eds), Tourism in the Twenty-first Century: Reflections on experience (pp. 3-17). London: Continuum. Nuryanti, W. (1996). Heritage and Postmodern Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(2), pp. 249-60. Orbasli, A. (2000). Tourists in Historic Towns: Urban conservation and heritage management. London: E & FN Spon. Park, H.Y. (2010). Heritage Tourism: Emotional journeys into nationhood. Annals of Tourism Research, 37(1), pp. 116-35. Pratt, M.-L. (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel writing and transculturation. London: Routledge. Richards , G., & Wilson, J. (2006). Developing Creativity in Tourist Experiences: A solution to the serial reproduction of culture? Tourism Management, 27(6), pp. 1209-23. Salazar, N.B., & Zhu, Y. (2015). Heritage and Tourism. In Meskell, L. (ed.) Global Heritage: A reader (pp. 240-258). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Schuitema, K. (2016). Social Memory and Identity in the Gentrifying Neighbourhood of Tophane (Istanbul). In Alvarez, M.D., Go, F.M., & Yüksel, A. (eds), Heritage Tourism Destinations: Preservation, communication and development (pp. 154-68). Oxfordshire: CABI. Stamboulis, Y., & Skayannis, P. (2003). Innovation Strategies and Technology for Experience-based Tourism. Tourism Management, 24(1), pp. 35-43. Timothy, D.J. (2011). Cultural Heritage and Tourism: An introduction. Bristol: Channel View Publications.
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Timothy, D.J., & Boyd, S.W. (2006). Heritage Tourism in the 21st Century: Valued traditions and new perspectives. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 1(1), pp. 1-16. Urry, J. (1990). The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies. London: Sage. Urry, J., & Larssen, J. (2011). The tourist gaze 3.0. London: Sage.
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Tourism Conflicts and Conflict Tourism Curating “Holoscapes” in Europe’s Age of Crisis Rob van der Laarse
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch02 Abstract The notion of a European heritage has become one of the main pillars of the EU’s cultural policy. However, instead of the political wish for a European shared patrimony, Europe faces a highly conflicted past, which has become for many Europeans a contested heritage with strong repercussions for the backward-looking notion of European culture. For, there is no heritage without culture and no culture without conflict. One’s heritage also defines one’s identity, and the willingness of Europeans, and “Western” tourists more in general, to identify with deplorable and painful pasts makes Holocaust heritage tourism into a kind of healing experience. More than being a matter of shared values, the conservation of such painful pasts deals with their present uses. In other words, the meaning of heritage is produced by politics of memory and identity as much as by the performative experience of heritage tourists and other stakeholders with often conflicted interests and competing memories. This has resulted in many parts of Europe (and beyond) in what I would call urban “Holoscapes”, where visitors now walk in the footsteps of victims in a virtually re-enacted site without Jews. Keywords: conflict, heritage, tourism, Holoscapes, Europe
A curator mouldering the concrete remnants of the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoriums of Auschwitz-Birkenau in his hand to show the material decay of Europe’s most horrible past, is taken as the opening scene
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of Oeke Hoogendijk’s documentary film The Holocaust Experience (2002). A single shot of the dust, blowing away like the ashes of the victims of the Nazi death camp in the past, shows in a nutshell the uselessness of the daily struggle of the Polish State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau to preserve the most iconic remnants of the Holocaust. “Here everything should stay the same”, as one of the masons remarks while restoring the concrete piles of the former German Nazi concentration camp, but we all know that it would not. Yet the same documentary presents another way to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. For if Auschwitz should be frozen in time as Europe’s main crime scene and primary evidence of the Holocaust, at the same time a thousand kilometres away in the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, American visitors and school children experience Auschwitz in a virtual way. Re-enacting the atrocities of the past by means of reconstructions, this museum wants to let people experience the behaviour of mankind “when we arrive at our lowest form”. Thus school children receive passport cards with shocking details about the terror and evil experienced by their peers in the past, the “Holocaust children”. And, as a guide declares, “because Hitler had no use for you, you marched right into the death camps, you were gassed and you were burned up”. After that “lesson” their march through the museum ends up in a replica gas chamber (Hoogendijk, 2002). Passing through the iconic gate of Europe’s heart of darkness – and the symbolic crossing of the still-existing mental border of the Iron Curtain – seems to have become a trend among Western-Europe’s rich and famous, politicians, and more and more also among younger generations. This could be regarded as a success for Europe’s global contribution to the development of Holocaust tourism. For as David Lowenthal observed, while Europeans may criticise the European Union’s process of bureaucratic centralisation, “the commodified and touristic past plays a leading role in the continent’s unification”. And much that Europeans are willing to share is commonly defined as “heritage”; “the sense of an historic past embraced within the present – a past conserved, used, and exhibited on behalf of our collectives selves – is quintessentially European”. But “what’s most quintessentially European are not traits in which Europeans take pride, but rather attributes generally felt deplorable, even shameful” (Lowenthal, 2005, p. 34-5). Therefore, in contrast to the American Holocaust experience, the real Auschwitz might for many Europeans even be too overwhelming to experience. Rather than being confronted with the horrors of the gas chambers they seem to prefer a touristic sightseeing at the “authentic” place, without too much shocking details. But the difference between visiting an American museum and a European terrorscape goes beyond that.
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In addition to such a touristic consumption of Europe’s past, I would add that far from being a shared patrimony, it is for Europeans basically a contested patrimony of a conflicted past that is represented at such sites. For, there is no heritage without culture and no culture without conflict. One’s heritage also defines one’s identity, and the willingness of Europeans, and “Western” tourists more in general, to identify with deplorable and painful pasts makes Holocaust heritage tourism into a kind of healing experience. The shame that Holocaust tourists felt seems closely related to a fascination with “dark” destinations which even for visitors of the second post-war generation still seem to take some courage to enter (Cf. Lennon & Foley, 2000). More than being a matter of shared values, the conservation of such painful pasts deals with their present uses. In other words, the meaning of heritage is produced by politics of memory and identity as much as by the performative experience of heritage tourists and other stakeholders with often conflicted interests and competing memories. This has resulted in many parts of Europe (and beyond) in what I would call urban “Holoscapes”, where visitors now walk in the footsteps of victims.
Re-enacting a land without Jews A United Europe from the ashes of Auschwitz (Sadée, 2010)? A new 1,000Euro note, with a generic concentration camp gate framed by barbed wire on the front, or an abstract image of the ruined bridge of Mostar on the back? The idea seems perverse, if not obscene. After all, the dynamic, transnational space of the EU seems solidly rooted in the peaceful attraction of a common market and a cultural idea that proclaims uniquely “European” values of humanism, democracy and citizenship. Yet, the case can be made that the wars and mass terror which characterised much of the twentieth century – described as “Age of Extremes” (Eric Hobsbawm) and “a Century of Camps” (Zygmunt Bauman) –were the defining experiences that encouraged the current European process of integration (Cf. Hobsbawm, 1995; Bauman, 1995; Mazower, 1999; Judt, 2005). If before 1989 the memorialisation of the First and Second World Wars followed national and often nationalist lines (van Vree & van der Laarse, 2005; Mazzucchelli, van der Laarse & Reijnen, 2014), with the destruction of the Iron Curtain, the wars in former Yugoslavia, the expansion and consolidation of the European Union, and what may be called a Holocaust memory boom (Winter, 2006, pp. 286-9; Hoskins & O’Loughlin, 2010, pp. 98-9, 104-19; Lennon & Foley, 2000). Auschwitz and other sites related to the Holocaust or to other aspects
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of Nazi terror have become critically important icons of modern European identity. Thus, in the 1970s the death camp at Auschwitz was still a site of remembrance for Polish communists, dedicated to mass manifestations honouring the antifascist resistance and the victims of Nazism, without specif ic reference to the Jewish victims of Auschwitz II or AuschwitzBirkenau. In fact Auschwitz I, the Stammlager, was until 2000 the only site open to visitors, and its display of hundreds of victim photos shot by Nazi photographers included no Jews, only Poles. Still today, for many Poles the “essential” Auschwitz is not the iconic Jewish death camp Birkenau, visited mainly by foreign tourists and Israeli survivor families, but this “Catholic” martyr site. The iconic Auschwitz victim is not Anne Frank or any other Jewish prisoner or survivor, such as Primo Levi (whose ruined and forgotten hospital barrack from Auschwitz III Monowitz was transformed into a farm shed before it was demolished some years ago (Kearns, 2014)), but the “Catholic martyr” Father Kolbe, for whom candles burn in front of his former prison cell. Opposing the communist “texture” of the site, Father Kolbe was canonised as a saint in 1982 by the Polish Pope John Paul II, whose visit in 1978 to Auschwitz was a direct reaction to the listing of the Auschwitz State Museum as a UNESCO World Heritage site in that same year. If the Pope’s visit supported the Solidarnosc anti-communist liberation movement at that time, it also provoked, years later, a long “battle of the crosses” with the international Jewish community: a memory war over the identity of Auschwitz. Was it a shrine for Jews all over the world or only for Polish Catholics (Dwork & van Pelt, 2002, p. 354-78; Zubrzycki, 2006)? A compromise was reached that took the form of a spatial separation of the two streams of tourists. “Polish” Auschwitz I and “Jewish” Auschwitz II or Birkenau each has its own guides, supervising board, and gates, but they are often confused by tourists who cannot believe that Jews never entered the former’s iconic gate with the cynical slogan “Arbeit macht frei”. What I hope to make clear is that many of the elements of heritage tourism are, so to speak, put on trial at Europe’s most iconic, and contested, World Heritage site. This should serve as a reminder that, in contrast to what most of us would like to think, (material) authenticity and (heritage) tourism by no means automatically go together. What tourists visit and consume is mostly “staged”, just like our historical parks, medieval castles and monumental city centres. But the kind of “dark tourism experience” of some of the Auschwitz’s visitors mentioned above, represents only one side of the Holocaust
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Figure 2.1 Visitors at Auschwitz II-Birkenau
Photo by Diego Delsa
memory boom, the other side of which may be defined as Jewish roots travel: a touristic homecoming of mostly non-European Jewish visitors to “Jewish heritage sites” in formerly Eastern-European Jewish towns and “ghettos”. For many people, the discovery of their Jewishness by listening to Klezmer music and identifying with Yiddish culture has not only created a dynamic counter-memory to Auschwitz-Birkenau; it can also be regarded as a healing activity compensating for collective feelings of guilt and trauma. Therefore not only Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Nazi-German extermination camps preserved in occupied Poland, but also Jewish heritage sites in Poland have changed remarkably because of appropriations by heritage groups, such as the Canadian Ronald S. Lauder Foundation’s restoration of parts of the old Warsaw ghetto. The Lauder Foundation also initiated the so-called Morasha schools for e-Learning which aim “to create a sense of belonging to Jewish children from each and every town in Poland” and to help them understand “their Jewish heritage and [shape] their Jewish identity (Lauder Foundation, n.d.; Meng, 2011). The same project is also being extended to Germany and the Czech Republic, while Yad Vashem and American Holocaust travel organisations have developed comparable projects to enable younger generations to attach roots in and identity with former Jewish places in Poland where at
36 Rob van der L a arse Figure 2.2 Tourist facilities in Jewish-Kazimierz
Photo by the author
present only some material traces recall the communities destroyed by the Holocaust. Yet, though especially in the countryside many Polish people are still prejudiced against Jews and “other” foreigners (as has been shown during the present refugee crisis and the recent elections, in which the nationalists received more than 50% of the vote), in addition to Western tourists one can also witness a remarkable identification with the Jewish past occurring among a younger generation of Poles in cities like Warsaw, Krakow and Lublin. There the historic centres are being transformed into well-preserved historical districts as Soviet sobriety gives ways to trendy gentrification. Consider the case of Krakow, with its impressive, large Renaissance square and the nearby salt mines, both, like Auschwitz, listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Already during the communist era the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee restored the Great Synagogue and the Jewish graveyard, which in the 1990s came to function as the natural location of a fast-growing number of Jewish bookshops, trendy galleries, and restaurants, as well as new heritage sites such as the Galicia Museum and Schindler Museum in the original factory which plays a key role in Steven Spielberg’s
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Figure 2.3 A group of tourists posing in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in the former Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw in 2005
Photo by Tevon Alexander
movie Schindler’s List and even offers a re-enactment with staged walls and streets of the nearby Podgory ghetto. To be sure, Krakow-Kazimierz is not only a product of the tourist, heritage, and media industries; it is also the result of a long process of restoration which attracted students and artists (soon to become yuppies) to a gentrifying city that has successfully reappeared on the map of European memory as a “city of collective memory” (Boyer, 1996). Yet, as a result, Poland’s “forgotten” heritage of its erased Jewish past is now marketed as a “Jewish Revival” in the wake of Yael Bartana’s and Slawomir Sierakowski’s hilarious, and critical, Israeli-Polish art project called the “Jewish Renaissance movement in Poland”, which at its first JRMiP Conference in Berlin (!) formulated its programme in terms of three key questions: 1 How should the EU change in order to welcome the Other? 2 How should Poland change within a reimagined EU? 3 How should Israel change to become part of the Middle East (JRMiP, n.d.; Cembalest, 2013; Zubrzycki, 2013)?
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Thus, historical cities in former Nazi-occupied Poland have become attractive destinations for cultural investors and Jewish “roots tourists”, combining the “hot” message of “Auschwitz – never again!” (as sold by Krakow tour operators) with the “soft” heritage of a revived Polish-Jewish past. Paradoxically, this Jewish revival in Krakow is strongly influenced by its nearness to Auschwitz, which makes it possible for tourists to “consume” the city by framing the past from a Holocaust perspective. Similarly, Lublin is restoring part of its destroyed Jewish ghetto, once situated in the city centre (now a parking place), as a counterpoint to the Majdanek concentration camp just outside the city, which just like Auschwitz is becoming more Polish by a lowering of the stated number of Jewish victims and the exhibition of “Polish” barracks on the site next to the gas chamber (Rezka, 2005; Majdanek, 2007). Yet the logic involved in combining heritage, tourism, and identity is far from straightforward. Attracting tourists is hard work. The “selling” of hospitality is much easier in some locations than in others, since place-bound factors, such as their cultural biography, cannot be changed haphazardly, and as such need to be carefully linked to the grand narratives of nation-building, European civilisation, or the Holocaust. Thus, in its attempt to compete with Krakow by creating a Jewish-themed tour of its erased Jewish past, Oświęcim (the Polish name of the town of Auschwitz), seems not to be having much success, even though it actually was a Jewish shtetl before the War, most of all because of the “hot” message of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Tourists visiting the site f ind it difficult to believe that people are actually living in Auschwitz, let alone to book a hotel in a Polish town framed by them (in sharp contrast to its inhabitants) as the iconic Nazi-German extermination camp (compare: Citroen & Starzynska, 2011)! In fact, while we know a lot about visitor behaviour at heritage sites and in museums, we do not yet know much about why they feel at home in one place and not in another. We do know, as Dean MacCannell remarked, that “tourism is agency” (MacCannell, 2001). It transforms whole land- and cityscapes into heritages- or memoryscapes (Cf. Garden, 2006). And this kind of post-Holocaust memory tourism is not restricted to Poland; such Holoscapes can be found today throughout former Nazi-occupied Europe. Tourists may not only take a Jewish-themed tour in “Jewish Krakow” or “Jewish Warsaw”; they may also experience “Jewish Ghosts” in Western Europe, such as in “Jewish Amsterdam” (Fein, n.d.).
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Framing a city without Jews One should not underestimate the power of a tourist guide or travelogue when it comes to mapping local highlights in an unknown environment where people speak languages incomprehensible to most tourists, like Polish or Dutch. The formula underlying these guides goes back to the seventeenthcentury Grand Tour and eighteenth-century interest in picturesque travel, and it assumes tourists will do their own “place-making” by the act of walking. Each walk takes him or her for a half-day trip along a carefully designed route formed by a series of spots or stops like museums, squares, parks, boulevards, some “exotic” Gothic streets, and, of course, a good café. For example, the Anglo-American Cadogan Guide offers an Amsterdam experience through “six entertaining easy-to-follow walks”, such as a route through the medieval Dam and Red Light District (“Central Amsterdam”, one along the Canals (“Essential Amsterdam”), and another to the Museum Quarter, Leidseplein, and the “Diamonds” district. In Amsterdam the diamond industry already has a Jewish connotation, at least for the locals, but for us the most relevant itinerary is Walk 3: “Jewish Amsterdam and Jordaan”. By far the longest walk in the Cadogan Guide, it starts at Artis, the Zoo, and takes us along the Trade Union Museum in the Henri Polak Lane (named after a famous Jewish socialist leader) to the Noordermarkt. In fact, this route is extremely well conceived, because on it the visitor can take in a very varied cityscape while walking for several kilometres from the Jodenbreestraat, the former main street (Broadway) of the old Jewish quarter in the east end of the old city centre (where one can also visit the seventeenth-century Rembrandt Huis and the Jewish De Pinto House), to the so-called Jordaan quarter at the periphery of the Canal ring. This excellent choice of a route through “Jewish Amsterdam” is eyeopening even for residents. What is displayed as spatial heritage or Holoscape is, after all, a new branding of the past (van der Laarse, 2005), because after the post-war renovation of the city centre, the construction of the metro line and the building of the combined Opera and Town hall building (the so-called Stopera) almost nothing of the old Jewish quarter with its famous Flee market island (Waterloo square) survived, even though the old names still appear in every tourist guide. Although the Cadogan Guide correctly notes that the name Jordaan might be derived from the French word jardin (garden), one may wonder why this historically non-Jewish area is part of a Jewish-themed tour. Perhaps it is because of the nearness of this area to the Anne Frank House Museum, which is the only Jewish heritage site outside the so-called “Jewish cultural quarter” around the
40 Rob van der L a arse Figure 2.4 Jodenbreestraat in 2017
Photo by Bert Brouwenstijn
Jewish Historical Museum in the idiom of Amsterdam City Marketing. In any case, walking into the Jordaan after having visited the place where Anne Frank lived in hiding might reinforce the Jewish associations of the earlier sites. For although this seventeenth-century Amsterdam working-class neighbourhood with its small streets, shops, and pubs is considered to be the quintessentially “folkish” part of Amsterdam, the so-called “Mokum” (the Yiddish word for place, in Hebrew “makum”) also bears a much closer resemblance to the stereotypical notion of a historical Jewish quarter than does the windy, modernist Jodenbreestreet. By using such an ambiguous toponymic symbol as “Jewish quarter”, however, the guide might give tourists the false impression that Amsterdam had a ghetto, whereas in fact the Jewish middle class lived mostly in the modern, southern part of the city, including well-to-do German refugees like the Frank family (Merwedeplein). (The Anne Frank House was not their residence, but rather Otto Frank’s business office). Yet even sceptics must admit that this walk connects most of the Jewish museums, heritage sites, and other traces of the lost Amsterdam Jewish community, from the Hollandsche Schouwburg near the Zoo – during the war the place from which Jews were deported and which since the 1990s has been transformed into a Shoah memorial museum (van Vree, Berg & Duindam, 2013) – to the immense seventeenth-century
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Sephardic Portuguese (Esnoga) Synagogue and the neighbouring Ashkenazi (High-German) Synagogue, the latter of which now houses the Jewish Historical Museum (Amsterdam Walking Tour, n.d.; Joods Historisch Museum, n.d.). Already in the nineteenth century the Scottish Highlands were “branded” by the hijacking of Sir Walter Scott’s romances (Rigney, 2005). In the same way, people like Rodney Bolt, the author of the Cadagon Guide (2004), have successfully constructed, decades after the destruction of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, a new touristic “Jewish Amsterdam”. This shows the power of what Ruth Ellen Gruber calls “virtual Jewishness”. Indeed, this phenomenon of the virtual creation of complete Jewish-Yiddish quarters in Europe’s “cities without Jews” is strong enough to revive the lost Jewish identity and appearance of completely transformed cityscapes where the unbroken continuity of Jewish life has been almost non-existent (Gruber, 2002). Tourism has been described as “the export that doesn’t go anywhere”; for the only product taken home are memories (Prentice, 2001). Yet, if heritage is regarded as “a mode of cultural production”, as Barbara KirshenblattGimblett (the New York curator of the Warsaw Jewish museum Polin) has asserted (1998, p. 7), its production could be defined as much more than simply a photo album. Heritage and tourism have fused into a new mode of production in which high culture, or trained knowledge, has given way to the marketing of experiences. In fact, heritage tourism might even claim to be the pioneering sector of the modern “experience economy” as conceptualised by Pine & Gilmore (1999; Metz & Brinkman, 2002). For the dynamic of heritage tourism continuously converts new locations into destinations – spatial sites as well as virtual places like websites – promoting an endless consumption of places (Urry, 2002; Ashworth, 2005). In contrast to traditional notions of sites, which assume that they possess intrinsic historical values, in heritage tourism historical authenticity seems less relevant than staged authenticity. This is the case for several reasons: – Tourists consume places as a leisure activity; – They expect to visit the real thing, the original, but for the most part that is not what they get, and; – Finally, heritage tourists are seeking in the past not a foreign country, but their own identity. Far from being passive consumers, heritage tourists are thus active appropriators by performing the role of visitors searching for clues, stories, and traces to give meaning to a past that is framed, mapped, and visited as “heritage”. In other words, this activity is not really about the past as history,
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but about a past that can be visited: a “memorial space to be experienced by walking”. We consume their history by “reading time in space” (Cf. Schlögel, 2003) with the help of markers, that is to say, of signs like images or names referring to cultural heroes or past events, known from history books, novels, and movies. Yet, as Gregory Ashworth observed, heritage managers often forget that there is a fundamental difference in place consumption between local residents and national and foreign tourists, and that “you can never sell your heritage to visitors, only their heritage back to them in your locality” (Ashworth, 1998, p. 282). For this commodified past is brand-new instead of age-old, and “othered” only to become mastered and domesticated by visitors as their own. This “tourist-resident dialectic” affects also the many other battles about contested pasts we discussed before. For what tourists like to visit in “Europe of the cities” is not the heritage of residents, but Classicist, Golden Age, or Fin-de-Siècle highlights, or, in contrast, the Holocaust or postcolonial markers generally associated with Europe’s shameful past. This is in particular true for a second post-war Western generation, grown up in a moral climate of historical injustice and “the guilt of nations” (Cf. Barkan, 2000). In sum, tourists will feel welcome in destinations that offer them an unambiguous touristic biography of a place, which, however, is not the same as the complex history of historians, and which covers stories they can identify with. What tourists are seeking is already biased and framed. Like most of us, they would rather walk along the beaten track, internalising their impressions as an embodied, personal experience (Cf. MacCannell, 1976; Löfgren; 1999; Lippard, 1999). For the growing number of urban Holoscapes and other camp- and terrorscapes where traces of the twentieth-century world wars and mass atrocities are being staged as tourist experiences, it means that visitors are being expected to identify with victims without being disturbed by the historical complexity of victims, such as communists or “collaborating” ethnic minorities, being framed as perpetrators, or “terrorists”, in the eyes of others.
The delocalisation of Anne Frank The Holocaust is of course the “hottest” story one can consume, even after Srebrenica, Rwanda, and the many other more recent massacres. Yet, many tourists don’t want to be directly confronted with this darkest side of Europe’s twentieth-century history. Rather than listening to the thousands of witness stories in The Spielberg Archive, they prefer to identify with a single
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victim, a young girl framed not in the surrounding of a death camp, where she actually experienced her death (after Auschwitz in Bergen-Belsen), but in a decent canal house that was once her hiding place. Anne Frank has indeed become the ultimate symbol of the Holocaust memory boom, and in contrast to most Dutch people, including Amsterdam’s Jewish community, many American teenagers identify with her diary, Het Achterhuis (1947). Anne Frank’s status as a Holocaust icon, if not idol, is due to the English and American edition entitled Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1952). It was the recipient of considerable media attention already in the 1950s thanks to a Broadway play and George Stevens’s award-winning film The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), which initiated what Tim Cole named “the selling of the holocaust” (Cole, 1999). Since then, Anne’s diary has been translated into more than fifty languages, enjoying higher sales than even the Bible, the Koran, and Harry Potter, and has been commodified as a universal story of victimhood. This “Americanisation” or, more in general, “globalisation of the Holocaust” (Cf. Flanzbaum, 1999; Novick, 2000; Levy & Sznaider, 2001), might also explain why the small Amsterdam Anne Frank House Museum attracts more than one million visitors annually – almost as many as come to the entire campscape of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Thanks to this American appropriation, Otto Frank received permission from the city government to rescue his commercial building from demolition and restore the annex or back house as a museum of hiding (Cf. van der Lans & Vuijsje,2010, p. 93-130; van der Laarse, 2010b; Somers, 2014). In the Cadogan Guide, as we saw, the Anne Frank House Museum functions as the link between Jewish Amsterdam and the Jordaan. In contrast to the Auschwitz State Museum, located in Europe’s largest formerly Nazi terrorscape, at its opening in 1960 the Amsterdam museum, located at Prinsengracht 263, barely possessed a collection, since most of the objects used by the family during the war were stolen by the Nazis. And it is by virtue of its emptiness that the museum still offers an emotional experience of authenticity. Interestingly, this musealisation of loss conveyed by absence was explicitly intended by Anne’s father Otto Frank, the only one of his family to survive, who after the restoration of the house remarked: “During the war everything was looted, and this is how I will keep it” (Lee, Westerveld & Stoks, 2002, p. 290). The Anne Frank House thus became one of the first European Holocaust memorial museums, even though the museum is strictly speaking neither a place of remembrance nor an exhibition space such as Yad Vashem or the later USHMM. Yet the Anne Frank Museum functions as what Patrizia Violi calls a “trauma site museum”, for it is the indexical relation with the
44 Rob van der L a arse Figure 2.5 Rooms at the Anne Frank House
Courtesy of Anne Frank Stichting; photo by Cris Toala Olivares
historical site, the place of Anne’s hiding, which visitors want to experience (Violi, 2012; Violi, 2014). In staging emptiness, the Anne Frank Museum invented a new script for presenting, representing, and performing the void of the Holocaust, one that has since been cited and transformed in hundreds of places. Absence, moreover, has become a practical necessity, since each addition of objects or photos on display would lengthen the visitor’s stay, resulting in an unacceptably long waiting line outside the entrance. Even though the Anne Frank House has not become a real memorial site – such as the Hollandsche Schouwburg (unknown to most foreigners) – this small local memorial museum transformed into one of the Netherlands’ most successful tourist destinations, has also become almost the leading international Holocaust memorial site for Israeli and Jewish-Americans anchoring their identity as roots tourists, in a way which brings to mind the many AfricanAmericans who visit the slave fortresses of Ghana. With the universalisation of Anne’s story, tourists from other parts of the world who have no relation to the Holocaust also come to visit the home of their idol. Among them are many Asians who combine their visit with one to the Van Gogh Museum. (Van Gogh, too, is popular in Japan). And to reach those who do not come to the museum, the museum itself travels to
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Figure 2.6 Tourists are lining up to visit the Anne Frankhuis in Amsterdam in 2017
Photo by Linde Egberts
sell Anne’s story to the world. In 2009, the Anne Frank Museum founded a branch in Buenos Aires. The building’s interior is an exact copy of the Amsterdam house museum, with an Anne Frank itinerary which ends with a short video clip about freedom and tolerance (Free2choose). Remarkably, the museum script of this Centro Ana Frank Argentina is also oriented to an experience of authenticity. On the one hand, the museum is located in the house turned museum of a family whose members went into hiding during the 1970s dictatorship of Videla, while, on the other, it seeks to offer a complete Anne Frank “experience”. Visitors enter a carefully recreated Amsterdam interior which even has a replica of the iconic secret bookcase hiding the door to the annex. And it provides a view of an Amsterdam canal when one gazes out the window, while in the garden a branch grows on the authentic “Anne Frank tree” (Centro Ana Frank Argentina, n.d.). Holocaust memory sites are places where universal values are communicated to visitors, lessons are drawn from history, and identity politics is performed. When conceived in terms of the heritage paradigm, however, such memorial sites are also a way of packaging the past as a heritage experience by means of certain markers (Prentice, 2001; Ashworth, 2005). Sites are crucial because they produce an identification with the past by means of an “authentic experience”. Yet, what museums and heritage sites
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do is to move objects from one context to another (van Mensch, 2001); and in the same way whole town- and landscapes can be decontextualised and transformed by politics of musealisation into “heritagescapes” (Kolen, van Krieken & Wijdeveld, 2009). The authenticity of a heritage experience is in that sense strongly related to the power of signification; for objects only have meanings for specific visitors in specific contexts. This is why the famous Dutch historian Johan Huizinga might have experienced a “historic sensation” by touching an original letter of a famous ancestor (Ankersmit, 2005), whereas for others than historians such a heritage experience could easily be created by “staged authenticity” (MacCannell, 1976; MacCannell, 2011, pp. 13-40). This works even thousands of kilometres away from the original site, by means of “prosthetic memory” tools such as in the case of an almost perfect replica of the iconic bookcase of the Amsterdam “Achterhuis” at the Centro Ana Frank Argentina (Landsberg, 2004). It confronts us with an awkward paradox. By definition heritage carries the suggestion of authenticity, the sensation of the original object, but what we find at tourist destinations are often some banal objects transformed, or marketed, as heritage because of our expectations. Yet, on the other, heritage is seldom rescued and restored for only commercial reasons, and the idea that museums or monuments, or even the cultural sciences, may survive by the “windfall gain” of commodification – described as “valorisation” in today’s EU bureaucratic language of politicians and managers – completely underestimates the notion of trust; trust between producers and consumers, which is just as fundamental in the world of banking, or in the fabrication of motor cars, as in the world of art and culture. People might believe in myths, but only as long as they believe them to be true, or at least convincing, which of course doesn’t say anything about their veracity. In addition to a loss of trust in truth and authenticity, as defined by authorised heritage discourses (Smith, 2006, pp. 29-34), there is another risk of people losing confidence in heritage sites. For how do we want to keep heritage alive: as a place of contemplation or as a touristic experience? The preservation of memory always requires selection and forgetting. What we do at our heritage sites is “remembering to forget”, to quote the Italian historian Portelli, for every memory excludes another (Portelli, 2007). This is why heritage is not simply a collection of things with intrinsic values. Heritage is not history, and in contrast to what one may think, it offers no guarantee of preservation. Moreover, the destinations of heritage tourism do not show the past as it really was, but as we would like it to be remembered, as a cleansed, purified past free from dissonances. Nevertheless,
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heritage is always full of dissonances; it encompasses not only the rescued and saved, but also the contested, and nothing is as intensely conflicted as the heritage of war and the Holocaust. Most of the sites involved may have been completely forgotten before their preservation, but after having been rescued from silence and decay they often become transformed from orphaned spaces without owners into the heritage of many owners. Thus the heritage of one owner is seldom that of another. In the first place, according to the logic of musealisation we may say that when a site becomes more important, its iconic status calls forth more interventions, and thus more threats to its authenticity. Secondly, the musealisation of objects and places always presupposes a dynamic process of appropriation. Sites often seek to promote identification by means of name-giving, as in the case of a burned Westerbork barrack, used as a farm shed, which became known in the international press as the so-called “Anne Frank barrack”. After realising the symbolic weight of that association the Dutch parliament voted immediately for a resolution “to return” the original barracks back to Westerbork as an orphaned heritage of the Holocaust, even though most of them had been sold to farmers in the late 1960s as “Moluccan” barracks (van Ooijen & Raaijmakers, 2012; van der Laarse, 2013b). For what was demolished then was known as the Moluccan camp Schattenberg, where migrant families from the former East-Indies were housed since 1950. Yet decades after their move to “normal” Dutch villages, and after the transformation of the open area into memorial camp Westerbork, the “Jewish” barracks have now returned as ghosts from the past in collective memory. Therefore, in the third place, such icons are often misleading; they may lead to misinterpretations, unexpected associations, and changes of meaning, as we saw in the case of the Amsterdam Jewish quarter. And when dealing with the past threatens to become painful and anxiety-provoking, remnants and traces have often been erased to wipe out traumatic memories. From the artefacts and places which are still extant only the most iconic ones are developed into tourist destinations. And once subjected to the tourist’s gaze, they will tend more and more to look like each other, “transnationalised” as European heritage sites and squeezed into the same, recognisable formats. Thus, Auschwitz and the Anne Frank House are competing for heritage tourists with the Jewish Memorial in Berlin, and possibly with Verdun, Normandy and Stalingrad, as well. Finally, heritage is more than a Kantian Ding an sich, preserved and displayed in splendid isolation – authorised by agents of memory it produces meaning, changes the way space and things are experienced, and transforms locations into destinations. Heritage offers an experience of the
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past as an act of identification with earlier generations, whether these be heroes or victims. And this transformative power has huge consequences for the “performance of the past”. For heritage sites are not simply historical places where something happened, but places were things happen now, to us and to these very places (Cf. van der Laarse, 2015). Thus heritage is at one and the same time about loss and appropriation. The process will never end, as the musealisation of absence will be followed by experiencing staged authenticity by means of material traces as well as virtual reconstructions – hence the growing interest in heritage centres for authentic objects and the rise of the memorial museum (Williams, 2007). This phenomenon is not necessarily related to the traditional fetish of authenticity, but much more to a rethinking of the means of storytelling employed in heritage tourism after the “postmemorial archival turn”(Hirsch, 2012, pp. 227-50), as major symbolic objects and monuments give way to personal items and photos. These postmemory installations may add a new layer of signification to older experiential designs, such as the piles of hair, shoes, and glasses at Auschwitz or Majdanek, or to the emphasis on absence, as at the Anne Frank House. Such a staging of the past is, however, not restricted to the display of authentic objects; it also includes the offering of smart combinations of staging and “backstaging” of experiences through monumental redesigns as well as by literally looking behind the scenery (Goffmann, 1959).
To conclude What we are witnessing today at many Holocaust memorial sites is the vanished world of Daniel Mendelsohn’s documentary novel The Lost. A Search for Six of Six Million (2007). It recounts the vain quest that a Jewish classicist from Princeton undertakes, along with his brother and sister, to find relatives in former Polish Galicia, now in the Ukraine. It led him to conclude that “the stories don’t fit into reality anymore” (Zeeman, 2007; van der Laarse, 2013a, pp. 50-2). What this means to us is that heritage should not be seen as a collection of authentic relics with intrinsic values for local or national communities. Our heritage has become at once global and local. The traces might be still there, but the objects have become displaced and are often more meaningful to others than to ourselves, including the many refugees from beyond Europe who are nowadays being driven into diaspora again. By appropriating the orphaned objects of others, we are reviving them with new meanings; they now signify something different than for their former owners. And in doing so we may search for a past that no longer
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exists anywhere, and change places into something which they might have never been (van der Laarse, 2010a). Or, in contrast, we might be confronted with a “present past” (Huyssen, 2003) that is too dark and difficult even to be packaged as a heritage-tourism site, and yet, we try. It is this combination of alienation and the marketing of trauma that is questioned in Boris Pahor’s Necropolis (2011). When decades after the war the Slovenian author visits together with a group of tourists, the former Konzentrationslager Natzweiler where he was imprisoned in 1944, “everything is still the same, except for the guards on the watchtowers”. Yet his memory isolates him from the group of tourists with their guide, whom he can’t manage to avoid. Even the image of the restored barracks of the French wooden monument was unbearable to him. “It was as if someone implanted fresh, living cells in rotting meat”. As for Pahor, one could only experience a slave labour camp at a day plagued by torrential rains and wind gusts. Yet, “the summer sun burns, and pebbles are crunching under my shoes, what evokes in me the image of a Sunday in the park. This is the image to which I oppose, because I can’t accept that visitors will try to imagine the camp in such a pleasantly warm, peaceful dreamy atmosphere” (Pahor, 2011, p. 19, 42, 48).
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Rezka, Pawel P. (23 December 2005). Majdanek Victims enumerated. Changes in the history textbook – Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. Retrieved 4 August 2016, from http://web.archive.org/web/20111106112513/http://en.auschwitz. org.pl/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=8 Rigney, A. (2005). De herinnering aan Scott. Literatuur, erfgoed en mobiliteit. In Laarse, R. van der (ed.), Bezeten van vroeger: Erfgoed, identiteit en musealisering (pp. 88-101). Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Sadée, T. (n.d.). A United Europe from the Ashes of Auschwitz – Expatica. Retrieved 12 December 2010, from www.expatica.com/nl/news/A-United-Europe-fromthe-ashes-of-Auschwitz_222703.html. Schlögel, K. (2003). Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit: Über Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik. Munchen: Carl Hanser Verlag. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Somers, E. (2014). De oorlog in het museum: Herinnering en verbeelding. Zwolle: WBooks. Terrorscapes (n.d.). Retrieved 6 March 2016, from www.terrorscapes.org The Jewish Cultural Quarter of Amsterdam | Jewish Historical Museum | Jewish Cultural Quarter (n.d.). Retrieved 6 March 2016, from www.jhm.nl/visit/ jewish-cultural-quarter Urry, J. (2002). The Tourist Gaze 2.0. London: Sage Publications. Violi, P. (2014). Spectacularizing Trauma: The experientalist visitor of memory museums. In Laarse, R. van der, Mazzucchelli, F. & Reijnen, C. (eds), “Traces of Terror, Signs of Trauma”: Practices of (re)presentation of collective memories in space in contemporary Europe. Milan: Bompiani. Violi, P. (2012). Trauma Site Museums and Politics of Memory: Tuol Sleng, Villa Grimaldi and the Bologna Ustica Museum. Theory, Culture & Society, 29(1), 36-75. doi:10.1177/0263276411423035 Vree, F. van, & Laarse, R. van der (2009). De dynamiek van de herinnering: Nederland en de Tweede Wereldoorlog in een internationale context. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Vree, F. van, Berg, H., & Duindam, D. (2013). De Hollandsche Schouwburg: Theater, deportatieplaats, plek van herinnering. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Williams, P.H. (2007). Memorial Museums: The global rush to commemorate atrocities. Oxford: Berg. Winter, J.M. (2006). Remembering War: The Great War between memory and history in the twentieth century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Zeeman, M. (5 January 2007). Auschwitz is rijp voor clichématige gevoelens. Interview met Daniel Mendelsohn. De Volkskrant. Zubrzycki, G. (2006). The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and religion in postcommunist Poland. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
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Zubrzycki, G. (2013). Narrative Shock and Polish Memory Remaking in the Twentyfirst Century. In Silberman, M. & Vatan, F. (eds), Memory and Postwar Memorials: Confronting the violence of the past (pp. 95-115). Basingstoke: PalgraveMacMillan.
About the author Rob van der Laarse is research director of the Amsterdam School for Heritage and Memory Studies (AHM) at the University of Amsterdam and holds the Westerbork Chair in War and Conflict Heritage at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His research focuses on early modern European elite and intellectual cultures, cultural landscape, heritage and identity politics, and the cultural roots and post-war memory of the Holocaust. Since 2000, Van der Laarse’s interest has become more and more focused on conflicted heritage, identities, and memories in Europe.
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Heritage Landscapes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Huong T. Bui, Kaori Yoshida and Timothy Lee
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch03 Abstract Comparing two war-related destinations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the authors analyse contrasting relationships of memorial and touristic parks presented at the destinations. The authors explore how the memory of the A-bomb tragedy has been constructed, interpreted, and publicised and embedded in war tourism, by examining various tourist materials, including brochures. The findings from the study further our understanding of the complexity of war and tourism at the two destinations. While Hiroshima took a rational and exclusive approach to present the destination as the symbol of national of tragedy, Nagasaki blends the educational component of war memorials in an aesthetic cultural landscape of a historic city. Presenting the city as a tourist destination, Hiroshima centres on the traditional aspect of Japanese culture, while Nagasaki displays itself as a melting pot of multiple cultures. Both cities remain the focal destination for historical education for the young generations of contemporary Japan. Keywords: dark tourism, heritage tourism, identity, atomic bomb, Japan
Introduction In shaping national memories, war-heritage sites potentially function as reminders of the past that can point the way to a better future (Ryan, 2007). Visiting these “dark sites” – former battlefields, war museums, and other places which witnessed death and suffering – has been conceptualised in tourism research as “dark tourism” (Lennon & Foley, 2000). Once dark sites
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emerge as tourist destinations, death, tragedy, trauma, and pain become part of their brand image. However, the promotional materials that narrate the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and portray the Japanese as victims of the Second World War have not gone uncontested (Siegenthaler, 2002). Debates both inside and outside Japan concerning the country’s historical actions and their consequences in the Asia Pacific region generate the need for a re-examination of how Japan’s war-related memory is presented. To the outside world, Japan projects the image of a country coming to terms with its recent past. Internally, however, rewriting the constitution to allow a “self-defence” force to be transformed into a mainstream military machine has raised public concern about the nation’s unresolved attitudes towards its past military actions (Cooper, 2007). At the same time, Japan has implemented a policy to boost international tourism that raises the issue of how Japan’s wartime experience is to be presented to tourists. Having risen from the destruction of war to become prosperous urban centres, Hiroshima and Nagasaki offer interesting case studies of darktourism destinations. Studies of how they developed their tourism often neglect to place that process into the historical context which shaped their modern identities (Cooper, 2006, 2007; Siegenthaler, 2002; Selmi, Tur & Dornier, 2012; Wu, Funck, & Hayashi, 2014). This chapter aims to examine the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki presented in tourist brochures with an eye to their history in the pre-war period and to the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945.
Literature review Heritage tourism and dark tourism The history of places “is widely used to fulfil a number of major modern functions, one of which is shaping sociocultural place identities” (Ashworth, 1994, p. 13). Contemporary interactions with physical places and landscapes evoke the meanings and memories of past human experience (Smith, 2006). In giving “meaning to human existence” (Graham, 2002, p. 41), heritage serves as a basis for a legitimising discourse which seeks to construct and maintain a range of identities. An earlier work on the cultural politics of heritage in Asia noted that “even the very substance of a heritage is a political construction of what is remembered” (Richter, 1999, p. 109). Thus heritage is simultaneously knowledge, a cultural product, and a political resource – with the inevitable result that it will give rise to challenges (Graham, 2002).
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The existence of varying interpretations of the past in terms of its implications for modern functions may result in heritage dissonance, or lack of agreement and consistency as to the meaning of heritage (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996). Heritage dissonance has several causes. First, as an economic commodity heritage is subject to market segmentation and is thus sold to multiple segments. It is interpreted by both international tourists and domestic consumers, making an implicit dissonance inevitable in that respect, too. Second, dissonance arises because of the zero-sum characteristics of heritage. That is, all of heritage “belongs to someone and logically, therefore, not to someone else” (Graham, 2002, p. 1006). Third, the past often involves a dispiriting and negative rejection of the present (Lowenthal, 2015). Heritage dissonance is becoming more complex, especially regarding the presentation and interpretation of the often highly contested heritage of war, a topic often discussed in dark-tourism literature. Stone (2006) developed a dark-tourism spectrum ranging from the darkest aspects to the lightest, contrasting the relevant places in terms of such factors as emphasis on education, focus on history, authentic location, and relatively low level of tourism infrastructure, on the one hand, and entertainment-orientation, focus on heritage, inauthentic location, and relatively high level of tourism infrastructure, on the other. Other work highlights a notion of dark tourism that integrates elements such as political influence and ideology (Sharpley & Stone, 2009), spatial and chronological distance from the death and suffering associated with a given event (Lennon & Foley, 2000), and the purposefulness or non-purposefulness of the information and/ or structures at a given destination (Sharpley, 2005). At dark-tourism sites, tragic narratives of death and suffering become a part of the discourse used to introduce visitors to these places (Miles, 2002). As a result, the identity of dark tourism destinations depends strongly on the process of sacralisation. However, the development of tourism at such sites is also subject to constraints deriving from the sociopolitical and ideological factors that help to make these places sacred in the first place (Siegenthaler, 2002). These aspects may trigger debates over the contested narratives about death-related topics, for example, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the pre-war period, post-war construction, and the context of tourism development in contemporary Japan. Historical and political factors, including current policy-making, play a crucial role in (re)shaping memories and understanding the past (especially wartime experiences), and also contribute to forming individual and collective identities. Thus, the identity formation of each city may also be a manifestation of power relationships.
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Pre-war Hiroshima and Nagasaki By the nineteenth century, Hiroshima had developed into one of Japan’s major cities; it was founded primarily upon heavy manufacturing and contributed to the modernisation of the nation. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, a major railway for military use was built between Hiroshima and the port of Ujina, from which soldiers, armaments, and food were transported to the Asian mainland. At the same time, the second Imperial General Headquarters was established in Hiroshima, temporarily making it the country’s secondary capital. These events turned the city into a military stronghold. Subsequently, it became the home of numerous educational facilities and eventually grew into a political, economic, intellectual, and traffic hub – an identity it retained until the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb. In contrast, Nagasaki had more direct commercial, cultural, and religious contacts with the outside world. Beginning in the ninth century, Japan regularly dispatched an envoy to Tang Dynasty China. Two events eventually brought long-lasting European influence: the arrival of a Portuguese trading ships since 1550 and the presence of a Christian missionary, Francis Xavier, who not only disseminated Christianity in Nagasaki but also built churches there. After the prohibition of Christianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as part of the government’s policy of national isolation, European influence receded, although Dejima (in Nagasaki) was one of only four places where trading was allowed with the Netherlands and China until the nation’s reopening to the outside world (mainly Britain and the United States) in the nineteenth century. Nagasaki continued to experience significant European influence after the nineteenth century, including Thomas Glover’s help in establishing its modern industry. Indeed, as a memorial to his great contribution, in 1970 the city created Glover Garden. This kind of rich and enduring Western influence added a lighter note to the rather dark profile of Nagasaki created by the 1945 bombing. It also contributed significantly to Nagasaki’s difference from Hiroshima in terms of the way the city has shaped its identity and its collective narrative in the domain of tourism. Although Nagasaki was also well known for its shipbuilding industry, the cultural and commercial richness of the foreign influences on Nagasaki have played a significant role in forming its identity. Post-war Hiroshima and Nagasaki After the 1945 bombings, Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s differing visions of reconstruction resulted in their having significantly different post-war urban identities as well (Diehl, 2014). Hiroshima’s municipal off icials
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decided that their city’s post-war identity would centre on its being the primary site of the atomic bombing by ratifying the Hiroshima Peace Commemoration City Construction Law in 1945. The law reflected not only the direction Hiroshima had taken since the bombing but also the image officials wanted to project in the future: as the first city in the world to experience the devastation unleashed by the atomic bomb, Hiroshima would become the pre-eminent symbol of the horror of war and the importance of peace. Among Japan’s bombed-out cities, Hiroshima managed to preserve its image as the sole “city of peace”. Beginning in the mid-1950s, it became the centre of all the country’s movements opposing nuclear weapons and promoting peace, whereas Nagasaki officials continued to view the atomic bombing as a minor part of their city’s identity, reviving, instead, its image and status as a cultural centre of international importance (Diehl, 2014). Thus, through these different narratives, the two cities illustrate different perspectives regarding the dropping of the atomic bomb and its aftermath. The debate over rebuilding the wasteland of post-bombardment Nagasaki encompassed multiple points of view (Diehl, 2014), and the different paths it took in comparison to Hiroshima, particularly during the first five years of reconstruction, have been the subject of scholarly study. The municipal officials embraced a vision appropriate for a city that was once known as the “Kyoto of Kyushu” and the “Naples of Japan”, wishing to rebuild the city in those terms and take a direction of restoring the “old Nagasaki” before the bombing, rather than to associate it entirely with an atomic wasteland. The “old Nagasaki”, envisioned with an international flavour based on Catholicism, had functioned as the heart of Catholicism in Japan since 1549 when Nagasaki was first evangelised by Jesuit missionaries. Thus the restoration plan panned out well largely due to the support of the Catholic community in the city, who had lost approximately 85% of their 10,000 brethren in the bombing, and did not want the tragedy of the atomic bomb to dominate the image of the city. In the early days of reconstruction, this orientation toward tourism and sightseeing was embraced by economists, who advised Nagasaki to draw on its history and become an international centre of trade and tourism. Under the International Cultural City Law, the municipal officials advocated that historic areas of the city should be “beautified” in order to make the city a sightseeing centre likely to attract “high-class people of culture” to the various historical sites and museums that celebrated the city’s rich past as an international port (Diehl, 2014). In contrast, the hibakusha, or atomic-bombing survivors, directly challenged the municipal vision, which
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they saw as slighting the memory of the destruction and the plight of the survivors most affected by the blast (Lifton, 1967). The visions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s municipal officials regarding post-war reconstruction underlie the narratives these cities present to tourists, narratives that convey the concepts of “authorised heritage discourse” inasmuch as they determine “what heritage is” and “who has the ability to speak for and about the nature and meaning of heritage” (Smith, 2006, p. 29). The Nagasaki International Cultural Hall and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, both completed in 1955, became popular tourist destinations with their displays of material remains related to the atom-bomb attacks. To put the literature on the bombings in a broader framework, it is important to observe that Nagasaki has also been the subject of historical (and political) inquiry (Diehl, 2014), particularly from the perspective of authorised heritage discourse, whereas Hiroshima has long been taken as the very symbol of the horror of the bombings. The reason Hiroshima has taken precedence over Nagasaki as the icon of the atom bombings is not due entirely to its possession of the A-Bomb Dome. The formation of Nagasaki’s post-war identity rests on more than the lack of an icon equivalent to the Dome. In this regard, Takase (2013), in line with the authors who adopt the perspective of authorised heritage discourse, points to the political aim of lowering the perception of Nagasaki as a site associated with the horror of the atomic bomb. Based on his investigation of various historical sources, he explains the intense interest shown by the city of St Paul, Minnesota in the mid-1950s in establishing a sister-city relationship with Nagasaki, a city with important Christian connections. Stressing the significance of preserving the ruins of the bombed Urakami Cathedral as a negative legacy for transmitting the memory of the war, Takase interprets as being politically motivated Nagasaki’s decision to remove the bombed ruins to rebuild a new Urakami Cathedral (a part of the ruins, remnants of the original cathedral’s walls, are now displayed near the hypocentre of the blast). He further asserts that the removal of the bombed ruins from the cathedral potentially contributed to downplaying the fact that the United States, a country with a majority Christian population, bombed Japanese Christians in Nagasaki. He then highlights the political pressure from the US, exerted by a wealthy businessman, Louis Hill, Jr., by the representative of the UN Association of Japan, William Hughes, and by the mayor of St Paul, to accept the removal in exchange for major financial support to rebuild the Urakami Cathedral. This episode appears to be a good example of how authorised heritage discourse works.
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By 1950, Nagasaki had become a hotspot for atomic-bomb related tourism, and by 1969 it was attracting 2.5 million visitors annually (Diehl, 2014). What appealed to them was the combination of natural beauty, historical sites, and traces of the atomic bombing. Similarly, by 1965, about 2 million Japanese and 70,000 foreign tourists were coming to Hiroshima each year (Rosenthal, 1965 cited in Siegenthaler, 2002). By 1996 that number had increased to nearly 9.5 million (Siegenthaler, 2002). According to Cooper (2007), tourists at these sites look upon them as providing an education in the folly of war and in the importance of remembering the past. The presentation of Japanese sites such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki have helped to produce the image of post-war Japan as a peace-loving, harmless nation subjected to overwhelming victimisation (Yoneyama, 1999). At the same time, the displays at the memorial sites in these cities have given rise to a certain degree of criticism in Japan and abroad of the tendency to rely on higaisha ishiki (victim consciousness) in the memory-making process. Consciousness of victimhood, it is asserted, allows Japan to highlight the horror of the effects of the atom bombs and its citizens’ status as victims while ignoring the country’s responsibility for aggression and the initiation of atrocities in other parts of Asia during the Second World War (Siegenthaler, 2002). In large part, domestic knowledge of Japan’s history during the war has been mediated through various materials such as films, books, guidebooks, museums, and monuments which have often encapsulated Japan’s wartime actions and experience in a narrative of victimisation (Napier, 2005). In this regard, Siegenthaler’s (2002) analysis of nearly 50 years of entries in Japanese-language guidebooks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is very useful, as it reveals a more complex set of responses to the war than the phrase “victim consciousness” might suggest. In discussing tourism more generally, he also identifies guidebooks for a domestic audience as particularly problematic. While Hiroshima and Nagasaki are cities with rich histories that predate the atomic bombings, they have also become primary commemorative and sightseeing destinations for tourists from within Japan. Although going to the Peace Memorial Park is virtually compulsory for anyone visiting Hiroshima or the neighbouring region, tourists also make stops at other local sites and monuments, such as Miyajima Island and its World Heritage site of Itsukushima Shrine (Selmi et al., 2012). Now, however, Hiroshima has to face the challenge of revitalisation. A recent study suggests that local people are in favour of the further development of tourism (Wu, Funck, & Hayashi, 2014). Cooper’s (2006) study of visitors to Nagasaki also finds that a large proportion of them favour experiencing both dark tourism
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and the more usual kinds of cultural sites in the course of a single trip. The complexity of heritage and war tourism in Hiroshima and Nagasaki therefore calls for further examination of how the two cities should seek to present themselves to tourists.
Method Our fieldwork in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was conducted in the summer of 2014. The method employed in this study is discourse analysis of brochures from tourist spots and pamphlets from museums and memorial halls. In this chapter, we present findings from an analysis of 65 brochures and pamphlets displayed at the information offices located in the area of the Peace Parks in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Even though tourist brochures selectively highlight certain aspects of their cities, they are the most visible presentation of the latter available to domestic and international visitors. Narratives and images in the brochures thus exemplify selective presentation and therefore constitute suitable material for exploring the “authorised heritage discourse” of these two cities (Smith, 2006). The discussion of authorised heritage discourse focuses attention on aesthetically pleasing material objects, sites, places and/or landscapes that current generations “must” care for, protect, and revere so that they may be passed on to future generations for their “education”, thereby forging a sense of common identity based on the past (Smith, 2006, p. 29). By “authorising” heritage sites, discourse organises “the way we act, the social and technical practices we act out, and the way knowledge is constructed and reproduced” at those sites (Smith, 2006, p. 4). Further, heritage functions as a “discourse concerned with the negotiation and regulation of social meanings and practices associated with the creation and recreation of identity” (Smith, 2006, p. 5). Therefore, tourist brochures issued by official agents play an important role in negotiating, regulating, and creating the social meanings of heritage sites, as well as in forming the overall identities of cities such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since tourist brochures published by authorised tourist offices at the national, prefectural, and municipal levels are the best means of presenting authorised heritage discourse, we selected the brochures of official tourism organisations for analysis and excluded those of tourist companies with their need to promote the company’s products. In examining the data, we employed “critical discourse analysis”, which is used primarily to investigate the way social forces are enacted, reproduced,
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and resisted by text and talk in a given social and political context (van Dijk, 2003, p. 352). This approach has the advantage of placing a value on the force of social structure and social interactions. The current research also sought to further the findings from Siegenthaler’s (2002) analysis of tourist guidebooks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities where “reactions to tragedy inherent in discourse in various genres dictate subsequent representations” (Wight, 2006, p. 124). The analysis of the collected brochures emphasises the important role of the social discourses of tourism, memory of war, and the modern societal view of death – which are all largely informed by media representations – in understanding the mechanisms involved in dark tourism in Japan. Therefore, in order to reveal the mechanism through which the memory of war is constructed, we needed to interpret our corpus of tourist brochures within the social and political contexts introduced in the previous section. “Textually oriented discourse analysis” attempts to “transcend the division between work inspired by social theory which tends not to analyse texts, and work which focuses upon the language of texts but tends not to engage with social theoretical issues” (Fairclough, 2003, pp. 2-3). The latter point is important, as the social effects resulting from texts cannot be adequately interpreted without looking at the events occurring at a given time in a society and at what kind of power dynamics are at work there. Based upon this perspective for approaching media texts, Fairclough’s (2003) critical analysis, rather than merely analysing the language of the texts, engages social and conceptual issues to closely examine “continuity and change at […] [an] abstract, more structural, level”, as well as focusing on “what happens in particular texts” (p. 3). Discourse analysis also helps us to destabilise the simplistic (yet dominant) view which holds that the presentation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as dark tourist sites is a function of Japan’s obsession with victimhood, “its victim consciousness” (Siegenthaler, 2002, p. 1114). The textual analysis of the brochures collected in each city brought to light themes that point to similarities and differences between the two cities with regard to the presentation and formation of their collective identities.
Findings Hiroshima Three main themes concerning Hiroshima’s heritage emerge from examining its tourist brochures: the atomic bombing, traditional Japanese culture, and the city’s position as a gateway to the Chugoku region. The most important theme is formulated as the “duty of remembrance”, and it is
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Figure 3.1 A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima tourist brochure
Reprint with permission of International Environmental Peace (IEP) College
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associated with the complex composed of the A-Bomb Dome, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. The brochure Hiroshima Tourism provides a list and map of 67 monuments in the area of the Peace Memorial Park. The principal landmark in this complex is Genbaku domu or the A-Bomb Dome. Originally built in 1915 to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the Dome was the only concrete structure to survive – in skeletal form – the tragedy of 6 August 1945, and it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1998. The description of the Dome centres on the atrocity of dropping the atomic bomb on the city. The A-Bomb Dome was standing within 100m (328ft) from what would become ground zero on Aug. 6, 1945. When the A-bomb was dropped, thousands of people suffering from the [effects of the] bomb threw themselves in vain into the nearby Motoyasu-gawa River to ease the pain. Hundreds of corpses remained afloat in the water for a long time after the blast. (Brochure of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)
Located next to the Dome, the Peace Memorial Museum collects and displays belongings left by the victims, photos, and other materials that convey the horror of that event, supplemented by exhibits that describe Hiroshima before and after the bombing, along with others that address the current status of the threat of nuclear warfare. The Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall states its mission as follows: Mourning the lives lost in the atomic bombing, we pledge to convey the truth of this tragedy throughout Japan and the world, pass it on to the future, learn the lessons of history, and build a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons. (Brochure of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall)
Two significant sites not included in the brochures of the peace memorial complex are two elementary schools. When the atomic bomb was dropped, Honkawa Elementary School, the school nearest the hypocentre, suffered tremendous damage. Owing to its concrete structure, the building of the school survived the blast, and immediately after the bombing, the former classrooms were turned into evacuation centres for the injured. The school and other schools surrounding the hypocentre served as witnesses of the death toll and eventually were preserved as museums. Information about
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the school presented in the brochure of the school museum emphasises that majority of the victims were school children. Gutted by fire and devastated by the explosion, the school was reduced to its outer walls. The principal, ten teachers, and 400 students all lost their lives. The “Peace Museum” at Honkawa Elementary School is a part of the school building constructed in 1928 […]. It serves as mute testimony to the tragedy. (Brochure of the Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum)
The second theme we found in the tourist brochures is that Hiroshima is both a home to traditional Japanese culture and now the centre of power in the Chugoku region. The sites mentioned in this connection include the Hiroshima Tosho-gu shrine, erected to honour the soul and spirit of the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo era (1602-1868). The most important is the time-honoured Itsukushima Shrine in Myajima with its unique and dynamic layout extending out into the sea. The shrine complex, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, exhibits the great architectural beauty of the Shinden style in the Heian period (794-1192). (Brochure of Chugoku Region Tourism Promotion Association) The third theme casts Hiroshima as a gateway to the Chugoku region. The Hiroshima World Heritage Sea Route connects two World Heritage sites in the Hiroshima prefecture: The A-Bomb Dome and the Itsukushima Shrine. The powerhouse of the Chugoku region, Hiroshima is a transportation hub with railways and land routes connecting it to four other prefectures: Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, and Yamaguchi. The Chugoku Region’s tourism brochure provides timetables and prices for transportation from Hiroshima to the other four prefectures of the Chugoku region. Boasting three UNESCO World Heritage sites: Itsukushima Shrine, the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and the A-Bomb Dome, the Chugoku Region preserves innumerable cultural traditions and townscapes. (Brochure of the Chugoku Region Tourism Promotion Association)
Nagasaki The keywords for Nagasaki that emerged from our study of its tourist brochures are “atomic bomb”, “industrial heritage”, and “international cultural city”. The first relates to the theme of atomic bomb tourism. The atomicbombing monument complex includes 79 sites divided into three major zones. The Atomic Bomb Museum lies in the centre of the education zone. This zone also contains the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall, which
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Figure 3.2 The ruins of Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki
Photo by the author
is dedicated to the atomic bomb victims and functions as a “remembrance space”. The educational function of the site is stated as follows: To convey to people the facts about the atomic bombing and awaken their awareness and appreciation of the preciousness of peace. (Brochure of the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims)
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The majority of the monuments (32 sites) are located in the prayer zone around the atomic-bombing hypocentre, where the bomb exploded approximately 500 metres above the monolith which marks that spot. Next to the monolith are the ruins of the former Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed in the bombing and now stands as “a testament to the disaster of the atomic bombing”. (Brochure of Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims) The zone of hope is located in Nagasaki Peace Park. The most significant monument there is the Peace Statue, representing “a prayer for everlasting world peace and a symbol of supreme hope of human beings” (Brochure of Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims). Keywords such as “world” and “international” appear in the description of the area of World Peace Symbols perhaps reflecting the fact that Nagasaki was the city where the war ended and the peace began. [The zone] was established to make a strong appeal to the world for the realization of everlasting peace […] and make Nagasaki a sacred place for world peace by displaying peace monuments donated from all over the world. (Brochure of the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims)
Much like the brochures relating to Hiroshima, Nagasaki’s brochures include a series of narratives of events at the air-raid shelters of former elementary schools with, again, an emphasis on the loss of lives. These sites have been transformed into museums. [The schools are] where teachers, children and local residents were evacuated to after being wounded or burned. Many of them died inside. (Brochure of the Yamazato Elementary School) Twenty-nine members of the school’s staff and 110 students who were mobilised to help were killed here in the bombing, while approximately 1,400 pupils died in their homes. (Brochure of the former Shiroyama Elementary School)
The second theme is the industrial heritage of the period when Nagasaki became a prosperous trading seaport. Narratives of the relevant sites offer a sense of the city’s internationalisation and industrialisation dating back to the Meiji period. They recount the history of trade with the West and of the growing influence of Western culture and technology. The most significant
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piece of industrial heritage on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites in this area is Gunkanjima (Battleship Island). Gunkanjima prospered as a coal-mining community starting in the 1890s. When the coal mine closed in 1974, the island became completely deserted. A second important site is Hirado, a city with a long history and the first port in Japan to engage in foreign trade. The Dutch trading port of Dejima is described as having been very active in both commercial and cultural exchange, making it a gateway to the West. The [city was the] location of the Dutch East India Company’s trading post and thus the entry point for commercial and cultural exchange with the West for over 200 years. (Brochure of the Nagasaki Prefecture Convention and Tourism Association)
The third prominent theme in the brochures is that of Nagasaki as a melting pot of cultures owing to its past as an international seaport. Central to the city’s multicultural identity is Glover Garden. [The garden contains] beautiful mansions built for British merchants, including the oldest wooden Western-style home in Japan, built by the Scottish merchant Thomas Glover, who played a key role in the industrialization of Japan. (Brochure of Kyushu Tourism Promotion Board)
In addition to Western influence, Chinese influence is noted at Shinchi Chinatown, which has “roads filled with Chinese restaurants, shops, and large red Chinese gates”. (Brochure of Kyushu Tourism Promotion Board) In line with the exposure to Western culture that resulted from its trading activity, the city has a unique Christian history. Narratives in the tourist brochure show that Nagasaki has re-established its identity as a multicultural city. For example, Sasebo, a city in the Nagasaki prefecture, features resorts such as the Saikai Pearl Sea Resort and Huis ten Bosch, attractive shopping areas, with bars and food influenced by the US navy base in the area. In particular, Huis ten Bosch, the largest theme park in Kyushu, was modelled after a medieval Dutch town; complete with beautiful brick buildings and canals, it is described as “the perfect place to relax and have fun”. (Brochure of the Kyushu Tourism Promotion Board) A comparison of the official brochures in English and Japanese reveals a similarity in all the narratives and pictures of the atomic-bomb-related sites. Brochures of the museum, peace park, and memorial hall are available in both English and Japanese, as well as in other major languages such as
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Chinese and Korean. Although the contents of the brochures with respect to these sites are exactly the same, there are striking differences in the depictions of products for tourists. Tourist brochures in Japanese contain abundant information about food, with many pictures and stories about foods of the region and of the various cities, information which is almost entirely absent in the English-language versions. Perhaps their aim is to let Japanese visitors know what they should expect to find at the destination beyond information concerning its history and the atomic bomb. Another difference is that the booklets and brochures for school trips, or shugaku ryokou, are available only in Japanese. Of the booklets for school trips to Nagasaki, one is issued by the Nagasaki International Tourism and Convention Bureau and the other by the Nagasaki Prefectural Tourist Federation. The cover page of the former, although dominated by a picture of the Peace Statue, also displays small pictures showing other things, such as food, Battleship Island (another World Heritage site), and festivals. The latter displays a large cover photo of Battleship Island without any references to sites devoted to teaching about peace. In contrast, both of the booklets for shugaku ryokou for Hiroshima – issued by the Hiroshima Tourism and Convention Bureau and the Hiroshima Association Promoting Educational Tourism – clearly show through the images and photos on their cover pages that teaching about peace is their primary focus.
Discussion Our comparative study reveals similarities in the narratives that Hiroshima and Nagasaki present of the tragedy caused by the atomic bombing. Both cities possess a complex of museums, memorial halls, and monuments located in a Peace Park. The museums are also documentation centres, fulfilling the function of the act of remembrance (Ryan, 2007). Their narratives of victimisation place a heavy emphasis on the casualties suffered by powerless civilians, particularly women and children, while, at the same time, omitting to recount the actions which preceded the bombing of the two cities. Similarly, the displays and artefacts in the museums, as well as its brochures, emphasise the effect of the nuclear bomb on the populace, reinforcing the “victim-consciousness” approach adopted in the narration of the tragedy (Siegenthaler, 2002). In other words, the historical context of the event is not addressed; the Americans’ use of the atomic bombs is separated from the record of Japanese actions during the Second World War which lead up to it. This grey zone is not “authorised” in the official discourse of the events.
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Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been branded as dark-tourism sites, where death, tragedy, trauma, and pain become part of the brand image, somewhat similar to the case of Auschwitz in Poland. Tragic narratives of death and suffering become major elements of the discourse embedded in the tourist brochures, and the museums and monuments in the two Abomb complexes reduce the history of Japan’s role in the Second World War to a narrative of victimisation. The two cities have established different post-war identities as major tourist destinations, based on their history and geography, on political factors, and on the sequence of the bombings and their aftermaths. The urban identity of Hiroshima centres on the memory of the atomic bomb, whereas Nagasaki presents itself as a forward-looking international city (Diehl, 2014). In other words, the urban identity of the two cities shapes their images as tourism destinations, and these images are consistent with their respective profiles in the pre-war and post-war periods. In the post-war reconstruction period, beginning in the mid-1950s, Hiroshima became the centre of the anti-nuclear weapons and peace movements in Japan, while Nagasaki officials embraced the mission of building an urban landscape and identity on the basis of international culture first of all, and only secondarily on the memory of the bombing (Diehl, 2014). From a regional-development perspective, Hiroshima retains its role as a powerhouse of the Chugoku region, where it is the transportation hub to the western part of Japan and connects the region to the northern area of Kanto and southern island of Kyushu. Because Nagasaki is located in an isolated part of Kyushu, the city has chosen to become an independent tourist destination and to offer tours to other sites in the prefecture of Kyushu. In particular, Nagasaki has revitalised its illustrious past as an international seaport by emphasising international tourism, with special emphasis on neighbouring countries such as China, Taiwan, and South Korea. Opting for an identity as a centre of international cultural tourism, Nagasaki is a good example of the cycle of prosperity-destruction-revitalisation. In this scenario, whether or not the city’s failure to create an icon associated with the atomic bomb like “the Dome” was due to political pressure from the US, the official decision in the 1950s not to preserve the destroyed Urakami Cathedral eventually contributed to the contemporary development of the city as a tourist destination with an exotic flavour. In contrast, Hiroshima plays the key role in the national duty to remember, and thus the city has very little room to develop any other image for its tourism than that of being the location of the first atomic-bomb attack. Even though the city may be linked to other World Heritage sites, the “authorised” discourse concerning its heritage is intimately bound up with the tragedy of the bombing.
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Conclusion The study’s findings further our understanding of the complexity of heritage tourism at two war-related cities in modern-day Japan. While Hiroshima has made the decision to present itself exclusively as the symbol of national tragedy, Nagasaki has opted to conjoin the functions of commemoration with the aesthetically and culturally rich landscape of a historic city. The study also offers an explanation for the disparities that have shaped the current identities of the two cities. As this is an exploratory work, it naturally has some inherent limitations, and these suggest what directions future research might take. Further study of the various categories of people involved in the heritage industry, such as tourists, locals, and site managers, will shed light on the impact of heritage narratives on individuals. Various methods, such as surveys, can also be employed to discover what gaps might exist between the narratives of these cities and the perceptions of tourists.
References Ashworth, G. (1994). From history to heritage: From heritage to identity: In search of concepts and models. In G.J. Ashworth & P.J. Larkham (eds), Building a New Heritage: Tourism, culture and identity in the new Europe (pp. 13-30). London: Routledge. Cooper, M. (2006). The Pacific War Battlefields: Tourist attractions or war memorials? International Journal of Tourism Research, 8(3), pp. 213-222. Cooper, M. (2007). Post-colonial Representation of Japanese Military Heritage: Political and social aspects of battlefield tourism in the Pacific and East Asia. In C. Ryan (ed.), Battlefield Tourism (pp. 73-86). London: Routledge. Diehl, C.R. (2014). Envisioning Nagasaki: From “atomic wasteland” to “international cultural city”, 1945-1950. Urban History, 41(3), pp. 497-516. Dijk, T.A. van (2003). Critical Discourse Analysis. In Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton, H.E. (eds), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 352-71). Oxford: Blackwell. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London/ New York: Routledge. Graham, B. (2002). Heritage as Knowledge: Capital or culture? Urban Studies, 39(5-6), pp. 1003-17. Lennon, J.J. & Foley, M. (2000), Dark Tourism. London: Continuum. Lifton, R. (1967). Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Random House
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Lowenthal, D. (2015). The Past Is a Foreign Country: Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press. Miles, W.F. (2002). Auschwitz: Museum interpretation and darker tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(4), pp. 1175-78. Napier, S. (2005). Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing contemporary Japanese animation. New York: Palgrave. Richter, L.K. (1999). After Political Turmoil: The lessons of rebuilding tourism in three Asian countries. Journal of Travel Research, 38(1), pp. 41-5. Ryan, C. (ed.). (2007). Battlefield Tourism. London: Routledge. Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., & Hamilton, H.E. (eds) (2001). The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 252-271). Wiley-Blackwell. Selmi, N., Tur, C., & Dornier, R. (2012). To What Extent May Sites of Death Be Tourism Destinations? The cases of Hiroshima in Japan and Struthof in France. Asian Business & Management, 11(3), pp. 311-28. Siegenthaler, P. (2002). Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese Guidebooks. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(4), pp. 1111-37. Sharpley, R. (2005). Travels to the Edge of Darkness: Towards a typology of dark tourism. In C. Ryan & S. Page (eds) Taking Tourism to the Limits: Issues, concepts and managerial perspectives (pp. 215-26). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Sharpley, R. & Stone, P. (2009). The Darker Side of Travel. Bristol: Channel view Publications. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Stone, P. (2006). A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a typology of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions. Tourism: An Interdisciplinary International Journal, 54(2), pp. 145-60. Takase, T. (2013). Nagasaki kieta mouhitotsu no “genbaku domu” (Nagasaki, another vanished Atomic Dome). Tokyo: Bunshu bunko. Tunbridge, J.E., & Ashworth, G.J. (1996). Dissonant Heritage: The management of the past as a resource in conflict. Chichester: John Wiley. Wight, A.C. (2006). Philosophical and Methodological Praxes in Dark Tourism: Controversy, contention and the evolving paradigm. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 12(2), pp. 119-29. Wu, C., Funck, C., & Hayashi, Y. (2014). The Impact of Host Community on Destination (Re) Branding: A case study of Hiroshima. International Journal of Tourism Research, 16(6), pp. 546-55. Yoneyama, L. (1999). Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space and the Dialectics of Memory. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
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Brochure of the Chugoku Region Tourism Promotion Association Chugoku Region Tourism Promotion Association (2012). The Next 10 Spots Access Map from Hiroshima. Hiroshima: Chugoku Region Tourism Promotion Association. Brochure of the Kyushu Tourism Promotion Organization Kyushu Tourism Promotion Organization (2014). Kyushu: Be inspired to explore the wondrous side of Japan. Fukuoka: Kyushu Tourism Promotion Organization. Brochure of the Chugoku Region Tourism Promotion Association Chugoku District Transport Bureau and Chugoku Regional Tourism Promotion Association (2013). Stimulate Your Five Senses in the Chugoku Region. Hiroshima: Chugoku Regional Tourism Promotion Association. Brochure of the former Shiroyama Elementary School Shiroyama Elementary School (2014). Shiroyama Elementary School Ruins Peace Museum. Nagasaki: Shiroyama Elementary School. Brochure of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims (2014). Brochure for Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Hiroshima: Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Brochure of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (2014). Brochure for Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Hiroshima: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Brochure of the Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum Hiroshima City Honkawa Elementary School (2014). Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum. Hiroshima: Hiroshima City Honkawa Elementary School. Brochure of the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims (2014). Brochure for Nagasaki National Peace Memorial hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Nagasaki: Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Brochure of the Nagasaki Prefecture Convention and Tourism Association Nagasaki Prefecture Convention and Tourism Association (2014). Nagasaki Official Visitor Guide. Nagasaki: Nagasaki Prefecture Convention and Tourism Association. Brochure of the Yamazato Elementary School Nagasaki City Yamazato Elementary School and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum (2014). Yamazato Elementary School Atomic Bomb Museum. Nagasaki: Nagasaki City Yamazato Elementary School.
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About the authors Huong T. Bui is Associate Professor of Tourism and Hospitality at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan. Her research interests are Asian tourist behaviour, cultural-heritage tourism, and dark tourism in Asia. Kaori Yoshida is a professor at the College of Asia Pacific Study at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan. Her current research interests are narrativity of war-related heritage sites and memorials, war and public memory as represented in the media, cross-cultural studies of media representation, and gender in war media. Timothy J. Lee is Professor of Tourism and Hospitality at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University and Deputy Director of Research Centre of Asia Pacific Studies. His research is focused on the Asia Pacific region and includes the following topics: health and wellness tourism, ethnicity and identity in tourism and the hospitality industry, cultural-heritage tourism, and dark tourism. He has published widely in international journals on various topics, including tourist behaviours, tourism marketing, and festivals and events.
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Revealing and Presenting the Past(s) for the Public Fethiye Mosque and Museum as a cultural heritage site in Istanbul Mariëtte Verhoeven
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch04 Abstract Because of its long history of transformation, appropriation, and contestation, Istanbul’s religious heritage dating back to Byzantine times is a potential showcase for the city’s multiple and multilayered pasts. In this chapter the challenges in dealing with this particular heritage are illustrated with the case study of Fethiye Mosque and Museum, a complex consisting of a former church that was converted into a mosque as well as a chapel (now museum) that apparently kept its Christian form and appearance. The chapter seeks to establish what constitutes Fethiye complex as a heritage site and proposes possible solutions for unlocking and representing its complex history and therewith embedding and integrating it in the city’s social and touristic infrastructure. Keywords: Istanbul, religious heritage, Fethiye Mosque, multilayered history
Because of its long history of transformation, appropriation, and contestation, Istanbul’s religious heritage dating back to Byzantine times is a potential showcase for the city’s multiple and multilayered pasts. In this chapter the challenges in dealing with this particular heritage are illustrated with the case study of Fethiye Mosque and Museum, a complex consisting of a former church that was converted into a mosque as well as a chapel (now museum) that apparently kept its Christian form and appearance.
78 Marië tte Verhoeven Figure 4.1 Fethiye Museum, exterior, situation in 2017
Photo by the author
The chapter seeks to establish what constitutes the Fethiye complex as a heritage site and proposes possible solutions for unlocking and representing its complex history and therewith embedding and integrating it in the city’s social and touristic infrastructure. On the fifth hill of Istanbul’s historic peninsula in the neighbourhood of Çarşamba stands the building complex that is known as the Fethiye Mosque and Museum (Fethiye Camii and Müzesi). The museum part of the complex can be entered via a ticket gate, which gives access to a courtyard where fragments of architectural sculpture are arranged. On the north side of the courtyard a multi-storeyed cubical building of stone and brickwork, surmounted by three domes, is situated to the right, abutted by a lower, one-storey structure and a minaret to the left. Having entered the building via a portal in the left-hand corner one sees the interior of a rather narrow but relatively long and high structure consisting of different spaces with an apse at the eastern end. When walking towards the apse, first via a narrow space with bare brick walls and vaults, then via a broader, vestibule-like room, one enters a space with four columns supporting a dome on a dodecagonal drum with a window on each side. The wall of the semicircular apse, flanked by two smaller apses, is pierced
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Figure 4.2 Fethiye Museum, interior, view toward the east, situation in 2017
Photo by the author
by a triple window. The mosaics on the vaults, including Christ enthroned in the conch of the apse and Christ Pantokrator surrounded by twelve prophets in the central dome, show that here we have a building that once had a Christian religious function.
80 Marië tte Verhoeven Figure 4.3 Fethiye Mosque, interior, view toward the east, situation in 2017
Photo by the author
An information sign on the wall opposite the entrance explains, in both Turkish and English, that Fethiye Museum was the church dedicated to the Virgin Pammakaristos, which was rebuilt on an earlier foundation after the end of the Latin presence in the city in 1261. It became the see of the
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Christian Orthodox patriarchate in 1455 but was later transformed into a mosque and took the name of Fethiye Camii. The sign also mentions a south chapel (parekklesion) and from the description and an architectural plan it becomes clear that Fethiye Museum is actually this so-called parekklesion which apparently belonged to a church named Pammakaristos. Around the corner of Fethiye Museum, turning right when leaving the courtyard, information signs to the right of a portal with “Fethiye Camii” (Fethiye Mosque) written in golden letters above it relate both in Turkish and poor English the history of the building. The signs mention the building originally being a church but concentrate more on its past as a mosque. The building is still a functioning mosque and the interior shows no signs of its former function as a church. The liturgical furniture includes a minbar (pulpit) and a qibla wall, indicating the direction of Mecca, with a mihrab (prayer niche) on the southeastern side. The dimly lit interior, with squat masonry pillars and low arches supporting the vaults and light-blue and white plasterwork in a very bad state, gives an impression of deterioration and neglect. Fethiye Mosque and Museum is one of the some thirty former Byzantine churches and chapels, dating from the fifth to the fourteenth century, which have survived in Istanbul in different conditions, forms, and functions (Kirimtayif, 2001; Freely & Çakmak, 2004). In their present state, the oldest remaining Byzantine church of St John Studios (Imrahor Camii) is in a ruinous condition and closed to the public, the famous Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofia) and Chora (Kariye) are in use as museums, Hagia Irene (Aya Irini) serves as a concert hall, and most of the other churches that were converted into mosques after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 still function as such. Fethiye Mosque and Museum is, unlike the museums of Hagia Sophia and Chora, a relatively unknown building which is not included in most tourist guides nor is it mentioned as one of the masterpieces in Istanbul that are designated by UNESCO as World Heritage (UNESCO, n.d.). However, because of the unique situation of a complex consisting of a former church that was converted into a mosque as well as a chapel (now museum) that apparently kept its Christian form and appearance, the Fethiye complex provides a good example for the multilayered and palimpsest quality of Istanbul’s religious architectural heritage and the dilemmas involved in preserving and presenting it. Ayfer Bartu (1999) rightly remarked that in a city like Istanbul with multiple and multilayered pasts, the question of which pasts to preserve, mobilise, and market, and for whom, become crucial political questions. Bartu focuses on debates over the preservation
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and revitalisation of the quarter of Pera/Beyoğlu, but the issues she raises – What constitutes heritage and historical value? Which heritage is preserved and for whom? Who has the power to construct, preserve, and/or obliterate history? Who owns this history? – also apply to the Fethiye complex.
The Fethiye complex as a legacy of Istanbul’s multiple pasts Although the building has lost its religious function, the appearance of Fethiye Museum is that of a pristine Byzantine chapel. Standing on its own property with an entrance gate, the museum stands as a Fremdkörper in its surroundings, the densely populated and conservative Islamic neighbourhood of Çarşamba. Despite its touristic function, Fethiye Museum is neither embedded in a touristic infrastructure nor does the population in the neighbourhood seem to engage with it. Fethiye Mosque, for its part, is an Islamic religious building in function which shows no traces of its history as a church. In fact, only a large part of the masonry and some fragments of sculptural decoration in the interior can be recognised and typified as Byzantine. The mosque’s poor state shows that the architectural and historical value of the building is apparently not acknowledged by the Vakɪflar, the institute responsible for Islamic religious foundations. Historical mosques such as the Sultanahmet or Blue Mosque and the Süleyman Mosque prove that Islamic religious buildings can also have a touristic function. It is therefore more its state of neglect and its location than its religious use that prevents Fethiye Mosque from being a touristic site. The current form of Fethiye Museum is the result of the restoration of the south chapel (parekklesion) and south arm of the ambulatory of the Pammakaristos Church/Fethiye Mosque, which over several long intervals between 1949 and 1963 was executed by the Byzantine Institute of America (now Dumbarton Oaks) (Mango & Hawkins, 1964). The campaign included the removal of all additions dating from the Ottoman period such as the qibla wall and the layers of plaster that covered the mosaics on the vaults, and the reconstruction of missing parts of the Byzantine building such as two columns that were replaced by imitations in concrete. Around 1960 this part of the Fethiye complex became a museum under the jurisdiction of Hagia Sophia Museum (Ayasofya Müzesi). In 1961-1962 the conservation of the mosaics was completed, and the small apse north and several windows were restored to their original form. Finally, in 1963 two missing northern columns in the nave and the arches above them were reconstructed. A
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masonry wall was erected between the parekklesion and the main building, which subsequently became a functioning mosque again after it had been left abandoned for several decades. The history of the Pammakaristos/Fethiye complex explains why the main building was not restored to the same “original” state as the south chapel. Towards 1590, under Sultan Murad III (1574-95), the Pammakaristos Church was converted into a mosque named Fethiye (Mosque of the Conquest) commemorating the conquest of Georgia and Azerbaijan (Eyice, 1994; Hallensleben, 1963-64, pp. 139-140; Oğan, 1949). Before that the Pammakaristos Church had been the see of the Orthodox patriarch since around 1455, two years after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. With the conversion into a mosque the apse of the Pammakaristos Church was pulled down and replaced by an angular qibla wall pointing toward Mecca. The interior partitions of the church were demolished to create a more open space and the interior decoration was removed. The consequence of this intervention was that in the twentieth century the building, unlike the south chapel, could not be restored to its Byzantine form. In the south chapel the mosaics only had been plastered over and the mosaic of Christ Pantokrator surrounded by prophets in the dome had remained visible throughout the centuries. If the main building would not have lost its original decoration in Ottoman times the whole complex probably would have been restored to its Byzantine appearance, just like the Chora Church/ Kariye Camii (Underwood 1966-1975). For the restorers of the Byzantine Institute of America what constituted heritage at both locations was the building in its pristine Byzantine state, the historical value of which was apparently estimated higher than the sum of its history. The Byzantine Insitute had the power to preserve, or better to reconstruct Byzantine history and to obliterate the Ottoman past. By turning the south chapel of the Fethiye complex into a museum it was deprived of its religious function but the Christian religious meaning and connotation was restored. The restoration by the Byzantine Institute of America must be seen in the light of a change of attitude toward history and heritage that went back to the foundation of the secular Turkish Republic in 1923, when the Islam as a uniting force had to be replaced by a secular narrative of nationhood (Redford & Ergin, 2010). The Committee for Research on Turkish History (Türk Tarih Kurunu), which was established in 1930, formulated and propagated the so-called Turkish History Thesis (Türk Tarih Thesis). The goal of the Thesis was to prove that the Turks had a glorious past beyond the Ottoman past. The Thesis posited that Central Asia, the homeland of the Turks, was the cradle of all human civilisations and that therefore
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the Hittite, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine cultures within Anatolia were “Turkish”. The Ministry of Education in a decree issued to every school in the mid-1930s stated it as follows: “All historic works in Turkey attest to the creativity and culture of the Turkish race, even if they are referred to as Hittite, Phrygian, Lydian, Roman, Byzantine, or Ottoman. Denomination only designates periods. All are Turkish, and hence it is the duty of all Turks to preserve them” (Altınyıldız, 2007, p. 291). Within that context in June 1931, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the f irst President of the Republic of Turkey, permitted the Byzantine Institute of America to uncover and restore the mosaics in Hagia Sophia. Other former Byzantine churches that subsequently were restored by the same institute include the Chora Church (Kariye Camii, between 1947 and 1959) and the Church of the Pantokrator (Molla Zeyrek Camii, between 1954 and 1962). Hagia Sophia and Kariye Camii eventually became museums. Molla Zeyrek Camii remained in use as a mosque, but only at the Pammakaristos/ Fethiye complex was a combination created of a functioning mosque and a museum – a combination that exists to the present day. If we consider the Pammakaristos/Fethiye complex as it stands now as a set of objects, it is built fabric consisting of an average, though poor, mosque and a museum of Byzantine mosaics. If, however, we define the building complex as cultural heritage, that is, as a legacy of Istanbul’s religious past, we should not consider it merely as a set of objects but as the outcome of a process involving the construction of meaning (Waterton & Watson, 2010, p. 3). During its long history of appropriation, changes of function and the transformation of the culture around it, the building complex received and generated multiple meanings. The original church, which belonged to a monastery, was built in the twelfth century (Mango & Hawkins, 1964; Mango, 1978). The best-preserved part of the original church is the central space of what is now Fethiye Mosque, including the dome. This building stood in the capital of the Byzantine empire that since the eleventh century was ruled by the Comnenian dynasty. At the end of the thirteenth century the church and monastery of Pammakaristos came into the possession of general Michael Dukas Glabas Tarchaneiotes and his wife Maria. A north aisle was added to the northern wall of the original church and the exterior south wall was decorated with a series of frescoes. Circa 1310, the parekklesion, a memorial chapel for Michael Glabas, was added on the south side of the church by Michael’s widow. Later in the fourteenth century, a fifth and sixth bay were added to the north aisle of the main church, five bays along the west side, and two bays more along the south side, together forming an ambulatory that abutted the parekklesion on the south side.
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Figure 4.4 Fethiye Mosque, view of the former Parekklesion from the north-west, situation in 1937
Source: Nicholas V. Artamonoff Collection, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
These later additions, especially the parekklesion in the form of a little church of the cross-in-square type can be typified as late Byzantine or Paleologian. The so-called Paleologian Renaissance started after 1261 when Constantinople was recaptured from the Latin Crusaders who had ruled the city since 1204. Two years after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Pammakaristos church and monastery became the see of the Patriarch of the Byzantine Orthodox church. The complex now stood in the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Istanbul. When towards 1590 the Pammakaristos Church was converted into a mosque named Fethiye Camii, the surroundings of the building had already become neighbourhoods (mahallerleri) now mainly inhabited by Muslim Turks instead of
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Christians. Two great fires, in 1640 and 1784, damaged the mosque. The base of the eighteenth-century baroque minaret was probably renewed in 1845 when the mosque was restored. An inscription above the west portal of the mosque attests to this restoration under Sultan Abdülmecit. The madrasa, which had been built when the Pammakaristos Church was converted into a mosque was demolished somewhere between 1911 and 1915 because it was dilapidated . (Altınyıldız, 2007, p. 287). Photos taken before the twentiethcentury restoration show that the mosque itself was also in a bad state with a stairs and wooden structure (the dwelling of the imam?) that were built at an unknown date against and over a part of the ambulatory. This situation fits with the general circumstances regarding Istanbul’s monumental architecture in the early years of the Turkish Republic when religious buildings dating back to Byzantine and Ottoman times “had ceased to exist as functional spaces and sat empty in largely abandoned neighborhoods”(Ricci, 2014, p. 334; also Altınyıldız, 2007). Between 1914 and 1927, the total population of Istanbul had declined from one million to 700,000 (Keyder, 1999, p. 10) and the city had lost its primacy as a capital in favour of Ankara. The attitude toward Byzantine heritage, especially religious heritage, changed once again in recent years. Under the AKP government there is a strong focus on restoring Istanbul’s Ottoman past. Not only Ottoman mosques but also churches converted into mosques such as Pantokrator Church/Molla Zeyrek Mosque and the Sergios and Bacchus Church/Küçük Aya Sofia Mosque have been restored to their state in Ottoman times. Instead of acknowledging the uniqueness of these buildings as visible witnesses of both the Christian and Islamic past the current tendency seems to focus only on the latter. According to the Byzantinologist professor Robert Ousterhout, who worked on an earlier restoration of the Pantokrator complex in 1997-98 and 2005-06 (Oosterhout, 2005-2006) the building has been restored as a mosque rather than as the sum of its history (Dombey, 2015). Ricci (2014, p. 379) rightly remarked that there are “difficulties in contemporary Istanbul of recognizing Byzantium, which continues to connote the ideological thrust, and certain political agendas, of conquest and conquered otherness”. With regard to monumental religious Byzantine heritage, this process of repudiation of the city’s Byzantine past includes concrete acts of claiming and appropriation. The recurrent calls for conversion of the Hagia Sophia Museum – the only building that clearly shows both its Byzantine Christian as well as its Ottoman Islamic history – into a mosque and the plan to rebuild the ruinous St John Studios as a mosque also reflect this tendency.
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It is not clear to what extent recent policies regarding Istanbul’s Byzantine religious heritage will have consequences for the form and function of the Pammakaristos/Fethiye complex. However, as “Byzantine heritage” the site seems to be contested and under threat. In the next section possible solutions for the unlocking and representation of the Pammakaristos/Fethiye complex will be proposed as an example of how issues of ownership and appropriation could be tackled, and how awareness of and understanding for the significance of the unique transformative and palimpsest qualities of the city’s religious heritage dating back to Byzantine times could be created.
Enhancing and embedding the Fethiye complex as a cultural heritage site Fethiye Mosque and Museum as it now stands, including the simplified and inaccurate historical information presented on-site, does not disclose the narrative of its complicated history of transformation and use through the centuries. For a visitor on-site it is almost impossible to identify the material remains of the multiple pasts that made it into the present without having knowledge of the history of the building. At Fethiye Museum, for example, fragments of fresco decoration on what once was the outer south wall of the twelfth-century church show that in the time of their execution the construction of the south chapel was not contemplated because when the latter was built the greater part of the frescoes was obscured. The composition of St Peter, for example, was made partially invisible by the outer wall of the chapel’s vestibule. A metrical inscription surrounding the figure of Christ Hyperagathos in the apse and a monogrammatic inscription on the south façade inform us respectively of the dedication and the foundation of the chapel. These inscriptions (text and translation in Mango, 1978, p.21) only make sense for those who read Byzantine Greek and who have knowledge on the historical background: the widow of Michael Dukas Glabas Tarchaneiotes dedicated the chapel to her deceased husband who himself was the founder of the building. Besides visual material references that need additional explanation there is textual, graphic, and photographic evidence on the history of the building complex that is not available for visitors on-site. A considerable body of Greek sources from the Ottoman period pertains to the Pammakaristos monastery when it housed the Orthodox Patriarchate between the middle of the fifteenth and the end of the sixteenth centuries (summarised in Mango, 1978, pp. 26-30; see also Philippides & Hanak, 2011, pp. 46-65). The
88 Marië tte Verhoeven Figure 4.5 Fethiye Mosque, exterior view from the southwest, situation in 1937
Source: Nicholas V. Artamonoff Collection, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Trinity College manuscript (Schreiner, 1971; transl. Mango, 1978, pp. 39-42) focuses on the description of the tombs that were to be seen in the church, including those of the founders Michael Glabas and his wife Maria, and also mentions relics that were present, such as those of St Euphemia, St Cosmas and St Damian, and St Paraskeve. Besides the Greek chronicles we have the accounts of several German visitors who came to the Pammakaristos monastery in the 1570s and 1580s (Hallensleben, 1963-64, pp.133-137; Mango 1978, p. 30, both with references to the original sources). In addition to these written testimonies, woodcuts by Gerlach and Schweigger (1578) depict the walled monastery complex with the church as its most prominent building.
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Photographs that are now in the collections of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Istanbul and Dumbarton Oaks demonstrate both the drastic transformation of the building in Ottoman times, as well as the extent of the twentieth-century restoration. One photograph shows the main building looking into the parekklesion with its walls and vaults covered in plaster and the qibla wall standing. The question remains how to disclose and represent multilayered history and make the significance of the place accessible to both tourists and the local community. Interpretation and presentation play an important role in making cultural heritage accessible to people. According to Waterton & Watson (2010, p. 2) the processes that constitute meaning, that frame, reveal, and construct the past that we see around us, are essentially visual. If so, I would argue, the solution to reveal, present, and interpret the past for the public lies in the visualisation of that past, preferably without structural interventions in the built fabric. Virtual-reality techniques now offer the possibility to unlock and to activate the memorial potential of historical buildings such as the Pammakaristos/Fethiye complex in a historically relativistic, non-normative and reversible manner. The technique of 3-D modelling enables us to visualise multiple phases of the transformation of a building. In an early stage this virtual-reality technique was applied to a website that was developed in association with the exhibition “Restoring Byzantium: The Kariye Camii in Istanbul and the Byzantine Institute Restoration”, held at Columbia University and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004 (Wallach Art Gallery, n.d.). One of the limitations of this technique, however, is that if the virtual reconstructions are presented on a website, the result is still quite static and not interactive. The same goes for information as provided on the website of the Istanbul Documentation Project (www.learn.columbia.edu/istanbul/), which strives for a comprehensive overview of the buildings of Istanbul and their history through essays, photographs, 360-degree panoramas, historical documents, ground plans, and elevations. A visitor to a cultural heritage site generally would not have access to this kind of information on the spot. With the technique of augmented reality, 3-D models and other computer-generated input can be added to a live view of a heritage site. In this way, information that would otherwise stay hidden can be overlaid on the real world. This technique offers great opportunities not only for the visualisation of the subsequent physical layers of a historical building including decorations, inscriptions, and liturgical objects but also for adding additional information taken from written, graphic or photographic sources. However, as the augmented-reality technique requires the use of mobile
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computing devices like smart phones and tablets, the information generated by it would not be available for everyone. An on-site experience in the form of an augmented-reality application without devices which would be available for all visitors could be set up in the form of a projection showing the different building and decoration phases. This technique has been applied in the Romanesque church of S. Climent de Taüll in Catalonia where the apse decoration was digitally recreated on the basis of photographs and studies of fragments of the original decoration, which are in a museum in Barcelona (Sierra et al., 2015). Another example is the temporary projection at the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, a building with layers dating from Antiquity until the ninth century. A project (Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, 2013) aiming at the conservation and enhancement of the monument was launched in 2001 in collaboration with World Monuments Fund and ENEA (the Italian Institute for new technologies, energy and environment) among others. As one of the outcomes of the project, the augmented-reality projection gives insight and virtually restores the multiple layers of wall paintings that are superimposed. Such solutions for activating the memorial potential of buildings and adding new meaning could unlock, enhance, and enrich Istanbul’s religious cultural heritage sites, and Fethiye Museum could be an ideal test case for it. The building already has a museological function and its small size would make investments in digital applications that require detailed photographing or laser scanning of the building manageable. It is even imaginable that these techniques would also be applied at Fethiye Mosque, outside prayer times. These applications, however, cannot be made without reliable historical data. Although there is still work to be done, such as archival research on the Ottoman period, the available data on the Fethiye complex, which are at present mostly hidden in books and archives, could allow for meaningful virtual reconstructions that could be used or implemented on the spot. These virtual reconstructions are not value-free, but unlike structural interventions in the built fabric they are reversible and can be constantly adapted according to new information and new insights. By using virtual techniques issues of otherness and ownership can be tackled. Therewith the question regarding the preservation of this heritage could shift from “which past has to be preserved and for whom?” to “how can we reveal and present its multiple pasts?” Other strategies are needed as well to embed the values of the Fethiye complex as a heritage site both socially and spatially in the neighbourhood and integrate it in the touristic infrastructure of the city. A good example of how the local community can be involved to enclose a contested heritage is the Küçükyalı ArkeoPark Project, which started in
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2009 at the Asian side of Istanbul (Limen, n.d.). The project aims at “fostering awareness and broadening knowledge about Constantinopolitan archaeology and the city of Istanbul’s multiple pasts” (Ricci 2014, pp. 371-381). The project started with the excavation of a ninth-century Byzantine monastery complex in a neighbourhood where there was no interest in nor awareness of its value as a archaeological heritage site. Through activities such as guided tours, community events, and programmes of archaeological exploration and heritage awareness with the local elementary school the heritage site was integrated with daily city life. At the same time the Küçükyalı ArkeoPark is a unique tourist attraction on the Asian side of Istanbul. One of the strategies to connect the Küçükyalı ArkeoPark to culturaltourism attractions in other locations of the city is its integration in a cultural route. Scholars from Bogazici and Koç University involved in the Küçükyalı ArkeoPark project, together with the Turkish Cultural Routes Society, took the initiative to develop cultural routes for Istanbul that focus on Byzantine heritage (Ricci & Yilmaz, 2016, p. 56). The initiators of this plan, which is still in a preparatory phase, recognise that although the focus for these routes would be heritage dating back to the Byzantine period, its transformation through the centuries and aspects of continuity should not be neglected. A possible way to incorporate and present the multilayered past of the city would be to develop a cultural route that focuses on or includes the former Byzantine churches that survive in different shapes and functions. With regard to the Fethiye complex, the inclusion in such a route could not only map the building as a cultural heritage site, it could also enhance the appreciation and understanding of the site both for tourists and the local community.
References Altınyıldız, N. (2007). The Architectural Heritage of Istanbul and the Ideology of Preservation. Muqarnas, 24, pp. 281-305. Bachmann, M. et al. (eds), Miras 2. Heritage in Context. Doğal, kentsel ve sosyal çercevede koruma ve alan yönetimi. = Konservierung und Site Management im natürlichen, urbanen und sozialen Raum. = Conservation and site management within natural, urban and social frameworks (pp. 333-381). Istanbul: Ege Yayınları. Bartu, A. (1999). Who Owns the Old Quarters? In Ç. Keyder, (ed.), Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local (pp. 31-45). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Dombey, D. (2015). Istanbul’s Byzantine Legacy Undermined by Ottoman Restoration. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from Ft.com Headlines, (6 May 2015).
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Eyice, S. (1994). Fethiye Camii. In I. Tekeli & S. Eyice (eds), Dünden Bugüne Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, 6 (pp. 300-301). Istanbul: Kültür Bakanlığı & Tarih Vakfı. Freely, J. & Çakmak, A. (2004). Byzantine Monuments of Istanbul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hallensleben, H. (1963-64). Untersuchungen zur Baugeschichte der ehemalige Pammakaristoskirche, der heutige Fethiye camii in Istanbul. Istanbuler Mitteilungen, 13/14, pp. 128-93. Keyder, Ç. (ed.) (1999). Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kirimtayif, S. (2001). Converted Byzantine Churches in Istanbul. Their Transformations into mosques and masjids. Istanbul: Ege Yayınları. Limen (n.d.). Küçükyalı Arkeopark. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from www.limenproject.net/istanbul/archaeological-sites-istanbul/kucukyali-arkeopark/. Mango, C. (1978). St Mary Pammakaristos. The Monument and its History. In Belting, H., Mango, C., & Mouriki, D. (eds), The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at Istanbul (pp. 1-38).Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. Mouriki, D. (eds), The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at Istanbul (pp. 1-38). Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. Mango, C. & Hawkins, E.J.W. (1964). Report on Field Work in Istanbul and Cyprus 1962-1963. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 18, pp. 319-40. Oğan, O. (1949). Aya Maria Pammakaristos – Fethiye Camii. Belleten, XIII (50), pp. 271-308. Oosterhout, R. (2005-2006). Study and Restoration of the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/ project-grant-reports/2005-2006/ousterhout. Philippides, M. & Hanak, W.K. (2011). The Siege and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Historiography, Topography, and Military Studies. Farnham: Ashgate. Redford, S. & Ergin, N. (eds) (2010). Perceptions of the Past in the Turkish Republic: Classical and Byzantine Periods. Leuven/ Paris/ Walpole, MA: Peeters Ricci, A. (2014). Interpreting Heritage: Byzantine-Period Archaeological Areas and Parks in Istanbul. MIRAS 2, pp. 33-382. Ricci, A. & Yilmaz, A. (2016). Urban Archaeology and Community Engagement: The Küçükyali ArkeoPark in Istanbul. In Alvarez, M.D., Go, F.M. & Yüksel, A. (eds), Heritage Tourism Destinations: Preservation, communication and development (pp. 41-63). Boston: CAB International. Schreiner, P. (1971). Eine unbekannte Beschreibung der Pammakaristoskirche (Fethiye Camii) und weitere Text zur Topographie Konstantinopels. Dumbarton Oaks Paper, 25, pp. 217-48.
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Sierra, A., Riu-Barrera, E., Sugranyes, T. & Pluma, J. (2015). #Taull1123: Immersive experience in a World Heritage Site (or augmented reality without devices). MW2015: Museums and the Web 2015. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from http:// mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/taull1123-immersive-experience-ina-world-heritage-site-or-augmented-reality-without-devices/ Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma (2013). Santa Maria Antiqua presto riaperta al pubblico. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from http://archeoroma. beniculturali.it/sites/default/files/2013.12.03%20SANTA%20MARIA%20ANTIQUA,%20FINE%20RESTAURI%20E%20RIAPERTURA%20IN%20VISTA.pdf. Underwood, P.A. (1966-1975). The Kariye Djami. 4 vols. New York: Bollingen. UNESCO (n.d.). Historic Areas of Istanbul. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from http:// whc.unesco.org/en/list/356/. Wallach Art Gallery (n.d.). 3-D Animations. Retrieved 24 August 2017 from www. columbia.edu/cu/wallach/exhibitions/Byzantium/html/building_anime.html. Waterton, E. & Watson, S. (2010). Culture, Heritage and Representation. Perspectives on visuality and the past. Farnham: Ashgate.
About the author Mariëtte Verhoeven is a researcher and lecturer at Radboud University Nijmegen and a fellow at the Netherlands Institute in Turkey (Istanbul). Her research focuses on the cultural history of Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, the historical transformation of buildings, and architecture in cultural memory. Currently she is studying Istanbul’s Byzantine religious heritage. An important question for her is how historical research can contribute to and influence discussions about the preservation and presentation of cultural heritage, and this leads her to address such issues as ownership, identity formation, and attitudes toward the past.
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Who Takes the Lead in Initiating Cooperation in a Cultural Network and Why? The case study of a rural Finnish destination Arja Lemmetyinen, Lenita Nieminen and Johanna Aalto
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch05 Abstract Value co-creation stemming from cultural heritage and specific local needs is the key element of the process of building a brand identity, particularly in the context of cultural entrepreneurship. Based on the literature on branding and networking our study aims to identify the processes that advance the distinctive branding of a destination by analysing the prerequisites for building a joint brand in a collaborative network. We wanted to study who takes the lead in coordinating cooperation in cultural networks, and who initiates value co-creation processes. Furthermore, we wanted to examine how various actors perceived the coordinating role of the municipality. Our case study is from a small rural destination in Finland where the municipality has taken the initiative to lead and coordinate the value co-creating processes in branding the destination. The empirical data were collected through participative observation and in-depth interviews with municipal representatives, entrepreneurs, and members of associations, and the third sector, and also from local media, policy documents, and websites. A multidimensional concept assigned the acronym BRICK, which stands for: Benefits, Risks, Interaction, Coordination, and Keenness, was used to analyse the data. Our findings show that the development process is still ongoing, and running alongside the cultural and historical perspectives, has been the commercial side of the process addressing the issue of boosting the attraction of the area as a tourism destination. Consequently, the role of value co-creation as an outcome
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is expanding in terms of affinity, and that of external coordination is diminishing. Our study findings contribute to the theoretical discussion on leadership in the research domain of place branding. The process of building the joint brand for a destination can illustrate for practitioners how to apply academic theory to a real branding case. Keywords: branding, coordination, cultural networks, creative clusters, cultural heritage
Cultural heritage-based sites offer both individual and shared experiences for the members of a local community. Moreover, these experiences have the potential to spur entrepreneurial activity. The latter, in turn, offers an opportunity to capture new value from modern consumption demands, many of which are associated with culture and the environment. Recent studies on tourism and the creative economy emphasise the need for cross-sector collaboration and convergence to stimulate innovation and development (OECD, 2014). Consequently, entrepreneurs in cultural tourism, as in any business, are not independent entities acting on their own in the marketplace; they are interacting with the other actors in the network (Lemmetyinen, 2015; Håkansson & Snehota, 1989; Ford et al., 1998). The small firms now rapidly growing in number in the cultural industries are essentially too small to exercise formal control or coordination, and consequently they tend to operate in networks with others (Hesmondalgh, 2013). As a result, a destination’s stakeholders have to adopt new ways of coordinating the production of creative culture. However, initiating or coordinating cooperation may be difficult, given that the actors represent their own sectors and thus do not naturally think in terms of networking (cf. Tinsley & Lynch, 2001). Recent literature calls for the development of suitable practices for collaborating with partners (Barczak, 2012) and for extending co-creation to include more stakeholders (Frow, Nenonen, Payne, & Storbacka, 2015). Moreover, Grönroos (2011) and Grönroos & Ravald (2011) state that direct interaction among the co-creating partners is essential in achieving value co-creation. Saraniemi & Kylänen (2011), in turn, emphasise branding as a powerful marketing weapon for destinations. In our study, we aim to identify the processes that advance the distinctive branding of a region by analysing the prerequisites for building a joint brand in the collaborative network. The questions that guide the research are: 1) Can we identify a specific actor or agency that takes the lead in coordinating the cooperation in cultural networks and initiates the value co-creation
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processes? And 2) How do the actors perceive the coordinating role of the local government, and how are those perceptions explained? Our case study is Ironworks Village in Finland, where the municipality has taken the initiative in leading and coordinating the value co-creating processes in branding the destination. The paper first reviews the literature on networking and branding. The next section discusses the context of the study, and then presents the case study itself. This is followed by a review of the findings, and the paper concludes by detailing the most important of those findings and making some recommendations for future research.
Literature review This section reviews the literature on networking and branding, focusing on the coordination of cooperative cultural networks. According to the relevant studies, firms and organisations do not act independently in the market (Håkansson & Snehota, 1989; Ford et al., 1998); rather, they are obliged to interact with other firms and organisations (Grandori & Soda, 1995; Ritter & Gemünden, 2003). This agglomeration of interdependent organisations then forms an industrial network (Möller & Halinen, 1999; Wilkinson & Young, 2003; Batt & Purchase, 2004) or cluster (Lorenzen & Foss, 2003; Novelli, Schmitz & Spencer, 2006), which, in turn, works to create value (Lemmetyinen, 2010; Niu, Miles, Bach, & Chinen, 2012). Public-sector coordinators of cooperative cultural networks may be local (Bramwell & Sharman, 1999), regional (Pavlovich, 2003; Saxena, 2005) or national (Riege & Perry, 2000) actors. A municipality may at times take a leading or coordinating role in projects – this happens most frequently when these latter are funded by the EU (see Lemmetyinen, 2010) – and in the search for strategic partnerships (Dredge, 2006). Bianchini & Ghilardi (2007) note that those responsible for branding a place should be aware not only of its cultural traditions but also of its contemporary socioeconomic reality, including its cultural life and selfrepresentations. To get the most benefit from cooperating in networks, the actors need recognise and develop their capabilities for network management. Such capabilities include building up the brand identity of the region or network, value creation, and management skills. Developing culture-related businesses and utilising cultural tourism to benefit the regional economy, culture, and environment obviously requires resources, and the latter may be obtained through the coordination of cooperative
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cultural networks that facilitate the use of cultural elements both in tourism and in other fields of the creative-cultural cluster (Lemmetyinen & Go, 2009; Lemmetyinen, 2015). A joint region or destination brand may be considered a tool of cooperation that helps to strengthen place branding through cultural entrepreneurship (Lemmetyinen, 2010, 2015). In committing to a joint brand it is important that the actors share common values stemming, for example, from the heritage of their locale, and that they agree on a joint direction for their activities. Relevant questions in the context of cultural cooperative networks are: What are the views of the network actors involved in building a brand identity? How might these views be integrated so as to ensure a more coherent brand-building process? The mental structure of coordinated cooperation rests on the common values of the actors, which are manifest in the joint place brand. It is important for the actors to feel an affinity that, according to Lemmetyinen & Go’s (2010) interpretation, reflects how the network-based community commits to its joint values, awareness of cultural aspects, shared vision, and brand performance. In initiating the branding process the stakeholders also have to share their vision of the completed project, with its phases of forming the brand portfolio, defining the roles, relations, and structures of the brand portfolio, and finally its presentation in a graphic design (cf. Aaker & Joachimstahler, 2000).
Research design We wanted to study who takes the lead in coordinating cooperation in cultural networks, and who initiates value co-creation processes. Furthermore, we wanted to examine how various actors perceive the coordinating role of the municipality. To do so, we observed the process of building the brand identity of a small rural destination in southwestern Finland. The representatives of the municipality have been active in promoting their town as a destination that promotes wellbeing based on its cultural heritage. They have also sought out partnerships (see Selin & Chavez, 1995) and networking opportunities. The case of the Ironworks Village The ironworks from which the village takes its name was founded in 1689, and it has been in the hands of one of Finland’s oldest family businesses since the 1870s, when it was bought by Antti Ahlström, founder of A. Ahlström Ltd. Even today, several international companies maintain industrial
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operations in the village. The surrounding area is known, moreover, for its abundant prehistoric archaeological finds. The Ironworks Village, which flourished thanks to its iron and paper industries, has a rich industrial history and interesting architecture, making it an attractive and culturally rich destination. The well-known Finnish architect Alvar Aalto left his mark there in the 1940s, and currently there are a number of artists and craftspeople working and living in the area who constitute a regional artists’ network. A. Ahlström Ltd. still owns many of the historic buildings in the Ironworks Village that once housed company officials and employees, and the firm has thus had a major influence on the development of the ironworks complex. The company was involved in the discussions about creating a joint brand for the Ironworks Village but changes in senior personnel resulted in a weakening of the connection to the other interested parties. Several years ago, a new A. Ahlström CEO revived the cooperation on the occasion of launching a new service business. The company now targets business-to-business clients and groups, and considers local small businesses, for example, handicraft artists, art galleries, and “wellbeing” businesses to be among its potential partners. In recent years, the municipality has made several attempts to attract new visitors and residents to the area. For one thing, it has launched a development project funded by the EU that aims to strengthen brand-building based on the Village’s cultural heritage. Easton (2010) defines case research in industrial networks as a method that involves “investigating one social entity or situation about which data are collected using multiple sources of data and developing a holistic description through an iterative research process”. Considering our case as an industrial network is justified by the long industrial history of the Ironworks Village and the role which industrial actors have played and still play in the development of the cultural network, as illustrated in the case description given above. We also wish to note that in our case study we take “a transparent approach to the interplay between theory, empirical phenomenon and method” (cf. Dubois & Gibbert 2010). Data The empirical data were collected through participative observation (cf. Tedlock, 2000) and in-depth interviews (cf. Riessman, 2004) with municipal representatives, entrepreneurs, and members of associations, and also from policy documents and websites. Another source of data was the local newspaper, which regularly reported on the Ironworks Village. The data consists of both individual and group interviews and formal and informal
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conversations and were gathered during the four-year-long process of cooperation. The data-gathering process started with the initiation of the cooperation with the Cultural Manager as one of the main municipal actors in the development of the Ironworks Village into a recreational area. The other two municipal informants were her closest partners in the cultural network and therefore natural choices to be interviewed. The entrepreneurs and members of associations (e.g. a local youth and citizens association and a local heritage association) who became informants were chosen as active participants of the network. Table 5.1 summarises the data sources and informants and illustrates the researchers’ interaction with them. Table 5.1 Interaction with data sources Participative Data collection observation/ interaction with method stakeholders How? Where? When?
One of the authors is a personnel manager in the municipality. Two of authors have cooperated for several years with municipality staff at seminars, official/ unofficial meetings, events etc.
Interviews/ interpretations of stakeholders’ views
Media analysis/ critical interpretations of outsiders’ views
Visitor and resident feedback/ self-criticism
The authors interviewed three municipal staff, five entrepreneurs, and three members of associations and other third sector representatives. Interviews were transcribed.
The authors collated articles published in the local media, reporting the development process in the Ironworks Village.
One of the authors could follow the process from the inner circle and record comments made directly by visitors and residents.
Two of the researchers participated in the planning of specific projects for the area and also attended many of the related events (cf. O’Donnell & Cummins, 1999). Taking an ethnographic approach, the researchers were able to “enter into firsthand interaction with people in their everyday life” (Tedlock, 2000), and to observe cooperation in the field as a process, following developmental activities as they unfolded. The third author of the current study is a personnel manager of the municipality involved and is responsible for the leisure and tourism services, a position that offered her a unique insight into the process. The cooperative activity investigated here aimed to promote value co-creation processes by coordinating networks of actors, a subject that has sporadically appeared in the prior research on business networks. Earlier studies on the tourism business have predominantly focused on
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Figure 5.1 The stakeholder groups in the Ironworks Village network
Private sector Enterprises Media
The network Coordinator Municipality of Eura
Associations Third sector
Residents Visitors Tourists
Made by the authors
network structure (e.g. Scott, Cooper, & Baggio, 2008; March & Wilkinson, 2009). In this study the focus is on the value-creating processes of the cultural network and on the question of how various actors perceive the coordinating role of the municipality. The study specifically analyses the cooperation among municipality authorities, other public-sector agencies, private entrepreneurs and associations, as well as residents, visitors, and other collaborators in the Ironworks Village network (see Figure 5.1). Figure 5.1 presents the stakeholder groups in the network and illustrates the poly-vocal approach adopted (see Buchanan & Dawson, 2007; Lemmetyinen & Go, 2010). In studying networks, this approach makes it possible to explore areas of potential interest that have probably remained unstudied for methodological reasons. The research, which spanned more than three years, generated a large amount of data that has been collated and analysed.
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Analysis In order to analyse the prerequisites for building a joint brand in a collaborative network, we used a multidimensional concept assigned the acronym BRICK, which stands for: Benefits, Risks, Interaction, Coordination, Keenness (Lemmetyinen, Lepistö, Suomi, & Nieminen, 2015). We believe that considering the various aspects of the proposed concept has allowed us to identify some of the factors that motivate the members of a network to start and continue cooperation. Previous network research shows that the motives for co-creation among network members are connected to their beliefs in the benefits and risks of the network brand. Consequently, being a member of a larger network is seen as a benefit for a destination in that its greater size is more likely to attract new visitors and to encourage entrepreneurs to offer their services (Haven-Tang & Sedgley, 2014; Bergvall, 2006). There is a link between how well the members of a network understand the significance of interaction and coordination of the joint brand and how they define the vision and mission of the network and the roles of the various network actors (see Govers & Go, 2009). For the co-creation of the joint brand to succeed, it is essential to find a way to make the members enthusiastic about and remain keen on coordinated cooperation (cf. Halemane & Mandemaker, 2007; De San & Vela, 2013). In the following section we present the findings of the analysis of our empirical data.
Results and discussion The current, more active and goal-determined phase in the brand-building process in the network under study here started in 2013, at which time the authors began an analysis of who the actors were and how they perceived their own brand and the role of the municipality in building a joint brand. The personnel manager, who has been in charge of the tourism and leisure sector in the municipality for several years, and is member of the development team of the Ironworks Village, emphasises that: When the developmental activities started in 2013, the first thing to do was to list the actors and their respective brands, and the role of the municipality – the initiator – was to bring about coordination and communication between the actors. (Interview with personnel manager)
When discussing the role of the municipality in initiating the brandidentity-building process, the interviewees’ perceptions of time differed
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in interesting ways, which seemed quite natural. The cultural manager of the municipality has adopted a long-term perspective and actually started to coordinate some of the key stakeholder groups as early as the beginning of the 1990s. She says that their keenness for cooperation has varied considerably over the years, but is currently very strong: For fifteen years, and arguably even longer, we’ve gathered the actors of the Ironworks Village together for a meeting at least once a year. Everyone in the area then knows what everyone else is working on. During the last two years these gatherings have reached a totally new level and explored new dimensions, and this will offer new opportunities for cooperation. (Interview with cultural manager)
Both key managers realise the unique historical value of the area: The area around the Ironworks Village was a notable residential area as much as one thousand years ago, as evidenced by Luistari [a prehistoric area], which is the largest Viking cemetery in Finland and in the Nordic countries. The Village itself was formed around the refining of iron ore and the emerging paper industry almost 330 years ago. This was naturally the origin of the Blacksmiths’ Road around which the Ironworks Village was formed. (Interview with personnel manager)
The Ironworks Village utilises its history as the foundation of its future, but, as the cultural manager states, it is important to be able to make choices and select the top priorities based on the full range of the distinctive characteristics of the whole region. The brand cannot contain absolutely everything that there is in the area but somehow it has to [convey] the distinctiveness of the place […] [and to point to the] nice events and […] local food and the things specific to the Village, such as the region’s history and the landscape.
The statements of the municipality’s representatives are confirmed by the view of the service manager of A. Ahlström Ltd., who says that the company has a long tradition, and a strong cultural heritage which it has drawn on in building its identity and its corporate image: We certainly have the company’s roots here and it is wonderful that there are still these operations and functions. One of the most important
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functions of the Ironworks Village is that there is life, and that is in my view a good base for the service business. (Interview with service manager)
Many of the entrepreneurs feel that they have their roots in the Ironworks Village, and it is quite easy for them to tell people about its history. Several important families have a stake in the industrial history of the Ironworks Village, including the Creutz, Timmy, Falck, and Ahlström families, and it is the latter’s industrial conglomerate that still owns most of the old buildings there. Antti Ahlström came to the Village in 1873 and brought the ironworks into a new era by starting a wood-processing operation. The buildings currently found in the Ironworks Village were built in the eighteenth century and the architectural layers from various centuries remain visible. In addition, as the personnel manager points out in the quote below, the Ironworks Village is not becoming a museum but rather still supports a lot of industrial activities. That fact, together with the kind of people living in the area, is what makes it different from similar destinations: Yes, the Ironworks Village is one of the few ironworks in Finland still in operation. (Interview with personnel manager)
Although the Ironworks Village has a long and rich industrial and architectural heritage, the local people have not always been aware of it. As the cultural manager states: People aren’t that well informed about the history of the area or its special features. Traditionally, the Ironworks Village was part of an industrial company and outsiders were not permitted to go there. The local people don’t know enough about the area and its value, but the situation has changed as new people have moved in. […] There are [still] empty locations which are suitable for new business, but [so far] there is little interest.
Many remarks in the data show that most of the entrepreneurs have been devoted to the area since their childhood and that they have a wholehearted commitment to the brand identity of the Village. However, this does not mean that they do not see issues that could have benefitted from a deeper level of cooperation, especially regarding the municipality and the role of A. Ahlström Ltd. Some of them, in fact, are opposed to the dominant role that both of these have played and would like to establish a more balanced relationship.
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The architectural reputation of the area is well known, especially outside the Ironworks Village, including abroad, and particularly among architects. Several remarks recorded in the interviews with both the representatives of the municipality and local entrepreneurs demonstrate their awareness of this fact. Architecture should be the central point in the development of the Village. In international architectural circles, Finnish architecture is “the thing”… but it’s not just about the architect Alvar Aalto and other big Finnish names, but also about the long history and the historic buildings of the Village. And then, of course, around the world, the Village could find recognition through the networks of people interested in industrial heritage. (Interview with cultural manager)
At the official and unofficial meetings and events concerning the Ironworks Village and in the local media it is impossible not to hear about the role of the design and architecture of Alvar Aalto, whose work is clearly one of the main attractions of the Ironworks Village. His terraced house (1939) and Jokisauna (river sauna) are considered superb examples of modern functionalism and experimental architecture. The latter (now a “Design Sauna”) shows how an element of industrial heritage can be transformed to suit entrepreneurial activity, and it is one of the landmarks of the Ironworks Village. In the 1940s, the building functioned as both sauna and laundry for the factory workers; today it houses an elegant cafeteria decorated with Aalto furniture, a design shop, an art gallery – and a sauna. The representatives of the municipality, entrepreneurs, residents, and visitors all clearly agree that the distinct brand of the Ironworks Village is rooted in its strong industrial and architectural heritage. The Personnel Manager makes the point as follows: Understanding the history of a place is the first step in making something in common along the way to creating a new brand for the Ironworks Village. If it did not have such a significant industrial history the famous architect Alvar Aalto might never have come to the Ironworks Village. (Interview with personnel manager)
There are new members in the network, but some have been cooperating with each other for a considerable time. The artists and handicraft artisans, for example, have established a close network. Here the role of the municipality has been important in coordinating marketing activities.
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Then we’ve these artists and handicraft artisans with whom we’ve had long-term cooperation. “Eura by hand” (a network of local artists and artisans) has been a key partner in the development of the Village. (Interview with cultural manager)
Our observation and the interviews reveal that the municipality coordinates the network of service providers and has launched a project to develop wellbeing services in order to promote the area as a wellbeing destination with a focus on culture. The small entrepreneurs involved in culture and wellness consider the coordinating role and the practical contribution of the municipality to be extremely important. As one entrepreneur put it: We’ve had common exhibition presentations, so in this way we’ve made progress. (Interview with entrepreneur)
The form of cooperation has varied over the decades, but the municipality has always played a major role in coordinating activities; the reason appears to be that there is no one else to take on the coordinating role. The major industrial enterprise, A. Ahlström Ltd., is perhaps too big, too independent, and too business-oriented to do so, whereas the small firms of the Ironworks Village lack the resources (time and money) and perhaps also the ability to lead a network. The municipality has made attempts before to maintain contact with actors by simply producing common brochures, for example. But now cooperation is on a completely different level, and this makes it possible to cooperate in a totally different way. In an ideal situation there should be a cooperation committee. It requires one actor that can push cooperation forward, but there is currently no other actor than the municipality that can do tangible work. (Interview with cultural manager)
Attitudes toward cooperation have evolved over the years, but it is not until recently that any real keenness has been seen: Just recently, there has been a new burst of life and enthusiasm. There was a period ten-fifteen years ago when cooperation didn’t occur very often. […]I am very excited about it all. (Interview with cultural manager)
It seems that A. Ahlström Ltd., too, currently values cooperation and is committed to work for the joint brand.
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The relationships between the actors in the network are illustrated in Figure 5.2 below. All the stakeholders of the network are listed at the top of Figure 5.2. The model applied permits the analysis of the benefits, risks, interaction, coordination, and keenness of the actors. The BRICK-dimensions help to illustrate how the actors’ perceptions of the value creation process have melded together (Gadamer, 2004; Lemmetyinen et al., 2015). For example, as regards the benefits, in the Ironworks Village, the active municipal support has been a lifeline for the small firms in the vicinity as it has brought in resources but also strengthened the relationship between the actors. As to the risks, the interviewees often repeated that local people have become stuck in their old attitudes and cannot recognise the opportunities available Figure 5.2 Today’s Blacksmith’s – parts of the network have melded together
BENEFITS The unique historical value of the place realized by the key persons
RISKS Understanding the historical reasons for hardened attitudes
KEENNES An enthusiastic way of doing things and initiating activities among the other stakeholders
Municipality
Media Visitors Residents Entrepreneurs Third sector reps
INTERACTION Succeeding in communicating the value of the place in an interactive way
Made by the authors
COORDINATION A pragmatic way of accepting that there are no others than the municipality to take the lead and coordinate
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to them. People do not necessarily know the history of their local area and this might be the reason that they do not value their location. The interaction in the network of the Ironworks Village was manifested, for example, in how the handicraft artisans have traditionally held and still hold a key role in destination marketing and promoting the place as a good place to live. In the case of the Ironworks Village, the municipality has taken a strong coordinating role simply because it has the “best potential for government” (see Govers & Go, 2009) as expressed in the interview with one of the key figures in the networking of the Ironworks Village: The municipality has taken the coordinating role, but of course it is not a must for us. So far, we have the possibility of doing it. (Interview with personnel manager, Ironworks Village)
Regardless of how the coordination or leadership of the network is organised the members of the cultural network have been able to form value propositions that include a dream or something to be keen on (see Go & Govers, 2010). Most of the actors in the Ironworks Village network now realise the locale’s unique historical value (Benefit). The initial catalyst in this regard was the municipality’s cultural manager. The important point is that when she started her work at the end of 1980, she understood the potential obstacles hindering the local people from identifying themselves with the history of the place (Risks). She also realised that changing attitudes would take a long time. In her interview, and also during many meetings with her, she pointed out the critical moments during her career when entrepreneurs, residents, and many other stakeholders began to see the value of the Ironworks Village and to identify themselves as part of its history. When communicating that value to the stakeholders, she succeeded in turning a one-way communication model into an interactive one, and consequently the stakeholders started to meet regularly, so that each was aware of what the others were doing. One long-running example is that of a group of artists and handicrafts producers who market their work in jointly produced leaflets (Interaction). It seems that the actors in the network have taken a pragmatic approach to coordinating and leading their activities. The municipality has supported their efforts, and today the personnel manager responsible for tourism and leisure services cooperates with the cultural manager in coordinating the network (Coordination). The cooperation is characterised by enthusiasm and has led to further initiatives among the other stakeholders (Keenness).
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Conclusions Value co-creation based on cultural heritage and specific local needs is the key element in the process of building a brand identity in the context of cultural entrepreneurship. We adopted a poly-vocal approach to analysing the brand-building process used by the cultural network in our case study. Among the stakeholders were a couple of international corporations, several smaller enterprises, public-sector organisations, several non-prof it associations, individual artists, and residents. With the municipality acting as coordinator, the network started to create a brand architecture based on a shared vision of the future. Studying this process in the case of the Ironworks Village, we were able to discern the relationships of the different actors and their brands. The brand portfolio of the participants was created, and the stakeholders started to communicate with each other in face-to-face meetings. The vision was defined in quite general terms in order to facilitate its wide acceptance. The graphic identity of the Ironworks Village was created by an advertising agency and can be freely used by all the network members. As the brand architecture moves beyond the creation phase, they will also need working tools to evaluate the brand’s success. The development process is still ongoing, and alongside the cultural and historical perspectives they have drawn on, the members have also given thought to the commercial side of the process by addressing the topic of increasing the attractiveness of the area as a tourism destination. Consequently, the role of value co-creation as an outcome is expanding in terms of affinity, and the role of external coordination is diminishing. In other words, the actors are assuming more equal roles as they instigate initiatives designed to co-create value through establishing creative clusters in the cultural sphere. Thus, one might say that they have adopted a poly-vocal perspective in coordinating their cooperative cultural network. Our findings contribute to the discussion of the role of leadership in the process of place branding in industrial networks. The evidence gathered also enhances our understanding of how the process of building a brand identity is connected to the community’s attachment to its cultural heritage. We used a multi-authored discourse approach because it offers a more holistic view of marketing. The process of building the joint brand for the Ironworks Village can demonstrate to practitioners how to apply academic theory to a real case of branding. By taking on the coordination of the branding process, the municipality has furnished a successful example that should prove encouraging to other tourist destinations.
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The validity and trustworthiness of the study In this qualitative study of identifying the processes that advance the distinctive branding of a destination in a collaborative network, we have tried to justify our approach by satisfying the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and conformability (Silverman, 2000; Hammersley, 1990, 1992; Kirk & Miller, 1986). In our study, credibility (cf. Lincoln & Cuba, 1985; Marshall & Rossman, 1989) was achieved by accurately identifying and describing the network under study and carefully documenting the accounts of the informants. Two of the authors represent the disciplines of marketing and entrepreneurship, and the third author, who is a personnel manager of the municipality involved, brings a unique insight into the research. Transferability of the study was further strengthened through the triangulation of multiple respondents (representing various actor-groups), multiple sources of data, and varied data-gathering techniques (see Table 5.1). We believe that if the study were replicated in the same context the results would be the same, thus confirming the dependability of the study. As to whether the results of our study could be confirmed by another, a research partner or someone else has to play “devil’s advocate” (Lincoln & Cuba, 1985; Marshall & Rossman, 1989) and critically question the analysis. In our study this role has been taken by a forum for municipal decision-makers, business support agencies, higher education institutions, and practitioners that was established to develop collaboration in promoting local tourism. The delegates of the forum thought that our BRICK-model could be used to study other municipalities as well. One of the authors’ double role as a respondent allowed her to read the quotations and the researchers’ interpretation of them with extraordinary accuracy and expertise before the article was published, which also ensured the conformability of the research. Limitations and avenues for further studies In this study, the role of the coordinator was emphasised because of the nature of the research question. Future research on the other actors’ roles in the network might give us a deeper understanding of how they perceive cultural heritage and its significance in the process of building a brand identity. By analysing the manner in which small entrepreneurs in the tourism industry become committed to the network as a community and by studying how a mode of belonging to a brand community impacts the brand-building process, one could make a novel theoretical contribution to the network/brand discussion within the place-branding debate. It would be interesting to study how the expression of keenness is connected to the building of a joint place brand.
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Applying and attempting to validate the BRICK-model in other contexts would also be a fruitful research topic. Transferring the process of building a brand identity to other contexts would be laborious and time-consuming, but it would offer an interesting perspective on just how context-dependent the role of leading a cultural network actually is. Such an effort would make a further contribution to the theory of industrial networks.
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About the authors Arja Lemmetyinen currently works as a university researcher at the School of Economics at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research interests encompass three topics: network management and value co-creation in networks; place branding and brand management; and cultural tourism and creative economy. Lenita Nieminen is a doctoral student at the School of Economics at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research focuses on entrepreneurial learning and the role of entrepreneurial networks in microbusiness development. She is currently engaged in a number of research projects related to entrepreneurship education, especially in cultural entrepreneurship. Johanna Aalto is Director of Administration in the municipality of Eura, Finland. One of the leaders in the municipality involved in the research, she played a double role. As both author and respondent, she had a unique perspective for writing the article.
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Sustainability of Heritage-Tourism Destinations A demand-based perspective on Cusco, Peru Begüm Aydın and Maria D. Alvarez
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch06 Abstract Sustainability is a key issue for cultural tourism destinations, which needs to be communicated and marketed to the tourists. Thus, a better understanding of how tourists perceive sustainability attributes in tourism destinations is paramount to support these sustainability initiatives. This study analyses the comments from tourists on Cusco, Peru, posted on the TripAdvisor website during the period of one year. The aim is to understand which sustainability attributes in cultural tourism destinations are most mentioned in these evaluations, and therefore may be considered as most visible and important for tourists. This information is essential in order to provide guidance to cultural destinations wishing to better market their sustainability efforts to their current and potential customers. The research determines that tourists mostly mention aspects pertaining to the protection of the cultural values and unique identity of the destination. These aspects are also those that contribute to create a better experience for the tourists. Keywords: sustainability, cultural tourism destination, demand-based perspective, tourism experience, Cusco
Introduction Heritage and tourism are often described in the literature as being interdependent, one supporting the other (Fonseca & Ramos, 2012). Many tourists
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are motivated to travel to a particular place in order to learn about its history and customs (Fonseca & Ramos, 2012), and thus culture and heritage become important assets that increase the attractiveness of the destination. In return, tourism may support the preservation of the heritage by providing a needed source of capital (Russo & van der Borg, 2002), generating funds that may be used to preserve not only sites, but also intangible values (Salazar & Zhu, 2015). However, while tourism may have a positive impact on destinations, it may also lead to negative results such as commodification of culture and values, gentrification of the sites, and physical damage to their resources from over-visitation (Kaminski, Benson, & Arnold, 2014). In many cases, heritage-led economic development may even result in visitors displacing the inhabitants from their neighbourhoods, putting the fragile ecosystems of historic city centres under threat and thereby negatively impacting the residents’ quality of life. Thanks to growing awareness and concern about these potential negative impacts of tourism, the idea of sustainability as a sine qua non for tourism development has emerged. Ensuring that destinations are both sustainable and competitive has become a key desideratum for academicians and practitioners alike. Sustainability is particularly important for cultural- and heritage-tourism destinations, since cultural heritage is generally a fragile and irreplaceable resource that needs to be conserved (Salazar, 2010). However, as heritage becomes a product to be consumed by the tourists (Li, 2003), it acquires a monetary value that can be employed to increase the welfare of the community. Hence the need to preserve heritage resources as public goods while at the same time providing for the delivery of attractive experiences to tourists (Nuryanti, 1996). Accordingly, tourism destinations should be concerned not only about the essential task of preserving their cultural and heritage resources for the future, but also about ensuring that the destination remains viable and competitive in the long term (Hassan, 2000). This is only possible through conscientious planning and strategic marketing to successfully position the destination within the global tourism market (Hassan, 2000). Marketing the destination as sustainable is also one of the keys to the success of many sustainability initiatives (Buhalis, 2000), especially since such efforts can be very costly. Information concerning the sustainability of tourism enterprises is currently an area of interest for social media sites, which are working to incorporate information on these issues to help individuals choose more responsible travel alternatives. The TripAdvisor’s GreenLeaders programme for hotels is an example of such initiatives, and this project also foresees including user ratings concerning the sustainable practices of tourism
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enterprises and destinations in the near future. However, both tourism organisations and destinations face major challenges in communicating information about sustainability to customers, because many aspects of it cannot be experienced directly by tourists (Wehrli et al., 2013). Despite the existence of much research on sustainability, most studies have followed a supply-based perspective, being concerned with the definition and measurement of sustainability, management, and governance systems, and the role of various stakeholders. The perceptions of tourists concerning different aspects of sustainability and the extent to which the sustainability practices of destinations are visible or perhaps even important to them has not been the focus of previous research. In an attempt to address this lack, the present study aims to measure and assess the extent to which tourists mention aspects of sustainability in their reviews of heritage-tourism destinations. The guiding questions are: To what extent do tourists spontaneously comment on issues concerning the sustainability of destinations in their online reviews of a heritage-tourism destination? And, can aspects of the destination that are tied to sustainability practices be used to increase its attractiveness to tourists? A qualitative approach is used to better understand how tourists discuss and communicate to other individuals the sustainability-related attributes of a destination. Through an analysis of online user-generated reviews concerning a specific heritage-tourism destination, the researchers attempt to determine which of its sustainability attributes are most mentioned in these evaluations. The focus here is on Cusco, Peru, a mainstream cultural tourism destination that is currently investing in sustainability initiatives in reaction to problems of insufficient capacity and environmental degradation.
Background of the study As destinations strive to become more sustainable, they are faced with the challenges of defining and measuring sustainability, since without indicators “the use of the term ‘sustainable’ is meaningless… and becomes hyperbole and advertising jargon” (Butler, 1999, p. 16). Indicators may be used to identify goals and suitable management strategies, while enhancing the overall understanding of the destination’s environmental and social problems (Miller & Twining-Ward, 2006). Already in 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development established Agenda 21, which emphasises the need for a set of indicators to measure
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sustainability. National, international, and non-governmental organisations have subsequently undertaken initiatives to establish such indicators. Similarly, many academic studies have sought to describe the sustainable destination and to delineate the attributes that define it, although they have been criticised for being too theoretical and of little practical use (Lozano-Oyola, Blancas, González, & Caballero, 2012). One of the most comprehensive studies on the measurement of sustainable destinations is that of Choi & Sirakaya (2006), who provide an exhaustive list of sustainability indicators grouped under six headings: political, social, ecological, economic, technological, and cultural. With respect to cultural-tourism destinations, Lozano-Oyola et al. (2012) specify a comprehensive list of indicators that not only measure the sustainability of cultural-tourism destinations, but which may also be used for benchmarking and planning purposes. While the academic literature has produced a myriad of studies on sustainability and its measurement, there have also been some more practical efforts to advise destinations, such as the guide book provided by the World Tourism Organization for the development and use of sustainable indicators in tourism (World Tourism Organization, 2005), or the European Tourism Indicators System (ETIS) for Sustainable Management at Destination Level, which is currently in a testing period (Torres-Delgado & Saarinen, 2014). Another scheme is that of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), an independent international body of experts and volunteers that provides a set of guiding principles of sustainability for destinations. This initiative also includes a sustainability accreditation procedure and allows for the promotion of sustainable destinations through the GSTC network. Currently fourteen destinations worldwide, including Cusco, Peru, are early adopters of the GSTC sustainability practices. With the notable exception of Cottrell, van der Duim, Ankersmid, & Kelder (2004), most studies concerning the sustainability attributes of a particular destination have adopted a supply-based perspective, restricting their analyses to the views and requirements of managers, local authorities, and the community. Cottrell et al. (2004) recognised that although tourists are an important stakeholder group for the destination, they will not always be knowledgeable about sustainability, and thus will be unable to evaluate many of its aspects. All the same, these authors found that many tourists are sensitive towards sustainability and would prefer to make more sustainable tourism choices. Other studies that have explored the perceptions of visitors concerning the sustainability of destinations are those of Ngamsomsuke,
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Hwang, & Huang (2011) and Nicholas & Thapa (2010). However, the question of the extent to which tourists consider the sustainability attributes of a destination when making visitation choices is still largely unanswered and requires further research. In particular, the ability to communicate to the public their concern with the issue of sustainability is an important matter for heritage-tourism destinations, and since they depend on their heritage to provide an authentic and attractive experience to visitors, they must devote considerable attention to conservation. The quality of the experience provided to tourists is also important for heritage-tourism destinations, since a place that does not succeed in providing a superior experience to its visitors will not remain competitive in the long run. According to Russo (2001) the physical stress created by tourism at a given destination results in a declining environment that will ultimately lead to a poor tourist experience, thereby triggering a vicious circle of decline. While attracting an increasingly large number of visitors to heritage destinations may turn out to be detrimental in terms of conservation, it may also help ensure sufficient funding for operating the sites (Chhabra, 2009; Fyall & Garrod, 1998), including their sustainability programmes and practices. According to McLean (2002), good marketing practices may further conservation goals at heritage attractions by helping these sites to build relationships with the public. The principal aim should be to achieve a balance between conservation and economic return. This requires not only planning to make the destination more sustainable, but also the ability to communicate this goal to all stakeholders, including visitors. Thus, being able to market a destination as sustainable while focusing on those attributes that are most important for visitors is what destinations need to aim at. In the long run, the ability to market sustainability may provide the heritage destination with an important competitive advantage, enabling it to support its conservation objectives. Therefore, the current study will examine a number of tourist reviews and the degree of their concern with various sustainability-related attributes, thus providing an indication of which characteristics of a sustainable destination are most visible and important to the tourists.
Conceptual model The model on which we based our research is derived from the literature (Choi & Sirakaya, 2006; Cottrell, van der Duim, Ankersmid, & Kelder, 2004;
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Ngamsomsuke, Hwang, & Huang, 2011; Nicholas & Thapa, 2010) and refined through interviews with experts. Using judgemental sampling, three leading experts from the travel sector who work in the area of cultural and heritage tourism – and with experience in taking elite tourist groups to heritage destinations such as Cusco in Peru – were interviewed and asked to review the initial model. In these semi-structured interviews we specifically elicited their opinions concerning the extent to which tourists are aware of and sensitive to the various sustainability attributes generally associated with destinations in the literature. According to these respondents, tourists either are not concerned with or else are unable to judge many aspects of sustainability in destinations. It is very often difficult for visitors to form an opinion regarding certain aspects of the service provided, such as to what extent they are buying products produced by the inhabitants. This information was used in order to eliminate from the model some of the attributes that are mentioned in the literature but which are not suitable for a demand-based model that focuses on the point of view of the visitors. The resulting conceptual model is shown in Table 1. Table 6.1 Model of sustainability of heritage-tourism destinations from a demand-based perspective Economic Attributes Capital leakage and linkage
Capital formation in the community / investment
Local career opportunities
Ease of access to cultural destinations Nature of demand
–– Availability of local products for purchase by tourists for the benefit of the local people –– Services at the destination are provided by the local people as opposed to international chains or other non-local providers –– The destination charges adequate pricing that will allow it to sustain itself in the future –– Money paid by the tourists to experience/view/ interact with cultural attractions is used for the conservation of the destination –– Local employment / Local people employed not only in lower-paid jobs, but also in higher-paid jobs in the tourist labour market –– Women and minorities receive equal chance opportunities –– Convenient access to cultural destinations –– Seasonal factors in cultural tourism
Infrastructure/superstructure –– Availability and quality of facilities and services at
cultural destinations
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Socio-Cultural Attributes Respect to culture and local values
Criminality and other negative behaviours at cultural destinations Access of local community to tourism resources at the destination Cultural exchange Quality of life Knowledge
–– Destination is developed with respect for the culture and values of the local community –– Local authorities act with respect for culture and values of the local community –– Crime, vandalism, drug usage, alcoholism rates are not increased due to tourism –– Local people are able to benefit from facilities which tourists come to enjoy –– Local people are able to visit the attractions at the destination along with the tourists –– The destination offers cultural exchange between tourists and hosts –– The local community’s quality of life at the destination is increased because of tourism –– Interpretation / Knowledge about the history and culture of the destination is provided during the visit
Environmental Attributes
–– Protection of green areas, fauna and flora –– Urbanization and level of building at the cost of green areas Preservation of historical and –– Protection of historical/cultural resources cultural resources –– Cultural/historical site preservation condition –– Overall architectural character of location surrounding cultural destination is protected Pollution of the environment –– Level of pollution of the environment; water and air in cultural tourism destinations Reuse/recycling –– Renewable resources are used and recycling is being done Capacity/limit to tourism –– Tourist overcrowding and congestion at cultural growth destinations –– The site puts emphasis on limiting the growth of tourism Preservation of natural resources
Methodology The aim of the study is to better understand whether tourists’ reviews of a heritage-tourism destination, namely Cusco, Peru, include sustainability attributes. The study adopts a qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews with travel experts conducted to refine the conceptual model, as explained above, and on the analysis of the comments that tourists to Cusco, Peru, posted on the TripAdvisor website during the last year. As the
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Internet becomes more embedded in everyday life, it is increasingly being used by tourists to exchange information and to look for advice from other tourists who have already experienced the destination they are thinking of visiting. TripAdvisor is one of the largest networks of travellers and one of the most popular travel-related social media websites (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010) that include user-generated reviews about destinations worldwide. Through an analysis of these comments, the current study attempts to ascertain which sustainability attributes in heritage-tourism destinations are the most discussed, thus providing an indication of those characteristics of a sustainable destination that are most visible and important for tourists. Previous research (Cottrell, van der Duim, Ankersmid, & Kelder, 2004; Ngamsomsuke, Hwang, & Huang, 2011) used interviews or questionnaires that prompt tourists to consider the sustainability aspects of various destinations. That approach, however, is potentially biased, since the individuals may not have considered those issues before being asked and may therefore be likely to provide more politically correct answers. The analysis of the comments made on the TripAdvisor website in our research allows for a more unobtrusive investigation, identifying the issues that come up spontaneously, without being prompted by the researcher. However, this does entail a limitation: visitors might not mention in their reviews certain issues which are important to them because they may feel that other travellers would not be interested, or that they are simply not worth mentioning. Thus, further research will be needed to analyse the topic from other perspectives, as well, in order to provide more comprehensive information for interested practitioners. Our research is centred on Cusco, Peru, which we selected because it is a mainstream, popular heritage-tourism destination. The Cusco region is considered a key heritage-tourism destination and the archaeological capital of the Americas, offering a wide range of archaeological monuments (GSTC, 2013). Over 80% of international visitors to Peru visit this area, with the World Heritage sites of Machu Picchu and Cusco City being the most visited destinations within the region (Ladkin & Martinez Bertramini, 2002). The area has experienced a constant increase in visitors, resulting in the destruction of archaeological remains and a degree of overcrowding that affects the aesthetic enjoyment of many tourists (Ladkin & Martinez Bertramini, 2002). In order to overcome these problems, Cusco has turned to sustainable-tourism initiatives, and in 2013 it completed the GSTC Early Adopters program (GSTC, 2013) in order to qualify for the marketing benefits of this accreditation, such as publicity distributed to the media through the GSTC network. The specific focus of our study is the Historical Centre of Cusco City.
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We studied the TripAdvisor visitors’ comments on this destination over the course of one full year, using the postings from July 2014, October 2014, January 2015, and April 2015, in order to avoid a seasonal bias. Only those comments made in English were used, to avoid the need for translation, resulting in a total sample of 127 reviews. Not all the commenters included personal information in their evaluations, but among those who did, 51% are male. In terms of country of origin, the largest group of reviewers comes from North America, including 44% from the US and 9% from Canada. The comments were analysed using content analysis with the help of the NVivo 10 software programme. The conceptual model discussed above is used as the basis for coding the comments into different categories, under the three main dimensions of sustainability: economic, sociocultural, and environmental. The results are discussed below in terms of those three main headings.
Results and discussion The analysis of the 127 TripAdvisor reviews established that only 110 of them include references that can be related in some way to the sustainability attributes included in our conceptual model. It should be noted that these are not evenly distributed among the different dimensions. While there are equal numbers of references (n=41) concerning economic and sociocultural attributes, the environmental dimension is discussed in only 28 comments. This result differs from existing analyses in the literature. In most of those studies, however, environmental sustainability is the main topic addressed, whereas our study of tourist reviews covers a broader range of sustainability attributes, so that certain aspects of the customer experience that are not traditionally related to sustainability are seen in this investigation as being part of the overall perception of the destination. Furthermore, our research focuses on a cultural-heritage destination, while in a nature-based destination environmental issues may well be expected to take figure more prominently in visitor remarks. In analysing economic attributes, we found twelve references to capital leakage and linkage, ten to infrastructure/superstructure, eight to ease of access to the destination, seven to the nature of demand, and four to capital formation in the community. We also found that tourists are concerned about the availability of local products, making negative comments on the “fakery and deception around
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town surrounding the indigenous culture”. While one of the reviewers stated that the artisan market is “a terrific find”, another remarked that there is “a theatrical attempt to make you think that you are buying from an artisan, when you’re not”. Some of the comments concern the uniqueness of the souvenirs sold and question the origin of the products: “Are we selling India cheap?” Tourists generally expressed a preference for local, small eateries over international chains like McDonalds and KFC, whose presence is termed a “shame”. Yet, one reviewer did enjoy “taking a drink in the odd Irish and English pubs”, indicating that strictly local culture is not always preferred by the tourist. In general, however, finding local products and services seems to be a matter of concern for tourists, in accord with the sustainability perspective. Convenient access and the best time of year for a visit are the other economic attributes mentioned in the comments. The Cusco Historic Centre is found to be “small” and “convenient to walk around”. It is also close to other destinations like Machu Picchu. As one of the expert interviewees noted, if a destination is not easily accessible, it will attract fewer tourists, although the drifter and explorer type of tourist will be more satisfied with less accessible destinations (Cohen, 1984). The reviews show that seasonal factors can affect tourist satisfaction. One visitor wrote that “everything was closed for an election”, while others advised travellers to visit the destination in June, for the festivals. “Rain season” and “crowding” are the other conditions mentioned in the comments. Capital formation in the community and investment are mentioned only with regard to money spent by tourists. None of the comments raises the question of whether the destination charges enough to enable it to sustain itself in the future, nor does anyone ask if the money spent by tourists to experience cultural attractions is used for the conservation of the destination. This issue is mentioned by the experts in the interviews, but they find that travellers are concerned solely about obtaining the best price for the best service, without really caring about the sustainability of their chosen location. As mentioned by Ritchie & Crouch (2003), tourists are generally hoping to experience a destination’s sociocultural attributes. In our study, out of the 41 comments touching on the sustainability of Cusco’s sociocultural attributes, there are fifteen references to the degree of respect shown to the local culture and its values, followed by thirteen to criminality and other negative behaviours, eight to knowledge and five to cultural exchange. However, none of the comments expressed any concern about how much access the local community has to tourism resources or about the quality of life of the local residents.
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Tourists find the culture “marvellous” and report that it is an “amazing experience to see the way the locals live”, “people dancing in the streets with colourful clothes”. They also are concerned about the commodification of the indigenous culture, with some reviewers stating that the destination is too “touristy”. The “onslaught of street hawkers” is also bothersome to tourists. According to the comments, visitors seem to be seeking authentic cultural experiences such as folk dancing, which is described as a “picturesque and engaging perspective of the marvellous culture”. Although one of the expert interviewees mentioned that the respect accorded by the authorities to the culture and values of the local community is important to tourists, there is no comment concerning this issue in the reviews, indicating that it may be difficult for visitors to judge governance-related issues. Another among the most mentioned sociocultural attributes is criminality. Tourists are concerned about their own safety and mention that Cusco is “a secure city to walk around”. Interpretative information about the destination along with the knowledge of its history and culture imparted to tourists are mentioned mostly in the comments about the tour guides. Rather than questioning whether the interpretive information is culturally appropriate or not, tourists are more interested in those issues that directly affect their experience, like the “knowledge displayed by tour guides”. In terms of cultural exchange, tourists are again more concerned about their own experiences at the destination. They find it “amazing to see all their traditions”, but no one raises the issue of whether local people are affected by the tourists. Although tourism relies heavily on the environment, in the reviews it is the least mentioned of the three main dimensions of sustainability. Of course, since Cusco is a heritage-tourism destination, one would expect more comments to be made on the preservation of historical and cultural resources than on that of natural resources. And, in fact, while nineteen comments relate to the preservation of historical and cultural resources, there are only five references to the pollution of the environment, two to the preservation of natural resources, and two to the capacity for further growth of tourism or some limitation of it. None of the reviews includes comments on reuse and recycling. Some of the comments touching on Cusco’s environmental attributes concern the preservation of the site and the overall architectural character of the location. One of the reviewers mentioned that the destination is “relatively unchanged for 35,000 years”, and there are “no neon signs, billboards”. In another comment, this fact is explained as “an accident of natural barriers and malaria that have kept this continent pristine”. “Incredible buildings
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perfectly maintained” and the presence of “ingenuity and innovative ideas of the Incas” are attracting tourists’ attention. However, one reviewer stated that “the city, while preserving the old monuments, is turning into a big brick and concrete urban center”. Regarding pollution, one of the reviewers mentioned that he “disliked the smog, the constant never ending car horns and noise”. Since pollution, overcrowding, and congestion can affect the experience of tourists, they are mentioned among the negative features of the destination. Yet, there is no comment suggesting that limits might have to be set to the growth of tourism. As already noted, one of the expert interviewees maintained that the tourists are not really interested in this issue, except inasmuch as it might lessen the quality of their own experience.
Conclusion The study analyses the TripAdvisor visitor reviews of a cultural-heritage destination in order to determine which attributes of sustainability are mentioned most, thereby obtaining an indication of their visibility and importance to tourists. According to the research, those aspects of sustainability that influence the experience of the tourists are the ones that their reviews focus on. These include the availability of local products, the respect shown to the culture and values of the local community, the quality of the environment, and the preservation of historical and cultural resources. Other comments, such as those concerning provision of services by the locals, are also mentioned, but then only in terms of increasing the quality of the experience, not really out of concern for the locals. There is a growing interest in tourism based on experiencing places and their landscapes – or experiencescapes, which have been found to be important factors in how tourists choose their destinations (O’Dell, 2005). Therefore, managers of destinations need to focus on how sustainability measures might impact the experience of their visitors and to promote sustainability initiatives with this in mind. In light of the results of this study, sustainability should be explained to travellers, focusing on the positive effects it can have on their experience. With social media and user-based review sites such as TripAdvisor including an increasing amount of information on the sustainability of tourism enterprises and destinations to help travellers select more responsible options, a better understanding of how sustainability attributes are perceived by tourists at heritage-tourism destinations becomes essential.
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Our research provides evidence on the extent to which comments concerning sustainability are included in tourists’ reviews of a destination, and this information can be used to design the sustainability evaluation systems which will surely appear on user-generated review websites in the near future. In this study, a conceptual model conceived from a demand-based perspective is created by examining tourists’ comments on TripAdvisor on Cusco as a heritage-tourism destination. The model proposed may guide future quantitative studies that aim to measure how visitors view the sustainability of a specific destination. The results obtained in our study are particular to heritage-tourism destinations. Thus, when other types of destinations are considered, different attributes not included in this research may need to be incorporated. In addition, the findings of the study are based mainly on the views of tourists from North America, who constitute the majority of the sample. In order to obtain more generalisable results, future studies might analyse comments made not only in English, but also in other languages. Given that sustainability initiatives may create a competitive advantage for destinations if they are communicated to visitors, further investigations should be undertaken on how to do that most effectively. This is surely a fruitful area for future research.
Acknowledgement The authors acknowledge the generous support given to this study by the Boğaziçi University Research Fund (Grant Number 9400).
References Buhalis, D. (2000). Marketing the Competitive Destination of the Future. Tourism Management, 21(1), 97-116. Butler, R. (1999). Sustainable Tourism: A state-of-the-art review. Tourism Geographies, 1(1), 7-25. Chhabra, D. (2009). Proposing a Sustainable Marketing Framework for Heritage Tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17(3), 303-320. Choi, H., & Sirakaya, E. (2006). Sustainability iIdicators for Managing Community Tourism. Tourism Management, 27, 1274-1289. Cohen, E. (1984). The Sociology of Tourism: Approaches, issues and findings. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 373-392.
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Cottrell, S., Duim, R. van der, Ankersmid, P., & Kelder, L. (2004). Measuring Sustainability of Tourism in Manuel Antonio and Texel: A tourist perspective. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 12(5), 409-431. Fonseca, F.P., & Ramos, R.A. (2012). Heritage Tourism in Peripheral Areas: Development Strategies and Constraints. Tourism Geographies: An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment, 14(3), 467-493. Fyall, A., & Garrod, B. (1998). Heritage Tourism: At what price? Managing Leisure, 3, 213-228. GSTC (2013). Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria for Destinations. Retrieved from The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria: http://www.gstcouncil.org/ sustainable-tourism-gstc-criteria/criteria-for-destinations.html, 15 September 2015. Hassan, S.S. (2000). Determinants of Market Competitiveness in an Environmentally Sustainable Tourism Industry. Journal of Travel Research, 38, 239-245. Kaminski, J., Benson, A.M., & Arnold, D. (2014). Introduction. In J. Kaminski, A.M. Benson, & D. Arnold, Contemporary Issues in Cultural Heritage Tourism (pp. 3-18). Oxon: Routledge. Ladkin, A., & Martinez Bertramini, A. (2002). Collaborative Tourism Planning: A case of Cusco, Peru. Current Issues in Tourism, 5(2), 71-93. Li, Y. (2003). Heritage Tourism: The contradictions between conservation and change. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 4(3), 247-261. Lozano-Oyola, M., Blancas, F., González, M., & Caballero, R. (2012). Sustainable Tourism Indicators as Planning Tools in Cultural Destinations. Ecological Indicators, 18, 659-675. McLean, F. (2002). Marketing the Museum. London: Routledge. Miller, G., & Twining-Ward, L. (2006). Monitoring as an Approach to Sustainabile Tourism. In D. Buhalis, & C. Costa, Tourism Management Dynamics: Trends, Management and Tools (pp. 51-57). Oxford: Elsevier. Ngamsomsuke, W., Hwang, T.-C., & Huang, C.-J. (2011). Sustainable Cultural Heritage Tourism Indicators. 2011 International Conference on Social Science and Humanity. Singapore. Retrieved from http://www.ipedr.com/vol5/no1/110H10064.pdf, 30 September 2014. Nicholas, L., & Thapa, B. (2010). Visitor Perspectives on Sustainable Tourism Development in the Pitons Management Area World Heritage Site, St. Lucia. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 12(5), 839-857. Nuryanti, W. (1996). Heritage and Postmodern Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 23, 249-260. O’Dell, T. (2005). Experiencescapes: Bluring borders and testing connections. In T. O’Dell, & P. Billing, Tourism, Culture and Economy (pp. 9-34). Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.
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Ritchie, J., & Crouch, G. (2003). The Competitive Destination: A Sustainable Tourism Perspective. Cambridge: CABI Publishing. Russo, A. (2001). The “Vicious Circle” of Tourism Development in Heritage Cities. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(1), 165-182. Russo, A., & Borg, J. van der (2002). Planning Considerations for Cultural Tourism: A case study of four European cities. Tourism Management, 23, 631-637. Salazar, N.B. (2010). The Glocalisation of Heritage through Tourism: Balancing standardisation and differentiation. In S. Labadi, & C. Long, Heritage and Globalisation (pp. 130-147). London: Routledge. Salazar, N.B., & Zhu, Y. (2015). Heritage and Tourism. In Global Heritage: A Reader (pp. 240-258). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Torres-Delgado, A., & Saarinen, J. (2014). Using Indicators to Assess Sustainable Tourism Development: A review. Tourism Geographies: An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment, 16(1), 31-47. Wehrli, R., Priskin, J., Demarmels, S., Kolber, S., Schaffner, D., Schwarz, J., Truniger, F., & Stettler, J. (2013). How to Communicate Sustainable Tourism Products Effectively to Customers. World Tourism Forum Lucerne 2013. Lucerne. Retrieved from http://www_itb-kongress.de/media/itbk/itbk_dl_all/itbk_dl_all_itbkongress/itbk_dl_all_itbkongress_itbkongress365/itbk_dl_all_itbkongress_itbkongress365_itblibrary/itbk_dl_all_itbkongress_itbkongress365_itblibrary_studien/, 30 September 2014. World Tourism Organization (2005). Guidebook on Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism destinations. Madrid: World Tourism Organization. Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of Social Media in Online Travel Information Search. Tourism Management, 31(2), 179-188.
About the authors Begüm Aydın is a graduate from the Sustainable Tourism Management Program at Boğaziçi University in Turkey. Her research interests include sustainable tourism and destination marketing. Maria D. Alvarez is Professor of Tourism Marketing at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. She has published widely in leading academic journals on the topics of destination marketing and tourist behaviour. She has also been involved in several internationally financed destination development projects.
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Localising National Tourism Websites The case of World Heritage sites Emanuele Mele, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch07 Abstract The internationalisation of tourism, supported by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), has asked for the “localisation” of destinations’ websites to meet information and accessibility needs of new inbound markets. The process of localisation describes the cultural adaptation of textual contents, videos, and images to meet the cultural needs and preferences of the reference audience, contributing this way to the elaboration of more effective communication strategies. Despite the importance of the web for promoting heritage sites and sustainable tourism behaviours, there is little research regarding the topic of localisation related to heritage destinations. The present article pursues both a methodological and a theoretical goal. First, it proposes a systematic method to examine cultural values online, when it comes to the promotion of UNESCO World Heritage sites (WHSs). Second, it argues about the relevance of the cultural dimensions elaborated by Hofstede and Hall for the case of heritage-tourism destinations. This exploratory study analysed how three National Tourism Organizations’ (NTOs) websites localised contents related to UNESCO WHSs for the US-American and Italian publics. Patterns of potential visitors were created to simulate credible uses of websites, which were examined on the base of a framework for analysis of cultural values (elaborated by Tigre Moura et al., 2014) and using the technique of user scenarios. Keywords: cultural values, eTourism, ICT, localisation, National Tourism Organizations, UNESCO World Heritage sites
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Introduction The internationalisation of tourism and the extensive number of prospective travellers browsing the web to inform their travel decision (Law, Buhalis, & Cobanoglu, 2014) has increased the relevance of localising destination websites (Mele, De Ascaniis, & Cantoni, 2016). Localisation can be defined as a set of processes aimed at “modifying products or services to account for differences in distinct markets” (LISA, 2007, p. 11). Once transferred into online communication, in addition to translation of textual content, localisation of websites includes activities such as the adaptation of videos and graphics to meet cultural needs and preferences of specific markets (Hsieh, 2015). Different kinds of variation include modifications of time and date formats, units of measure, and symbols, which are considered as instrumental for a smoother understanding of the pieces of information provided to the online visitor (Cantoni & Tardini, 2006). Localisation becomes even more important when it comes to online representation of heritage sites, which attract visitors with different preferences and motivations worldwide (Poria, Biran, & Reichel, 2009). Following this line of thought, researchers have proven the importance for heritage sites to be communicated and promoted on the web (Ardissono, Kuflik, & Petrelli, 2012), also as a way of supporting their sustainable development (Rivas, Gazizova, Marchiori, & Cantoni, 2013). However, little research has been done in terms of heritage interpretation online (Mitsche, Reino, Knox, & Bauernfeind, 2008) and how cultural values can be measured on tourism destinations’ websites (Tigre Moura, Gnoth, & Deans, 2014). This exploratory study aims at providing a framework for the measurement of cultural values on National Tourism Organizations’ (NTOs) websites, by examining the way UNESCO World Heritage sites are localised for the US-American and Italian publics.
Literature review Culture can be def ined as shared, learned, and discerning patterns of thinking, which build the way a group of people behave, feel, and think in a certain social environment (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). Individuals from a given culture follow cultural values as a set of normative standards, which direct their preferences for certain situations over others when experiencing sensations and feelings for what a person may define as, for example, safe or unsafe, moral or immoral, good or evil
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(Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997). Thus, these intangible aspects of a culture appear to guide behaviours, aims, and goals of people belonging to a given society and they can be used as a way of clarifying actions made in order to comply with societal necessities and requirements (Lord & Brown, 2001). Due to their independence from specific situations and contexts in everyday life, the examination of cultural values has allowed researchers to conceptualise cultural differences both at the national and organisational level (Smith, Peterson, & Schwartz, 2002). The investigation of cultural values has been mainly performed using frameworks related to cultural dimensions, and have been classified depending on the number of variables into the following models: single-dimension models, multiple models, and historical-social models. All of them regard culture as a measurable and quantifiable group of values, which are gathered by using structured questionnaires. The gathered data are statistically analysed and compared across countries in order to attribute cultural scores to certain cultural dimensions, which mirror their breadth and direction (Morden, 1999). Cultural models have been applied for a wide variety of cases ranging from product design (Razzaghi, Ramirez, & Zehner, 2009) and marketing (De Mooij & Hofstede, 2010) to e-commerce platforms (Singh, Park, & Kalliny, 2012) and multinational companies’ websites (Yalcin, Singh, Apil, & Sayfullin, 2011). Among the frameworks applied for the analysis of cultural values, Hofstede’s one has been appointed by researchers as the most consistent one (Tang & Koveos, 2008). Of course, his study is not immune from criticism that, for example, questions the relevance of the methodology, together with the supposition regarding the cultural sameness of nation’s populations (Jones, 2007). The framework elaborated by Hofstede is defined as a multiple-dimension model, composed by a factor analysis of 32 questions on values and perceptions across 40 countries. The model depicts culture as a set of four bipolar dimensions: Individualism and Collectivism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity and Femininity (Hofstede et al., 2010). Another research covering 23 countries contributed to the addition of another dimension that concentrates on the contrasting longterm and short-term perspectives on life and work: Confucian dynamism or Long-Term Orientation versus Short-Term Orientation (Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990). The world of the web does not appear to be exempt from the influence of cultural values in terms of preferences for website design and multimedia content (Singh, Zhao, & Hu, 2005). LISA (2007) defined the activities of cultural adaptation of a product or software as “localisation”, which can
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be broken down to a set of processes that aim at “modifying products or services to account for differences in distinct markets” (p. 11). Once transferred into online communication, in addition to translation of textual content, localisation of websites includes activities as adaptation of videos and graphics to meet cultural needs and preferences of specific markets (Tigre Moura et al., 2014). Different kinds of variation include modifications of time and date formats, units of measure, and symbols, which are considered as instrumental for a smoother understanding of the information provided to the online visitor (De Troyer & Casteleyn, 2004; Singh, Furrer, & Ostinelli, 2004; Al-Badi & Naqvi, 2009). Due to the relevance of measuring cultural values in online communication, Singh et al. (2005) elaborated a successuful model to support companies in their online localisation strategies for the Chinese market (Yalcin et al., 2011). The framework comprises Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, except for the Masculinity and Feminity dimension, and Hall’s bipolar dimensions of High-Context (HC) and Low-Context (LC) cultures (Hall, 1976). The same model has been used for a study of cultural values on tourism destination websites by Tigre Moura et al. (2014), who also omitted the dimension of Masculinity and Feminity for low reliability. Existing cultural studies on heritage sites and heritage-related tourism pursue a variety of goals, which vary from the importance of providing distinct interpretations according to the audience (Poria, Biran, & Reichel, 2009) to the importance of the web to develop and promote sustainability for heritage-related tourism (Rivas et al., 2013). However, little research has been done on the way heritage sites are adapted and communicated online for different audiences (Mitsche et al., 2008). Moreover, there is the need for an analytic method to measure the representation of cultural dimensions, which accounts for the flexibility and nonlinearity of tourism websites’ architecture (Mele et al., 2016). Thus, this research examines the localisation of online content related to UNESCO WHSs on destination websites, pursuing the goal of proposing an analytic method to analyse and measure how cultural values are represented.
Research design The research analyses the representation of cultural values on UNESCO WHS-related webpages on NTOs’ websites and the way WHSs are communicated and adapted for distinct audiences. This investigation aims at (i) adapting the framework proposed by Tigre Moura et al. (2014) (see Table 1)
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to the objects of the study; and (ii) testing it while collecting data through the operationalisation of the cultural categories. The US-American and the Italian editions of three NTOs’ websites are analysed: Austrian National Tourist Office, Innovation Norway, and Polish Tourist Organization. These three websites are chosen above others, because of their great efforts in diversifying the multimedia content of the US-American edition from the Italian edition. To serve the scope of the study, four cultural dimensions are taken into account: Individualism and Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, and High Context and Low Context. Five hypotheses are generated by employing the current literature on culture and tourism, together with studies carried out by Hofstede et al. (2010) and Hall (1976). The Individualism (IND) and Collectivism (COL) dimension is described as the extent to which people integrate into groups. Individualist cultures prioritise personal achievements, self-reliance, and independence (Hofstede et al., 2010). From a tourism perspective, these values lead toward the preference for uniqueness and personalisation of the travel experience (Wien & Olsen, 2014). At the opposite pole of the category, collectivist cultures privilege community relations and family experiences (Hofstede et al., 2010). According to the cultural scores from Hofstede et al. (2010), the US is described as being one of the countries with the highest IND levels (cultural score of 91 out of 100). Italy is characterised by being a fairly individualist country (cultural score of 76 out of 100), with collectivist influences from the southern part of the nation (Hofstede et al., 1990; Hofstede et al., 2010). On this base, the first hypothesis can be formulated as follows: Hypothesis 1: The UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the US-American edition of the NTO’s website show higher Individualism levels than the UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the Italian edition of the NTO’s website.
The Power Distance (PD) dimension is described as the extent to which people support differences in the distribution of power within society. Countries with high PD are characterised by an understanding of such inequalities (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). People belonging to High Power Distance cultures value social status as part of the travel experience (Nath, Devlin, & Reid, 2016) and they are supposed to be attracted by the relation that an attraction may have had with past or present celebrities. While the US show low PD levels (cultural score of 40 out of 100), Italy is outlined by an
136 Emanuele Mele, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni
acceptance for discrepancies in distribution of power (cultural score of 50 out of 100) (Hofstede et al., 2010). Consequently, the second hypothesis can be formulated as follows: Hypothesis 2: The UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the US-American edition of the NTO’s website present lower Power Distance levels than the UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the Italian edition of the NTO’s website.
The Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) dimension measures the extent to which people accept unclear and vague situations during their life. A society with a high score of UA is characterised by aversion toward uncertainty and the strong willingness to avoid it at any cost (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). While the US is characterised by low UA (cultural score of 46 out of 100), Italy scores high on this dimension with a cultural score of 75 out of 100 (Hofstede et al., 2010). Therefore, the study hypothesises as follows: Hypothesis 3: The UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the US-American edition of the NTO’s website show lower Uncertainty Avoidance levels than the UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the Italian edition of the NTO’s website.
The High-Context (HC) and Low-Context (LC) dimensions express the extent to which people depend on the context and code of communication. Individuals belonging to HC cultures tend to communicate in an indirect way, relying on the existing trust and relation with the interlocutor (Battaglia, 2013). Consequently, it is expected that a localised communication for this audience privileges aesthetics, feelings, and entertainment of the experience, aiming at building trust with the potential visitors (Men & Tsai, 2012). LC cultures are characterised by a strong preference for a direct way of communication, where all verbal messages are clear and brief. From a tourism perspective, online promotion is supposed to focus on the advantages that can be retrieved from suggested service providers at the destination, persuading visitors on what is best for allocating time and money once at the destination (Men & Tsai, 2012). While the US are described as a LC country, Italy is outlined by HC culture (Hall, 1976). The fourth and fifth hypotheses can, thus, be expressed as follows: Hypothesis 4: The UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the US-American edition of the NTO’s website show less signs of High-Context communication than the UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the Italian edition of the NTO’s website.
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Hypothesis 5: The UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the US-American edition of the NTO’s website show more signs of Low-Context communication than the UNESCO WHS-related webpages of the Italian edition of the NTO’s website.
Methodology The analysis of cultural values and localisation practices on UNESCO WHS-related webpages of NTOs’ websites was performed by combining in a pioneering way 1) user scenarios (i.e. realistic stories of the use of an application); and 2) content analysis. A user scenario is composed of a user profile, user goals (i.e. the expected outcome), and the activities required to reach such goals (Cantoni, Di Blas, & Bolchini, 2003). These characteristics (together with the content analysis) allowed the coder to retrieve cultural values from a defined number of webpages, by simulating the navigational pattern of a potential tourist planning for holidays (instead of exploring the whole website). Hence, the methodology attempted to provide the researcher with an overview on the way cultural values were represented to the potential user(s), while browsing the website. Following this concept, three user scenarios (whose goals were identical for both US-American and Italian websites’ editions), with a mean of 3.5 tasks each, were elaborated in order to simulate a realistic navigational pattern of online visitors from the US-American and Italianspeaking geographical markets seeking information about UNESCO WHSs on European NTOs’ websites. As regards to the website of Austrian National Tourist Office the goals of the user scenarios were as follows: – Retrieve general information about the UNESCO WHSs in Austria; – Retrieve information about the UNESCO WHSs in Vienna; – Retrieve information about the UNESCO WHS Baroque city centre of Salzburg. For the website of Innovation Norway, the goals of the user scenarios were as follows: – Retrieve information regarding the UNESCO WHS Røros; – Retrieve information regarding the UNESCO WHS Geirangerfjord. For the website of Polish Tourist Organisation, the goals of the user scenarios were as follows:
138 Emanuele Mele, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni
– Retrieve information regarding the UNESCO WHS Cracow’ historic centre; – Retrieve information regarding the UNESCO WHS Toruń’s historic centre; – Retrieve information regarding the UNESCO WHS Old Town of Zamość. As regards to the content analysis, while executing the user scenario, the cultural values on each visited page were analysed following a framework borrowed from Tigre Moura et al. (2014) (see Table 7.1). Such framework was adapted from the one elaborated by Singh et al. (2005) to measure the localisation of cultural values on US-American companies’ websites adapted for the Chinese market. Table 7.1 Proposed adaptation (written in italics) of the cultural framework by Tigre Moura et al. (2014) for the evaluation of cultural values on tourism destination websites Cultural Dimension
Collectivism
Cultural Categories
Operationalization
Community relations
Presence of sustainable tourism activities, activities relating to involvement of the local community; an emphasis on social responsibility Presence of member’s clubs, chat with destination agents, chat with interest groups, message boards, discussion groups and live talks, social network sites Pictures of families, pictures of teams of employees, groups of tourists, emphasis on team and group activities and tourists as a family Online subscriptions, magazines, and newsletters
Clubs or chat rooms Family theme
Newsletter Independence theme Uniqueness of the destination Individualism Personalization
Images and themes depicting self-reliance, selfcognition, achievement, isolation and self-fulfillment Emphasis on the unique features and differentiating aspects of the destination Features such as attractions recommendations and accommodation experience recommendations, individual acknowledgements or greetings from the destination, travel planners, tour operators, web page personalization, and customized travel packages
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Operationalization
Destination hierarchy info
Power Distance
Information about destination managers, politicians, local government or administration and hierarchy of the tourism sectors Pictures of Pictures of important people related to the destination celebrities and titles of the people in the contact information Proper titles Titles of the important people related to the destination and titles of the people in the contact information Vision statement Statement about the destination from destination managers or people who represent power in the society Customer service Tradition theme
Local services Uncertainty Avoidance Visualization of the place Local terminology Aesthetics
High Context
Feelings and emotions Politeness and indirectness
Soft sell approach
FAQs, tourist service, tourist contact, tourist service emails and toll free numbers available 24 hours Emphasis on history, emphasis on respect, veneration of elderly and the culture, and phrases like “most respected destination”, “keeping the tradition alive”, “for generations”, etc. Contact information for local tourism-related companies such as hotels, travel agencies, tour operators, restaurants, and others; also contact information for personal safety services, such as police and hospitals Maps of the destination and reference to geographical localization, virtual tours, live webcams, weather charts, etc. Use of country-specific metaphors, name of festivals, puns, a general local touch in the vocabulary of the web page Attention to aesthetic details such as: currency, textual correctness, plug-ins and links, redundancy, and responsive webpage Pictures and themes reflecting love and harmony appeal Greetings from the destination, images and pictures reflecting politeness, and use of indirect expressions like “perhaps”, “probably”, and “somewhat”; overall humbleness of in the destination philosophy and information Use of affective and subjective impression of intangible aspects of a product or service and more entertainment theme to promote the destination
140 Emanuele Mele, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni Cultural Dimension
Low Context
Cultural Categories
Operationalization
Hard sell
Discounts, promotions, coupons, and emphasis on products and services advantages using explicit or implicit comparison Features like destination’s rank in the country, listings, and numbers or text showing the growth and importance of the destination Use of superlative words and sentences: like “we are the number one”, “the most visited destination”, “the leader”, and “world’s most famous”
Rank or prestige of the destination Use of superlatives
After a review of the literature on the topic of culture and tourism, and a preliminary analysis of the objects of study, changes were done to the framework. Such adaptations included (i) the addition of a new cultural category (i.e. Feelings and emotions) within High Context dimension; and (ii) a refinement of the operationalisation for the collection of cultural values (see Table 7.1). The confirmed cultural dimensions were also supported by the literature on the topic of tourism and cultures (see Table 7.2). Table 7.2 Explanation for cultural categories Collectivism*
–– Community relations; and family theme: these categories are supported by the studies from Hofstede’s et al. (2010). Collectivist societies are characterized by strong in-groups bounds toward both family and community. –– Clubs or chat rooms; and newsletter: These categories express the preference that collectivist individuals have toward social interaction and creation of trust as the base for any relation (Xu-Priour, Truong, & Klink, 2014). Individualism
–– Independence theme: these categories are supported by the studies from Hofstede’s et al. (2010). The independence theme is meant to reflect the self-reliance and autonomy that are prized within individualist societies (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). –– Uniqueness of the destination; and Personalization: these categories are meant to reflect the interest that individualist cultures have for uniqueness and personalization (Wien & Olsen, 2014). Hence, individuals will privilege attractions that highlight the possibility of exceptional and personalized experiences. Power Distance
–– Destination hierarchy info; Proper titles; and Vision statement: these categories are meant to reflect the respect for power hierarchies Individuals in high Power Distance countries, together with information provided by authorities (Kang & Mastin, 2008).
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–– Pictures of celebrities: this category is meant to reflect the value that High Power Distance cultures assign to the travel experience as an enhancement of their social status (Nath, Devlin, & Reid, 2016). Hence, the presence of past or present celebrities (e.g. artists) increases, by extension, the halo of prestige of those tourists who go visit the destination. Uncertainty Avoidance
–– Customer service; Local services; Local terminology; and Visualization of the place: these categories are supported by Hofstede’s et al. (2010) studies. Indeed, societies with high Uncertainty Avoidance tend to feel anxious and uncomfortable with new situations (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). Hence, offering these services online (including the availability of the local terms) helps them familiarizing with the destination before getting there. –– Tradition theme: this category expresses the value that uncertainty avoidant societies have for tradition, as a sign of commitment and quality (Calabrese, Capece, & Di Pillo, 2014). A destination’s website that promotes a long tradition in service and hospitality sector is supposed to decrease the anxiety related to the failure of the tourism experience. High Context
–– Aesthetics: This category is present in Tigre Moura’s et al. (2014) framework and it is meant to reflect the importance that High Context societies have for the form of the message (along with its content) in communication acts (Hall, 1976). The operationalization of this category (which differs from the one used by Moura et al. (2014)) aims at capturing the attention that High Context individuals pay to the appearance of the website, avoidance of redundancies, and textual correctness. –– Feelings and emotions; Politeness and indirectness; and Soft sell approach: While the second and third categories are already present in Tigre Moura’s et al. (2014) framework, the first one is added to emphasize the value that High Context cultures have for building a relationship with customers, underlining the educational and entertaining parts of services and products (Men & Tsai, 2012). Low Context
–– Hard sell; and Use of superlatives: these categories reflect the importance that Low Context cultures pay to direct communication (and persuasion) of benefits and advantages of what they are buying (Men & Tsai, 2012). –– Rank or prestige of the destination: this category is meant to address the preference of Low Context individuals for being persuaded of the quality of the product or service they are about to purchase (Patel, Vila-López, & Kuster-Boluda, 2013). Hence, from tourism viewpoint, it is proposed that online communication highlights the international prestige of the destination to make it more appealing for the audience. * The categories within this cultural dimension are present in Tigre Moura’s et al. (2014) framework for the evaluation of cultural values on tourism destination websites.
One coder with an Italian cultural background carried out all user scenarios and the collection of cultural values. Furthermore, while the evaluation used by Tigre Moura et al. (2014) included the value “not depicted”, the present study classified each element that would belong to one of the Cultural
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Categories along a 5-point Likert scale from “scarcely depicted” to “prominently depicted”. Those Cultural Categories with no associated values were classified as “not found” (N.F.) and they were omitted from the overall mean. The decision was dictated by the fact that the analytical method used took into account only the UNESCO WHS-related pages of the tourism websites and, consequently, it would have been inappropriate to label an element as “not depicted” (when instead it could have been shown in one or more pages that were not taken into consideration). For this reason, the operationalisation of certain cultural categories registers the presence of multimedia contents and not their absence on the analysed webpages (see Table 1). For the measurement of cultural values retrieved from multimedia contents, the research used the criterion of repetition, already employed by Tigre Moura et al. (2014), and added a second and a third criterion called “relative size” and “positionality prominence” respectively. The criteria were elaborated as follows: – Relative size: The relative dimension of a text box, picture or video when compared to the relative dimension of those elements that belong to the same multimedia content categories. Thus, the text boxes present on the websites were classified according to their relative size from the biggest to the smallest ones and then measured against a 5-point Likert scale. The same process was then applied for images and videos, which were regarded as being part of the same multimedia content category. – Repetition: A numerical value was assigned every time an element belonging to a specific Cultural Category would appear. After that, the values were summed up and assessed against a 5-point Likert scale. – Positionality Prominence: This criterion came from the assumption that the more a specific element was presented in the upper part of the webpage, the more importance it was regarded to have in order to reach the website’s communication purposes. Webpages were divided horizontally in five geometrically equal areas and decreasing grades were assigned from a 5-point Likert scale to the elements present in each area from the top (classified with the highest grade “5”) to the bottom of the page (classified with the lowest grade “1”). The multimedia content that was found between two areas would get the grade of the first upper area to which it belonged.
Results For measuring the depiction of cultural values on UNESCO WHS-related webpages for the US-American edition and Italian edition of the sampled
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destination websites, two realistic stories were elaborated for each destination website. The goals of the user scenarios were all feasible and were kept identical for both the US-American and the Italian-speaking geographical markets. This decision was made in order to avoid affecting the comparability and the validity of the results within each website. This analytic method served as a structured way of finding and reporting all contents that would belong to any of the categories that were part of the Cultural Dimensions analysed. In addition to that, the exploratory analysis of the websites tested the suitability of the framework for the measurement of cultural values (see Table 1). In the grid of the results (see Table 3), the countries representing the European NTOs were abbreviated in the following way: Austria “AT”, Poland “PL”, and Norway “NO”. The US-American edition was abbreviated as “usa” and the Italian edition as “it”. Results showed that the UNESCO WHS-related pages of the US-American edition on Polish Tourism Organisation’s website scored lower in IND than the respective Italian edition. The UNESCO WHS-related pages of the US-American edition on Innovation Norway’s website scored higher than the Italian counterpart. Whereas, the UNESCO WHS-related pages of the US-American and Italian editions of Austrian National Tourist Office’s website did not present any relevant difference (see Table 3). Therefore, hypothesis 1 was not confirmed. The UNESCO WHS-related pages of the US-American editions of the three sampled websites scored lower in PD than the respective UNESCO WHSrelated pages on the Italian editions (see Table 3). Therefore, hypothesis 2 was confirmed. For instance, the webpage for the Old Town complex of the city of Zamość (Poland) presented a detailed description of the local political power during the sixteenth century to the Italian audience. In addition to this, there are continuous references to Italy and its architectural style. The narrative is enriched by several pictures that show buildings that followed the model of commercial Italian cities (Ufficio Turistico Polacco, 2016). References to the local power and rulers are not present on the US-American webpage, which presents a brief description of the city being part of the UNESCO WHS list (Polish National Tourist Office North America, 2016). The UNESCO WHS-related pages on the US-American editions of the three sampled websites scored lower in UA than the respective UNESCO WHS-related pages on the Italian editions (see Table 3). Therefore, hypothesis 3 was confirmed. For instance, the webpage for the city of Salzburg (Austria) focuses on its geographical context and means of transportation for the Italian audience. Whereas the US-American edition highlights more attractions and events at the destination (Austrian National Tourism Office, 2016).
144 Emanuele Mele, Silvia De Ascaniis and Lorenzo Cantoni Figure 7.1-7.2 An example of localisation of images
(Left figure) “Cracow” retrieved 29 April 2016 from www.poland.travel/en-us/cities/krakow-thepolish-treasure (Right figure) “Cracovia” retrieved 29 April 2016 from www.polonia.travel/it/citta/cracovia
The UNESCO WHS-related pages on the US-American editions of the three sampled websites scored lower in HC than the respective UNESCO WHS-related pages on the Italian editions (see Table 3). Therefore, hypothesis 4 was confirmed. For instance, the webpage for the Old City of Cracow (Poland) shows a dream-like picture for the Italian audience, depicting a couple going out at night on royal carriage (see figure 5.1). Such a romantic atmosphere (which is meant to appeal to emotions and feelings) is present at a lower degree on the US-American edition (see figure 7.2). The UNESCO WHS-related pages on the US-American editions of Austrian National Tourist Office and Innovation Norway scored lower in LC than the respective Italian editions. Whereas the UNESCO WHSrelated pages on the US-American and Italian editions of Polish Tourist Organisation did not present any relevant difference (see Table 3). Therefore, hypothesis 5 was not confirmed. Table 7.3 Means of cultural dimensions and cultural categories Cultural Dimensions
COL
Representation on Website
Mean AT_usa
Mean AT_it
Mean PL_usa
Mean PL_it
Mean NO_usa
Community relations
2.82
Clubs or chat rooms
2.30
Family theme Newsletter
Mean NO_it
2.86
N.F.
3.67
3.80
3.97
1.90
3.00
3.12
2.33
2.55
3.57
2.64
2.44
3.22
3.71
3.80
2.16
2.92
2.49
2.48
2.14
2.02
2.72
2.58
2.65
3.12
3.00
3.08
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IND
Representation on Website
Mean AT_usa
Mean AT_it
Mean PL_usa
Mean PL_it
Mean NO_usa
Mean NO_it
Independence theme
2.95
2.70
3.32
3.26
3.93
3.88
Uniqueness of the destination
3.75
3.62
3.42
3.44
3.39
3.39
Personalization
3.38
3.80
3.35
4.06
3.69
3.56
3.36
3.37
3.36
3.59
3.67
3.61
2.29
N.F.
2.75
2.86
1.56
1.92
Pictures of celebrities
N.F.
2.58
N.F.
3.08
1.81
N.F.
Proper titles
1.98
2.75
2.92
3.18
1.64
2.17
Destination hierarchy info
PD
Vision statement
UA
N.F.
N.F.
N.F.
N.F.
2.83
3.04
1.67
2.04
Customer service
2.85
2.72
3.02
3.16
1.78
2.01
3.19
3.55
3.19
3.70
2.20
2.31
Local services
2.59
3.33
3.16
3.46
3.70
3.77
Visualization of the place
2.69
3.42
3.34
3.18
3.39
3.82
2.25
2.92
2.44
3.10
2.87
2.76
2.71
3.19
3.03
3.32
2.79
2.94
Aesthetics
4.00
3.00
2.00
2.00
3.00
5.00
Feelings and emotions
2.62
3.22
3.67
3.67
2.57
2.80
Politeness and indirectness
1.89
2.45
N.F.
N.F.
N.F.
3.19
Soft sell approach
LC
N.F. 2.67
Tradition theme
Local terminology
HC
N.F. 2.14
3.03
3.69
3.06
3.47
2.97
3.00
2.89
3.09
2.91
3.05
2.85
3.50
Hard sell
2.21
2.58
N.F.
N.F.
3.07
2.70
Rank or prestige of the destination
1.90
2.70
3.14
N.F.
1.56
2.31
Use of superlatives
2.61
3.28
2.82
3.00
2.36
2.13
2.24
2.85
2.98
3.00
2.33
2.38
Conclusions, limitations, and further work This exploratory research elaborated and tested a methodology for the measurement of cultural values on tourism destinations’ websites. For the relevance of ICT in the field of cultural sustainability, the study investigated the way WHSs are communicated by three European NTO’s websites to the US-American and Italian audiences: Austrian National Tourist Office, Polish Tourist Organisation, and Innovation Norway. The methodology combined user-scenarios execution and content analysis in an innovative
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way, following the cultural dimensions of Hofstede et al. (2010), and Hall (1976). The framework for the measurement of cultural values was borrowed from a previous study by Tigre Moura et al. (2014). After a review of the literature on the topic of culture and tourism, and a preliminary analysis of the objects of study, changes were made to the framework. These adaptations included (i) the addition of a new cultural category (i.e. Feelings and emotions) within the High Context dimension; and (ii) a refinement of the operationalisation for the collection of cultural values (see Table 1). As a second step, the framework was tested by analysing the US-American and Italian editions of the above-mentioned European NTOs. Following the cultural scores assigned by Hofstede et al. (2010) and Hall’s (1976) studies, five hypotheses were elaborated (see 3. Research Design). The examination of localisation confirmed three of them, showing that cultural values on WHS-related webpages for the two reference audiences would differ according to their national cultures for: Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and High Context dimensions. Hence, the research underlined the fact that great attention was given by content managers to adapting the multimedia content related to UNESCO WHSs in order to reach the US-American and Italian-speaking geographical markets in a more efficient and effective way. For its exploratory nature, the present study presented several limitations. The first one regards the size of the sampled websites, which needs to be increased for a future research to apply statistical rules for validation or rejection of the findings. The second important limitation is the presence of only one coder from Italy performing the analysis of cultural values. Indeed, this may have introduced biases that can be surpassed in the future with the integration of a second coder with a different cultural background. The third limitation consists of the full reliance of the study on the cultural dimensions elaborated by Hofstede et al. (2010) and Hall (1976). Indeed, researchers pointed out the limits of Hofstede’s theories and the reliability of the cultural scores for entire nations (Jones, 2007). Finally, the framework testing pointed out the need to improve certain cultural dimensions. For instance, the presence of chat rooms and newsletters is no longer a distinctive element that characterises different cultures. The same applies for vision statements, which have been replaced by a more narrative communication style.
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References Al-Badi, A., & Naqvi, S. (2009). A Conceptual Framework for Designing Localization Business Websites. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 113-120. Ardissono, L., Kuflik, T., & Petrelli, D. (2012). Personalization in cultural heritage: The road travelled and the one ahead. User Model User-Adap Inter, 22, 73-99. Austrian National Tourism Office (2016). Salisburgo. Retrieved from austria.info: http://www.austria.info/it/destinazioni/citta/salisburgo, 29 April 2016. Austrian National Tourism Office (2016). Salzburg. Retrieved from austria.info: http://www.austria.info/us/where-to-go/cities/salzburg, 29 April 2016. Battaglia, S. (2013). Dettagli di Stile: La Comunicazione Nel Business In Un’Ottica Interculturale. Annals of the University of Craiova. Series Philology. Linguistics(1-2), 20-28. Cantoni, L., & Tardini, S. (2006). Internet. New York: Routledge. Cantoni, L., Di Blas, N., & Bolchini, D. (2003). Comunicazione, qualità, usabilità. Milano: APOGEO. De Mooij, M., & Hofstede, G. (2010). The Hofstede Model: Applications to global branding and advertising strategy and research. International Journal of Advertising, 85-110. De Troyer, O., & Casteleyn, S. (2004). Designing Localized Web Sites. 5th International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering (WISE2004) (pp. 547558). Brussel: Springer. Hall, E.T. (1976). Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books. Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G.J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. Revised and expanded 3rd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill USA. Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D.D., & Sanders, G. (1990). Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study across Twenty Cases. Administrative Science Quarterly, 286-316. Hsieh, L.C. (2015). Probing the Effects of Culture on the Communication of Websites Design. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 16(6), 606-630. Jones, M.L. (2007). Hofstede – Culturally questionable? Oxford Business & Economics Conference (pp. 1-9). Oxford. Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). Progress on Information and Communication Technologies in Hospitality and Tourism. Information and Communication Technologies in Hospitality and Tourism, 727-750. LISA (2007). The Localization Industry Primer. An introduction to preparing your business and products for success in international markets. Romainmôtier: Localization Industry Standards Association.
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Lord, G.R., & Brown, J.D. (2001). Leadership, Values, and Subordinate Self-concepts. The Leadership Quarterly, 133-152. Mele, E., De Ascaniis, S., & Cantoni, L. (2016). Localization of Three European National Tourism Offices’ Websites. An Exploratory Analysis. Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism (pp. 295-307). Bilbao: Springer. Men, R.L., & Tsai, S.W.-H. (2012). How Companies Cultivate Relationships with Publics on Social Network Sites: Evidence from China and the United States. Public Relations Review, 38, 723-730. Mitsche, N., Reino, S., Knox, D., & Bauernfeind, U. (2008). Enhancing Cultural Tourism e-Services through Heritage Interpretation. Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2008 (pp. 418-429). Innsbruck: Springer Vienna. Morden, T. (1999). Model of National Culture – A Management Review. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 19-44. Nath, P., Devlin, J., & Reid, V. (2016). Expectation Formation in Case of Newer Hotels. The Role of Advertising, Price, and Culture. Journal of Travel Research, 55(2), 261-275. Polish National Tourist Off ice North America (2016). Zamosc – Jewel of Polish Renaissance. Retrieved from poland.travel: http://www.poland.travel/en-us/ unesco-sites/zamosc-jewel-of-polish-renaissance, 29 April 2016. Poria, Y., Biran, A., & Reichel, A. (2009). Visitors’ Preferences for Interpretation at Heritage Sites. Journal of Travel Research, 48(1), 92-105. Razzaghi, M., Ramirez, M., & Zehner, R. (2009). Cultural Patterns in Product Design Ideas: Comparisons between Australian and Iranian student concepts. Design Studies, 438-461. Rivas, B.A., Gazizova, E., Marchiori, E., & Cantoni, L. (2013). Latin America and the Caribbean. The Online Presence of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Lugano: webatelier.net. Singh, N., Furrer, O., & Ostinelli, M. (2004). To Localize or to Standardize on the Web: Empirical Evidence from Italy, India, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. The Multinational Business Review , 12(1), 69-87. Singh, N., Park, J., & Kalliny, M. (2012). A Framework to Localize International Business to Business Web Sites. The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 44(1), 56-77. Singh, N., Zhao, H., & Hu, X. (2005). Cultural Adaptation on the Web: A Study of American Companies’ Domestic and Chinese Websites. In M. G. Hunter, & F. B. Tan, Advanced Topics in Global Information Management (Vol. 4, pp. 203-220). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Smith, B. P., Peterson, F. M., & Schwartz, H. S. (2002). Cultural Vales, Sources of Guidance, and their Relevance to Managerial Behavior. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(2), 188-208.
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Tang, L., & Koveos, E. P. (2008). A Framework to Update Hofstede’s Cultural Value Indices: Economic dynamics and institutinal stability. Journal of International Business Studies, 1045-1063. Tigre Moura, F., Gnoth, J., & Deans, K. R. (2014). Localizing Cultural Values on Tourism Destination Websites: The Effects on Users’ Willingness to Travel and Destination Image. Journal of Travel Research, 54(4), 1-15. Trompenaars, F., & Hampden-Turner, C. (1997). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Uff icio Turistico Polacco. (2016). Zamość, la perla del Rinascimento. Retrieved from polonia.travel: http://www.polonia.travel/it/unesco/zamosc-la-perla-delrinascimento, 29 April 2016. Wien, H.A., & Olsen, O.S. (2014). Understanding the Relationship between Individualism and Word of Mouth: A Self-Enhancement Explanation. Psychology & Marketing, 31(6), 416-425. Yalcin, S., Singh, N. D., Apil, R. A., & Sayfullin, S. (2011). Culture and Localization on the Web: Evidence from Multinationals in Russia and Turkey. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 12(1), 94-114.
About the authors Emanuele Mele is a PhD student in Communication Sciences at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano (CH). He conducts research on cultural localisation and the use of information and communication technologies for tourism communication. Silvia De Ascaniis is a postdoctoral researcher in Communication Sciences at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano (CH). She conducts research on the role of information and communication technologies in cultural and heritage tourism. Lorenzo Cantoni is Professor in Communication Sciences at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano (CH). His research ranges from new media for communication and usability to eLearning, eTourism, and eGovernment. He is also President of IFITT – International Federation for IT, Travel and Tourism.
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Enhancing the Tourist Heritage Experiencethrough “In-Situ”, Customisable, 3D-Printed Souvenirs Constantia Anastasiadou, Samantha Vettese Forster and Lynsey Calder
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch08 Abstract This research set out to investigate whether technological innovations in design and the personalisation of tourist souvenirs through 3D printing could offer opportunities to break away from stereotypically throwaway, low-quality, mass-manufactured products that souvenir consumption is often associated with. The study was undertaken within a historic environment in Stirling, Scotland, producing 3D-printed souvenirs insitu and inviting visitors to comment on the finished item. The chapter discusses the perceptions of the visitors of the souvenirs in terms of quality and value and concludes by reflecting on the implications of the findings for heritage attractions in terms of sustainability, authenticity, intellectual property rights, engagement with technology, and areas for future research. Keywords: souvenir personalisation, authenticity, 3d printing, visitor attraction
In most contemporary museums and galleries “gift shops” offer as “souvenirs” products that reflect and represent their collections or artefacts (Swanson & Timothy, 2012). The purchase of souvenirs can transform an intangible experience into a tangible, lasting memory of the visitor’s engagement with these spaces and objects (Collins-Kreiner & Zins, 2011). However, the mass-market production of these souvenirs may, in fact, detach the visitor
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from the actual heritage experience due to their unsustainable, globalised manufacture, disposability, and confused styling (Errington, 1998). Gift shops have at times been described as “inauthentic” and “homogenised” (Boorstin, 1961), “commodified products”, “imitations”, “deceptions” (Greenwood, 1997), “staged” (MacCannell, 1973), “socially constructed interpretation of the genuineness of observable things”, or “mass standardisations oriented towards the export market” (MacCannell, 1989). Technological innovation has altered the consumption of tourism products and experiences (Andersson, 2007; Gretzel, Fesenmaier, Formica, & O’Leary, 2006) allowing for the creation of tourist experiences that are memorable and compelling (Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin, 2012; Pine & Gilmore, 1999), sensuous (Crouch & Desforges, 2003) and creative (Richards & Wilson, 2006). Aided by these developments a creative group has emerged among tourists of “empowered consumers [who] actively participate in (re) constructing their everyday experiences at home and in the world” (Gretzel & Jamal, 2009) and who seek individualised experiences of the spaces they visit in order to increase their knowledge and promote self-development. In this way co-creative experiences are produced that are unique to each visitor and more meaningful than externally staged and scripted tourist experiences. The development of 3D-printing technologies, which expand the spaces where experiential co-creation may take place, further supports the trend towards individualisation. 3D printing offers a particular kind of interactive, creative process, where accessible digital fabrication and small-scale production is possible in ways that have not been achievable with other manufacturing technologies. Personalisation through 3D printing can transform tourists “from passive recipients to connected ‘prosumers’, co-creating their experiences in a technology enabled destination environment” (Andersson, 2007; Gretzel et al., 2006; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). Learning about, understanding, and “feeling” visited sites and the culture embedded in them shapes the heritage experience. Where visitors were previously limited to gazing (Urry, 1990), the personalisation of souvenirs can transform their consumption of heritage and its cultural narratives from a passive to an interactive and performative experience. Customisable souvenirs enhance and extend the mediated gaze by allowing for greater flexibility and creativity on the part of the visitors. In this way it is possible to escape the serial reproduction of culture (Richards & Wilson, 2006) through creative processes that engage visitors in the creation of meaning and to (re)frame the connections between visitors, the places they visit, and their consumption of souvenirs.
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The current project examined, first, whether the attributes of 3D printing, which allow an element of direct personalisation in the making of souvenir artefacts, are more successful in creating memories of place and experience that feel authentic to the visitor and, second, whether visitors can become more engaged with a site by participating in a creative process. The research team undertook a pilot study, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in collaboration with Historic Scotland, at Stirling Castle in July 2014, producing 3D-printed souvenirs in situ. The researchers then used structured interviews and ethnographic observations to capture the public’s reaction to having the artefacts and souvenirs printed out for them as part of their tourist “visiting” and “souvenir-buying” experience, as well as to gauge their interest in personalisation. The different motivations for purchasing and different ways of consuming souvenirs also became apparent. This research has implications for tourism and the heritage sector, it explores alternative ways to consider and manufacture souvenirs and investigates co-creation and experiential interactivity involving digital making. Moreover, it conjectures that the visitor’s emotional engagement in the production of the souvenirs makes them feel more attached to these personalised objects they have created than the usual, shop-bought souvenirs. Finally, the intersections between ideas regarding the authenticity of an experience, the emotional connection achieved through personalisation, and the changes that advances made possible by 3D printing and other digital technologies may bring, have both practical and theoretical significance.
Literature review This research is part of an effort to understand how the new digital technologies offered by 3D printing may influence the engagement and behaviours of visitors, both individually and as part of a societal movement. The researchers have therefore framed their investigation in terms of theories of “technological determinism”, which asserted that “technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity” (Beard, 1927, p. 1). Technology determines social change (Bimber, 1990, p. 340), changing “the way people think and […] interact with others” (Williams, 1974, p. 133). The main questions that have been asked during this study, which stem directly from the theory of technological determinism, are 1) whether the technological innovations in processes and outputs investigated here determine a specific cultural response; 2)
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whether 3D-printing technology has a built-in “ideology”; and 3) what affect 3D-printing technology has on “culture”. Insofar as this technology has “ideology built in”, it may be consonant with the relatively new “maker culture” with its emphasis on learning-throughdoing and on informal, networked, peer-led, and shared learning. Networked technologies often mediate community interaction and knowledge sharing; websites and social media tools form the basis of knowledge repositories and act as channels for information sharing and exchange of ideas, focused through social meetings in shared spaces such as hackspaces. Maker culture is seen as having the potential to contribute to a more participatory approach and to create new pathways into topics that will make them more attractive and relevant to learners (Beetham & Sharpe, 2007). This way of using a digital tool for making objects in a heritage and tourism context and, more specifically, the relationship between the 3D-printed souvenir and the owner when the object is brought home and used or displayed, embed the “ideology” of the technology in the processes and the artefacts. Technology is a crucial agent of change with a decisive role in history that can alter the “very texture of everyday life” (Marx & Smith, 1994). In contrast to other, intangible ways of measuring “cultural responses”, the tangibility of mechanical devices and the “material artefacts” of technology allow for a “sense of causal efficacy made visible” and a clear before and after narrative. The consequences of technical progress can be far-reaching, cumulative, and often irreversible (Marx & Smith, 1994). In this study, the 3D printer and the way it allows public interaction and a level of personalisation is analysed as technology that can change behaviours, ways of engaging and learning, and attitudes to self-expression through digital making. Technological innovation has facilitated the active participation of visitors in museums and at other visitor attractions using interactive and multisensory interpretive media. “Tourists are now seen as experiencers, creators and actors […] and thus touristic activities are displaced from the spectator perspective to the actor (or performer) position, blurring the traditional position between producer and consumer” (Campos, Mendes, Valle, & Scott, 2015, p. 20). Moreover, visitors interact with other visitors and museum employees on site, a process that in turn influences the creation of the experience itself and the memories associated with the place after the visit occurs. Definition of “souvenir” For this project, “souvenir” is defined in the context of tourism rather than in that of historical heirlooms or gifts given to mark birthdays, Easter, or Christmas. It is also defined as something different from a “memento”
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which is an “individually saved, non-purchased object that [has] personal meaning” (Gordon, 1986, p. 135). The most wide-ranging current research in the area of souvenirs and tourism has been undertaken by Swanson & Timothy (2012, p. 490), who define souvenirs as “object[s] through which something is remembered” and as “tangible symbolic reminders of an event or experience”. In their view, souvenirs are messengers of meaning and tradable commodities and they further consider their commodification and consequent implications for authenticity. Souvenirs may be “material and mental” and “substance and essence” (Goss, 2004) or be considered in terms of the their “memory cueing” characteristics (van denHoven & Eggen 2007). They can be objects that symbolise a relation between people, moments, feelings, phases, locations, and situations, things that have emotional value, and consciously evoke memories. By providing a material point of reference for a specific memory, souvenirs create, recreate, and mediate a multisensory tourist experience (Morgan & Pritchard, 2005). They can be “tangible, magical, sentimental, cherished objects of memorable experience, intangible reminders and golden memories” (McKercher & du Cros, 2002). Gordon stated that the universality of the souvenir can be understood in light of its underlying role or function. As an actual object, it concretizes or makes tangible what was otherwise only an intangible state. Its physical presence helps locate, define and freeze in time a fleeting, transitory experience and bring back into ordinary experience something of the quality of an extraordinary experience. (2004, p.135)
A souvenir is “a means of mediating or transferring messages from one reality to another” (Collins-Kreiner & Zins, 2011, p. 11). The object acts as a memory holder for the person, but expands beyond being simply a reminder. It also expresses a person’s individuality and sense of self, group conformity, creativity, and aesthetic taste (Anderson & Littrell, 1996; Fairhurst, Costello, & Holmes, 2007; Littrell, 1990; Littrell et al., 1994). Souvenirs and authenticity The concept of “authenticity” is a significant one in contemporary tourism theory. With the advent of tourism changes occurred in the functions and forms of artworks, and artisans began to change their crafts based largely on tourists’ expectations of what souvenirs should be (Torabian & Arai, 2013). In Littrell’s research into souvenir artefacts (1990), authenticity is
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defined as pertaining to genuine handicraft, product uniqueness, cultural and historical integrity, aesthetics, quality of workmanship, and the artist’s connection to the product (having produced it with his or her own hands). The way tourism products are packaged, promoted, and sold leads to a harmful commercialisation of destinations, product commoditisation, and a disintegration of local cultures (Go, Lee, & Russo, 2003). The best-selling artefacts produced in a “Westernised” form as souvenirs may place local artworks under risk (Turner & Ash, 1975). Souvenirs are often described as being “cheap, insubstantial, mass-produced, kitsch”, and tourists are said to have a “misguided preoccupation” with them (LaSusa, 2007). Most tourists accept commercialised objects as “authentic”, if they are convinced that these objects have “traditional” designs, crafted by members of an ethnic group, even if in reality they have not been (Cohen, 1988). In order to create perceptible uniqueness, some souvenir producers restrict product availability to small, exclusive markets, making them hard to find and exclusive (Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986). Heritage experiences occur through the understanding of and emotional engagement with the places people visit and their embedded culture. Measures such as “limited production” and increased prices can make even commodities seem exceptional or pass for “local art” and may even strengthen the perception of authenticity. This can result in detaching the viewer from the heritage experience embedded in the actual cultural memento. For some authors, authenticity is subjective, based upon an individual’s connection to an object, as well as his or her social networks, preconceived notions, and cultural biases (Torabian & Arai, 2013). Thus, the personal relationship formed between the tourist/visitor and the souvenir bestows authenticity on the latter. New technologies can create opportunities for reconfiguring the relationship between tourists and their souvenirs and redefining the notions of authenticity. Souvenir personalisation This research has considered the reasons why, when it comes to acquiring souvenirs, individuals may be attracted to customisation and personalisation. Adhe (2007, p. 153) argues that “People actually need significant and personal items in order to grow the feeling of safety and familiarity in their everyday experiences. People need personal adornments in their environment in order to make spaces and products their own”. This singularisation is an everlasting process; it lasts as long as the possession itself, and afterwards it continues in memories and in stories. According to Spek (2014, p.1) “personalisation allows the user to be presented with information based on his own preferences. It
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assumes that every user is unique. The term is often confused with customisation (allowing the user to customise), but is yet more powerful”. A popular way of personalising souvenirs, whether related to some historical period or present day, is through “inscription”. Looking at the act of adding personalised text or an “inscription” to an artefact, Silverstein & Urban (1996, p. 2) believe that it gives the object “a decontextualized structure and meaning”, so that the object stays important to the owner beyond his or her particular cultural experience. The added text works as “building blocks or atoms of shared, transmittable culture”, proving that the owner of the object was actually there, at a particular place or event and that this is “set in stone”, while the heritage site or the character of the event at which it was acquired might change over time. While customisation and personalisation might cause products to lose their exchange value, the significance of the products has true value to the participants (Adhe, 2007). “Consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for these customized products relative to their comparable massproduced counterparts” (Franke, Keinz, & Steger, 2009). This premium can be attributed not only to the superior fit with consumer preferences which customised products provide, but also to the sense of accomplishment consumers feel when they successfully complete the design process (Franke, Keinz, & Steger, 2009). The personalisation of souvenir objects through 3D printing offers opportunities for a different approach to manufacture and denotation; for it enables visitors to create their own meaningful mementos of their visit by choosing the souvenir size, colour, and material they prefer. Héctor Serrano’s “Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs” (Serrano, 2007) consist of a collection of souvenirs that are made as follows: the files are sent by e-mail and then are 3D-printed at a venue of the customer’s choice. No transport or standard production, storage, or distribution methods are required, thus reducing the object’s carbon footprint to a minimum. In this way, Serrano’s project also questions the objects’ manufacturing process and the use of new technologies to propose alternative ways of reducing the impact of souvenir production on the environment. This is increasingly pertinent now that 3D printers are becoming smaller and more widely affordable and accessible. Having researched the role and usefulness of 3D printing in culturalheritage communication, Antelj & Zavrl (2011, p. 1) assert that “monochrome or full colour 3D printed models in different scales are excellent pedagogical tools and with an added frame or pedestal they can become promotional gifts which are geometrically competent”. The production of such personalised souvenirs may facilitate processes of self-mediation and
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self-interpretation of the museum objects and collections. Personalised souvenirs can then transform the consumption of heritage from passive to interactive and begin redefining the notions of uniqueness and authenticity by allowing for greater flexibility and creativity on the part of visitors. It was the researchers’ intention to build on the personalisable aspects of the first few projects involving the sustainable, off-site, material aspects of Serrano’s project, and to work at a heritage site to gauge visitors’ reactions to and preferences regarding customisable, 3D-printed souvenirs and to explore the implications of the findings for the notion of authenticity.
Research design The initial observational study took place in collaboration with Historic Scotland, at Stirling Castle, Stirling, UK. The researchers produced 3D-printed souvenirs for tourists making visits to the Castle in July and August 2014. These were unicorn heads based on the unicorns that form part of Stirling Castle’s branding (and were stored in open-access files downloaded from Thingiverse). The souvenirs, designed in a variety of materials, colours, and scales, were then made on an “Ultimaker 2” portable 3D printer set up within the castle next to one of the halls that formed part of a tour. The researchers invited visitors to answer a few questions about their usual souvenir purchases and their impressions of the 3D-printed souvenirs; and then offered visitors a 3D-printed unicorn as a thank-you gift for participating in the research. An in-situ test run with visitors to ensure the clarity of the questions’ wording and to confirm the feasibility of the data-collection process preceded the structured interviews. The interview consisted of six questions based on that initial visitor feedback. The researchers carried out 139 short interviews over the course of four days on location. The responses were also audio-recorded to allow for checking for accuracy during the analysis. The printer was set up in such a way that participants could see and hear the items being printed while they were being interviewed. After the completion of the data-collection process, the researchers also noted their own observations of the visitors’ engagement with the souvenir objects and their interactions with the printer. The researchers also reflected on the impact of their own presence and their own interactions with the visitors and staff at the Castle. The research was designed in this way in order to demonstrate in vivo the technology and processes involved in 3D printing and to engage the public and staff in the design process of manufacturing a souvenir from start to finish using these technologies.
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Figure 8.1 Example of display in Historic Scotland gift shop in Stirling Castle
© DIGIMAKIT
Figure 8.2 Examples of unicorn imagery in Stirling Castle
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Figure 8.3 Location of display in Stirling Castle
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Figure 8.4 3D printer display at Stirling Castle
© DIGIMAKIT
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Figure 8.5 3D printed “give-away” unicorns
© DIGIMAKIT
A research protocol was agreed with Historic Scotland regarding the collection of data and the use of photography within the Castle, which also adhered to Edinburgh Napier University’s Research Integrity procedures. The researchers excluded visitors under the age of eighteen from the interviews and only took a few photos, as there were many families with young children visiting on the days of data collection. The researchers were aware of the research-integrity issues surrounding photography of children in public spaces and had adapted their research design and methods accordingly prior to the data-collection process. All the interviewees signed a consent form, which detailed the purpose of the project and the use of the information they provided.
Results The participant sample consisted of 75 female and 64 male adults. Respondents came both from the UK (31%) and from abroad, with the USA (19%), Spain, Canada, France, and Australia (6%) having the highest representation among the countries in the latter category. Most of the participants (90%) had heard of 3D printing before through public media. (“The Big Bang Theory” sitcom and a news story of a 3D-printed gun were the most frequent
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associations/references made.) Several participants had seen or used 3D printers in their work environment (as designers, engineers, information technology and scientific researchers); others also mentioned the use of 3D printers for a medical/prosthetics purpose or in the construction of aeronautical parts. Some respondents said they had used 3D printers in their school or had some experience with them at a museum or science fair. Only two interviewees owned a 3D printer, and one other stated he was a prospective buyer. A number of participants stressed that although they had heard of the technique, this was the first time they were seeing a 3D printer in action. Engagement with 3D-printed souvenir production The interviewees and onlookers showed considerable interest in the souvenir-making process. Having the 3D printer present and running appeared to add to their overall experience and to the perceived value of the object. Researcher 1 observed that “people were very interested in watching the printer in action and some stood and watched for five minutes or longer without speaking at all. Many people pointed at it and tried to get those who they came with to also have a look. The general feeling was positive and engaged”. Table 8.1 presents a sample of the visitor views on the in-situ display of the processes of 3D printing and on the opportunity to see an artefact and then be able to print and take home a souvenir of their visit. The novelty of the experience was a great factor in the impression that it made on the visitors, and there was an element of spectacle associated with the process of creation. Table 8.1 Visitor perceptions of 3D-printed objects Seeing it being printed – watching it in action with the software export, and a demonstration of what’s happening becomes part of the experience Difference is its made in front of you – not made in China I think it would work for people like me who are a bit geeky. The process as well I’m interested in. I would say definitely for me it’s important to see it in action It’s really clever, especially if you can see the items printed in front of you. It’s so much cooler than those little coin machines. I think it’s a great idea, so you can say this is from here, and show people and see it being done. See it happening makes it more significant, personalise it would be great, interactive process makes it more interesting, like a pressed coin. Fascinated by it, really neat idea. I saw that you were making it.
(Female, USA) (Male, USA) (Male, UK)
(Male, USA) (Female, USA) (Female, Australia) (Female, USA)
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These quotes suggest that the immediacy of the creation of the souvenir in situ and in vivo through 3D printing enhances the value of the visitor experience and gives the visitor the opportunity to tell a story of how the souvenir came to be. This experience is in contrast to previous associations of souvenirs as being “inauthentic” and “homogenised” (Boorstin, 1961). In-situ 3D-printed souvenirs Based on the observations and feedback gathered from setting up the 3D printer and giving away the souvenirs, the researchers felt that the small memento of the visit had more meaning to the visitors than mere sentimentality. It offered the recipients of the souvenir/memento a chance to be owners and to be involved, suggesting that the process would strengthen their memories of the visit. The responses in Table 8.2 show the visitors’ enhanced “feelings” towards the object and the concept. Table 8.2 Visitor enhanced feelings towards their mementos Yes perhaps, I think maybe printing what you take a picture of, and location Yeah I was here where my sister was born in Stirling, one of the statues or something printed to take back. I like the date and time on the bangle, I think if you put it on the jewellery it’s more sentimental. It’s the type of thing you buy as a gift. I can have anything I want? My moments of Stirling castle today? Because when anyone comes here, it’s what it means to them. Yes I like this, because it’s a memory.
(Female, Brazil) (Female, Australia) (Female, UK) (Female, UK) (Female, China)
The quotes suggest that the creation of 3D-printed souvenirs enabled the personalisation effort to extend beyond the “decontextualized structure and meaning” that Silverstein & Urban (1996, p. 2) believe inscription gives to a souvenir object. The process of 3D printing somehow intensified the memory associated with the visit to the Castle, increasing its personal significance. The souvenir might well become an enduring memento of the occasion on which the visitor experienced the object’s creation, thanks to his or her own contribution to its design and ultimate look and feel. Emotional engagement with 3D-printed souvenirs The process of 3D printing challenged the reputation that souvenirs often have of being low-cost, mass-produced, and inauthentic objects. Although the object is still mass-produced, it is authentic with regard to the individual for whom it is printed and, at the same time and to that degree, unique. These
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findings also confirm Torabian & Arai (2013)’s view that authenticity is a subjective concept. The visitor’s emotional engagement with the souvenir produced in this manner was higher than with other souvenirs that were available at the gift shop. The responses presented in Table 8.3 reflect the interviewees’ views and attitudes concerning digital fabrication and handcraft. Table 8.3 Emotional engagement with 3D-printed souvenirs A good idea, I like the idea of scanning items and making what you like. I don’t know, I think it would be cool to make a ring or something like jewellery. It wouldn’t be easy but it would be cool to see how it turned out. There’s as many options as there are ideas. What you see when you go into a gift shop, you’ve seen before. This is 3d it gives it more realism, it’s tangible and I like the fact you can personalise it. It’s insane, it’s awesome, absolutely incredible. I’ve seen stuff like this is necklace form, it’s so cool. I can feel the ridges, I guess itis how it’s done… Being able to create something sounds cool.
(Male, UK) (Female, Canada) (Male, UK)
(Female, USA)
3D printing appeared to offer the satisfaction of “crafting” an item without the user being required to participate in a full-blown craft experience, which would obviously be far more demanding in terms of time and skill. This process also concords well with the “performance turn” in tourism (Mansfeldt, Vestager, & Iversen, 2008) and with Eraqi’s (2011) notion that museum visitors want to do something rather than just see something and have a preference for multisensory experiences.
Discussion Generally, the concept, processes, exhibit, and souvenirs we studied had a positive response from visitors and participants. Although some interviewees suggested that they would not be particularly interested in 3D-printed, customised souvenirs, they did not pass up the opportunity to collect an item as a token thank you for their time and effort. Such behaviour would suggest that the opportunity to have a uniquely produced item might change their opinion of 3D-printed items, if the souvenir was more to their taste. The researchers also noted a few instances when participants tried to help themselves to the extra printed items that were on display in order to share them with friends and family. The way that 3D printing allows for individual, on-the-spot production of souvenirs also gave a special quality to the memento; for each souvenir was
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unique. One researcher observed that the value that even sceptical visitors accorded it was clear from comments overheard when they walked away, with one saying “this is your very own 3D-printed unicorn, printed today at Stirling Castle, hardly anyone else in the world will have one of these”. In contrast to previous research (Go, Lee, & Russo, 2003; LaSusa 2007), which suggested that the mass production of souvenirs led to the visitor’s detachment from the heritage experience, we observed that 3D printing allows for a mass-produced but personalised experience that increases the souvenir’s subjective authenticity (Torabian & Arai, 2013). This in turn has implications for the notion of authenticity in general and for the souvenir’s status as a physical object associated with a specific place and for its function as a preserver of memory. The findings suggest that the consumer experience with the souvenir could be enhanced using innovative technologies (Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin, 2012). Of course, one also has to remember that, along with context, the cost, feel, and look of the 3D souvenir are important elements in determining its value and desirability. 3D-printed, in-situ souvenir production offered visitors a human-product interaction with an aesthetic dimension (Crouch & Desforges, 2003) and an emotional experience, one that yielded personal, “authentic” meaning (Collins-Kreiner & Zins, 2011). The process of in-situ 3D printing also increases the likelihood that visits to heritage environments will be creative (Richards & Wilson, 2006), performative (Mansfeldt, Vestager, & Iversen, 2008), and multisensory tourism experiences (Eraqi, 2011). The successes of the model concords with Desmet & Hekkert’s research into products with “experiential impact”, that is to say, products which have “the capacity to delight our sensory modalities, assign personality and expressive characteristics to a product [….] and, through interaction [with them], the user is able to assess their symbolic significance” (2007, p. 57).
Conclusions This study examined the in-situ 3D printing of souvenirs in order to determine to what extent it could enhance visitor engagement with the site and to measure the public’s emotional engagement with these souvenirs. As the souvenir acts as “a memory holder” (Collins-Kreiner & Zins, 2011) that may also detach the visitor from the actual heritage experience (Errington, 1998), the study findings suggest that 3D-printed souvenirs could mediate visitor engagement to create memorable and
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compelling (Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin, 2012; Pine & Gilmore, 1999), sensuous (Crouch & Desforges, 2003), and creative (Richards & Wilson, 2006) heritage experiences. The level of personal involvement in the design and production of these souvenirs; the materials used and the feel of the finished item; the degree of personalisation and individual preferences for purpose and function of souvenirs are important caveats that condition the extent of the mediation that takes place and the value attached to the process. Further studies of the design and production in situ of 3D souvenirs within heritage or other sites, the visitor preferences towards personalisation and uses of souvenirs could build further and expand on these findings. An unexpected outcome of the study was that it was the real-time printing of the souvenirs that most fully captured the imagination of the visitors rather than the souvenirs themselves. People were very interested to learn about the design process of a historical artefact or image and becoming transformed into a 3D-printed object. This reinforced the “experiential” element of the 3D-printing process, its ability to mediate the visitor’s engagement with the place visited and the objects consumed. The study also identified areas that might merit further investigation. In particular, the need to consider the implications of 3D printing for intellectual-property rights relating to heritage artefacts. Closely related to this issue is the complex one of “authenticity”, where 3D printing might lead to the trivialisation of a site’s heritage and of the memories and stories associated with its artefacts. On the other hand, the opportunity to personalise souvenirs might create more rather than less meaningful personal engagement with collections and exhibitions, as well as different ways of learning about them. It would also be worth ascertaining if the context of the museum, gallery or other visitor attraction might influence the willingness of individuals to personalise their souvenirs through 3D printing. Further implications exist in terms of sustainability, since, as previous research has shown, souvenirs are often mass-produced (Go, Lee, & Russo, 2003; LaSusa 2007) and transported over great distances to the point of sale. Other issues that arise in this regard are the disposal of unsold merchandise, the planning of sales, and the storage of stock. Producing 3D-printed souvenirs in situ or purchasing them online but having them printed remotely at the visitor’s preferred facility could offset the negative environmental effects of mass-produced souvenirs. Finally, future research could consider the sustainability aspects of 3D-printed souvenirs in a variety of tourism and experience-related contexts, such as hotels, art galleries, airports, and museums.
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About the authors Constantia Anastasiadou is Reader in Tourism at Edinburgh Napier University, UK, and is a faculty member of its Business School. Her main research interests include technological mediation processes in tourism, tourism public policy, and planning. She has also published extensively on EU tourism policy. Samantha Vettese Forster is Reader in Applied Art and Design at the School of Design at Edinburgh Napier University and teaches in the Design History and Theory programme. Her areas of interest include how we engage and learn through processes of making, digital craft, and the use of innovative materials for design. Lynsey Calder is a postdoctoral research assistant at Edinburgh Napier University. Her research involves expertise in 3D printing onto textiles and the use of innovative dyes and smart materials.
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Tracking the Heritage Tourist Heritage tourism and visiting patterns in a historic city Karim van Knippenberg and Linde Egberts Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch09 Abstract This article presents the results of an exploratory research project on the relation between tourists and the heritage presented in a historic city. Actual visiting patterns in a historic city are related to tourists’ motivational factors in order to better understand the role of heritage elements within a historic city. The sample is composed of heritage tourists arriving at the main train station in the city of Maastricht (Netherlands). Empirical testing involved the use of a structured questionnaire using face-to-face interviews. Besides, a GPS-tracker was used to identify the visiting patterns. Tourists’ motivational factors are classif ied in f ive groups and linked to the visiting patterns. The results of the questionnaire showed various differences in terms of tourist characteristics, their level of interest in heritage and tourists’ motivational factors. The use of the GPS-tracker revealed some general visiting patterns regarding heritage in the historic inner city. It can be concluded that the attractiveness of this, so-called, tourist-historic city is at the expense of other heritage sites, especially those on the outskirts of the city. The relation between tourists’ motivational factors and visiting patterns appeared to be rather weak in this research and it was therefore not possible to draw meaningful conclusions about whether visiting patterns are grouped in a certain way that reflect the heritage tourists’ classification. Though the results lead to a better understanding of reasons for visiting heritage places and provide further insight into heritage tourism in general. City planners and urban-tourism developers need this kind of information on motivations and behaviour of heritage tourists to target their plans for future development and marketing of heritage sites.
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Keywords: heritage, tourism, visiting patterns, heritage tourism, historic city, city of Maastricht
Introduction Heritage tourism is currently one of the most notable and widespread types of tourism in terms of visitors and attractions, appealing to hundreds of millions of people every year (Timothy, 2011). Heritage resources can be found in a wide variety of settings; one of the most common, however, is urban (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000). Historic buildings and environments are important elements of a city’s ambience (Lazrak, Nijkamp, Rietveld, & Rouwendal, 2014) and lend it much of its appeal (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 1990). Besides that, monuments and other historic sites provide a popular background for a wide range of activities (Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois, 2008; Shoval & Raveh, 2004). Given the importance of heritage for many tourist destinations, it is essential to understand how tourists actually make use of it. Discovering why tourists do certain things is not only relevant for academic investigation but also for the management of tourism destinations (Poria, Butler, & Airey, 2004). Important concerns here include: How important is heritage in determining the tourists’ choice of visiting a city? What motivates tourists to visit a historic city? What sites do they choose to visit and what sites remain unseen? Gathering data about heritage tourists and their motivation is an important aspect of the academic investigation of heritage tourism (Poria, Butler, & Airey, 2004). Within this field, scholars (e.g. Silberberg, 1995; Stebbins, 1996; McKercher, 2002) have established profiles of heritage tourists, categorising them into different groups in order to better understand them and their experiences (Isaac, 2008; Nguyen & Cheung, 2014). Other studies have focused on the relation between the personal characteristics of visitors and their use of attractions (for an overview of studies on this topic, see Shoval & Raveh, 2004; and Poria, Butler & Airey, 2004). Although a wide variety of characteristics has been investigated, similar findings have been found regarding the spatial behaviour of tourists as a function of differences in their personality structure. Beyond the description and classification of heritage tourists and their motivational factors, the issue to be addressed now is the interaction between people (i.e. heritage tourists), the product in question (i.e. cultural assets, such as heritage) and place (i.e. actual space-use patterns). Several studies (e.g. Dietvorst, 1994; Jansen-Verbeke, 1986; van Gorp, 2003) focus on the relation between tourists and the presence of tourist attractions, including cultural assets such as heritage. Yet, only very few studies (e.g. Jansen-Verbeke &
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Lievois, 2008) have dealt with the different spatial patterns which characterise tourists’ visits to specific cities (Lew & McKercher, 2006; Shoval & Raveh, 2004). Empirical studies analysing the link between heritage assets and the actual spatial movements of heritage tourists are rare, and that research often emphasises the uniqueness of the local context (Lew & McKercher, 2006). The aim of our exploratory research is to elaborate on and clarify the interaction between people, product, and place by examining the actual visiting patterns in a historic city. Along the way we will seek to gain more insight into what motivates tourists and what personal characteristics influence visits to specific heritage sites. The gaps in our current knowledge are addressed by using an innovative methodology, namely, the matching and mapping of two distinct geo-referenced data sets: space-use patterns and indicators of heritage in a historic city. This combined geo-referenced data, joined with information gathered from a questionnaire, promises to considerably illuminate the question of how the people-product interaction is expressed in a given place. Greater understanding of the motivations and behaviour of heritage tourists obviously has implications for the management of heritage sites. City planners, policymakers, urban-tourism developers and marketers need such information in order to create plans for the future development and marketing of heritage sites (on the utility of this information for urbantourism development plans, see Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois, 1999). Knowledge regarding the links between sites and tourists is also useful for improving the sustainable management of heritage sites and for planning a coherent historic city (Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois, 2008). The article starts with a brief review of the literature in which the description and classification of heritage tourists and their motivations are discussed. It then takes up the link between tourists and heritage in historic cities and clarifies the research objective. Next, the methodological framework is outlined. Finally, the results are given, followed by the conclusion.
Theoretical background Cultural tourism is often cited as being a growth industry (Smith, 2009), and, indeed, its importance has been consistently recognised by a number of global organisations such as UNESCO and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Within cultural tourism there are all kinds of sub-sectors, such as heritage tourism. Heritage tourism is concerned largely with the
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interpretation and representation of the past (Smith, 2009). Some authors (e.g. Garrod & Fyall, 2001; Timothy, 2011) define heritage tourists simply as people visiting historic places or viewing historic resources: “Heritage tourism refers to travellers seeing or experiencing built heritage, living culture or contemporary arts” (Timothy, 2011, p. 4). Since most scholars now agree on the definition of heritage tourists, their research has shifted to identifying the factors which motivate these tourists, with the goal of classifying the latter into different types. Tourist classification is seen as an effective way to gain a deeper understanding of tourists and to explain, or even predict, their behaviour (Isaac, 2008). The classification of heritage tourists is often based on the level of their interest in elements of the past. Stebbins (1996), for example, defines two categories: the “serious” and the “casual”. Serious heritage tourists are people who visit sites because they want to learn something new and because they are enthusiastic about heritage. Casual heritage tourists, on the other hand, are people who do not necessarily plan to visit a heritage site while on a trip or vacation but decide to do so once they discover it; they are curious about the attraction but are not active seekers of heritage places and cultural experiences. Several authors (e.g. Silberberg, 1995) distinguish four subcategories based on level of motivation. The most hardcore heritage enthusiasts, referred to as “greatly motivated” visitors, will travel to a destination specifically to experience its culture and heritage. The second group are “partly motivated” visitors who travel both because of the heritage appeal and for other reasons. Third, there are “adjunct visitors” who are primarily motivated by other factors. The fourth group consists of “accidental visitors”; they do not have plans to visit heritage sites, but might stumble onto one by chance. According to McKercher (2002) the degree of engagement is based on numerous factors, such as educational level, meaning to the tourist, awareness of the site before the visit, preconceptions of the site, time availability, interest, and the presence of competing activities. Based on these factors McKercher (2002) came up with five types of cultural tourists: (see figure 9.1) 1 The purposeful cultural tourist, for whom culture is a primary motivation and who seeks a deep cultural experience; 2 The sightseeing cultural tourist, who travels for cultural reasons but is satisf ied with a shallower and more entertainment-orientated experience; 3 The casual cultural tourist, for whom culture is a weak motivating factor and who seeks a shallow experience;
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Figure 9.1 Classification by McKercher
McKercher, 2002
4 The incidental cultural tourist, for whom culture is not a meaningful motive for visiting and who seeks a shallow experience; 5 The serendipitous cultural tourist, who is not primarily motivated by culture but who may have a deep cultural experience by chance. Based on the review of the above categorisations of cultural and heritage tourists, our research classifies heritage tourists into four different groups (see Figure 9.2). The serious heritage tourist will travel on purpose to a specific destination to experience the heritage connected with that place. The sightseeing heritage tourist travels both for the appeal of heritage and for other, more entertainment-orientated reasons. The incidental heritage tourist is primarily motivated by other factors; heritage is irrelevant as a motivational factor. The accidental heritage tourist is not primarily motivated by heritage, but might stumble by chance onto a site which provides him or her with a profound experience. This classification has the advantage of being able to address tourists’ behaviour in two stages: before and during the visit. The responses given by tourists ahead of time can thus be compared with their behaviour, i.e. the actual visiting patterns of their visit. To better understand this relationship between tourist motivation and actual visiting patterns in a historic city we employ the concept of the tourist “gaze”. Building upon existing literature, Urry (2002) defines it as the way tourists look at and appreciate the environment they encounter at their destination. It is a biased way of experiencing a place, oriented by the tourist’s expectations of that place (Urry, 2002; van Gorp, 2005; van Gorp, Kelder, & van Leest, 2006). Thus, even before arriving in a city, the tourist already has a pre-established image of it and during the visit is seeking those
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Figure 9.2 Image created by Karim van Knippenberg
objects and signs that confirm this image. For example, in a historic city, he or she expects to find churches, city walls or a city gate, monumental facades, and small, cosy streets (van Gorp et al., 2006). The tourist gaze, however, is not a universal experience – something true for all tourists at all times. It varies with society and type of tourist and from period to period. A serious heritage tourist (see Figure 9.2) who travels to a certain destination specifically to experience the heritage of that place will probably read up about it in advance, while the accidental heritage tourist who has not planned to visit a heritage site will probably not be informed about it ahead of time. These different types of heritage tourists will have their own “gaze” and thus make different selections of what to visit and have different ways of looking at the environment they encounter at their destination.
Heritage Heritage is best visualised as having two main aspects; for it is a source of both economic and cultural capital (Graham, Ashworth, & Tunbridge, 2000). Heritage can also be seen as a cultural resource which generates social benefits. Lowenthal (1996) notes four beneficial traits of heritage. First, its antiquity elicits the respect due to antecedence and underpins the ideas of continuity and social development. Second, it offers a way to connect the present to the past in an unbroken trajectory. Third, it provides a sense
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of termination. And fourth, it offers a sequence which allows people to locate the present in a continuum of events. In this view heritage is seen as providing familiarity and guidance, enrichment and escape, and, moreover, as a source of validation and identity (Graham et. al., 2000). Lowenthal (1996), in fact, sees heritage as a source of both individual and communal representations of identity, which, in turn, help endow human existence with meaning, purpose and value. But this is not the only way one can assess heritage. Heritage can also be seen as an economic resource. In this view, the relics of the past are raw materials which are appropriated for contemporary consumption and can be put to several inherently opposing uses (Graham et al., 2000). Thus heritage has less to do with the past than with the present, or as Ashworth (1992) says: “Heritage is the actual occurrence of the past, that fulfils functions like a stock of objects for an economic activity, such as tourism” (p. 98). In this study, our focus is on the use value of heritage (i.e. its potential economic benefit) for specific types of users. Obviously, the fact that we do not address its non-economic value (i.e. its human or “existential” value) does not mean we think that other values do not matter. Heritage, whether seen as an economic resource or not, can be found in a wide variety of settings. Among the most common is the city. It is generally agreed that the identity of a city is closely related to the remains of its past (Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois, 2008), and it is their monuments and other historic sites which give cities much of their appeal and make them a pleasant environment (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 1990). Ashworth & Tunbridge (1990, 2000) stress the importance of site-specific characteristics, which they use as the basis of their concept of the touristhistoric city, defined by them as an area within the city where the urban structure, architecture, and heritage artefacts are used to create a placebased heritage product. The latter has proved to be a major incentive for tourism in many historic cities (Ashworth, 1992). And, indeed, a significant number of studies suggests that cities with cultural heritage are more likely to become tourist destinations (for an overview of those studies, see Lazrak et al., 2014; van Loon et al., 2014). The tourism product of cities, which can be highly diversif ied, has enormous potential (Jansen-Verbeke, 1986). In most historic cities, heritage tourism is concentrated in the city’s core, but they often possess secondary heritage nodes, as well, for example on their outskirts (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000). Heritage tourists have many locations available to them, and the choices they make among these create the visiting patterns discussed in the rest of our study.
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Visiting patterns in historic cities Visiting patterns are a result of the preferences and other characteristics of different types of heritage tourists (McKercher, 2002; Stebbins, 1996). As noted above, the level of interest in heritage sites is related to the type of heritage tourist (see Figure 9.2). Several studies examine the relationship between the characteristics of visitors and the actual use they make of attractions (for an overview, see Shoval & Raveh, 2004; and Poria, Butler, & Airey, 2004); they differ with regard to the characteristics they focus on. Cooper (1981), for example, looks at socioeconomic status in relation to the spatial behaviour of tourists. He finds that low-income tourists tend to visit only the major tourist attractions, whereas higher-income tourists visit less popular attractions, as well. Prentice (1993) finds that the more affluent sectors of English society are more highly represented among visitors to heritage attractions and also that the visitors to these attractions tend to be older (Shoval & Raveh, 2004). Debbage (1991) reports that the spatial behaviour of tourists differs according to their personality structures. Poria, Butler, & Airey (2004) focus on the link between the individual and heritage, and, more specifically, on tourists’ perception of the site as part of their own heritage. They conclude that the links between a heritage site’s attributes and the tourists themselves are essential to understanding their motivation for visiting these sites. The study by Dietvorst (1994) is still up to date, since it is one of the few which explain the flow patterns and space-behaviour patterns of tourists. The main finding of this research is that the considerable variety in tourists’ behaviour leads them to assemble the essential elements of a day trip in quite different ways (Dietvorst, 1994). In one example, Dietvorst identifies several distinct tourist spaces in the town of Enkhuizen based on differences in the main purposes various tourists have for visiting the town. Shoval & Raveh (2004) analyse the relationship between trip characteristics of visitors (e.g. number of visits to the city and length of stay) and tourist sites in Jerusalem. They show that the consumption of tourist attractions by tourists depends on the characteristics of the tourists: length of stay and number of previous visits to the city have a strong effect on the consumption of the urban-tourism product (Shoval & Raveh, 2004). Based on similarities in these two factors the authors identify several clusters of tourist attractions. One consists of the main tourist sites visited by the majority of the tourists. A second consists of secondary heritage sights, and a third, of tourist attractions in the outer part of the city. A fourth is the shopping and entertainment area (Shoval & Raveh, 2004).
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Van Gorp (2003) tried to see if there was a signif icant relationship between the characteristics and interests of tourists and the way they experience historical-geographical heritage in three historic cities in the Netherlands, but she found that none existed. Jansen-Verbeke (1986) studied the relationship between tourists and the presence of touristic resources, including heritage, in a number of Dutch towns. One of her main conclusions is that the way tourists use resources depends on both the specific characteristics of the inner city and the visitors’ profiles. She concluded that visiting heritage attractions is strongly interwoven with other activities, such as shopping. The historic inner city should thus be seen not only as an open-air museum with beautiful artefacts but also as a lively place into which tourism resources are integrated (Jansen-Verbeke, 1986). A more recent study by Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois (2008) examines the role of heritage in shaping the spatial use patterns of visitors, using geo-referenced data on visiting patterns collected in the city of Ghent, Belgium. An important conclusion was that distinct areas can be identified: some of them are core areas while other heritage sites attract only a few visitors. The study does not, however, offer any significant analysis of the initial assumption of the research, which was that visiting patterns are an indicator of tourists’ motives. As mentioned earlier, each type of heritage tourist has his or her own level of interest in heritage and will therefore visit different places, resulting in differences in the visiting patterns in the historic city. The review of the literature about the relation between tourists and the actual visit to specific heritage sites (i.e. visiting patterns) did not lead to unambiguous conclusions. This is due to the wide range of characteristics that the researchers chose to consider and to differences in the size of the locations under study. Nevertheless, the studies by Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois (2008) and by Shoval & Raveh (2004) both found distinct areas within a historic city that could be related to various characteristics of tourists. The study by Dietvorst (1994) can also be used as a guide in this type of research, since he identified several distinct tourist spaces based on differences in the main purpose that different tourists had for visiting the town.
Research outline Our review of a number of studies on the relationship between heritage and tourist space-use patterns has shown that empirical studies analysing the link between specific heritage assets and the ways heritage tourists actually
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use space are rare (Lew & McKercher, 2006). More specifically, very little information seems to be available on the interaction between people (i.e. heritage tourists and their motivations), product (i.e. cultural assets, such as heritage) and place (i.e. actual space-use patterns), and thus the aim of our exploratory project is to shed some light on precisely this interaction. If successful, it should allow us to better understand the role of heritage elements within a historic city.
Methodology Our research was carried out in the city of Maastricht, the capital of the province of Limburg, located in the southeast of the Netherlands. Endowed with a high density of historical buildings in its centre, Maastricht is well known in the Netherlands and beyond; its lively squares, narrow streets, and historic buildings appeal to many tourists. One of the oldest cities of the Netherlands, it developed from a Roman settlement into a religious centre, a garrison city, and an early industrial city. Historic relics of those different periods are still visible today, and with its 1676 national heritage sites the city has more monuments than any other Dutch city except Amsterdam (RCE, 2016). Its central district is also listed as a protected cityscape. Most of its historic monuments are concentrated in the inner part of the city, located on the left bank of the Meuse River. Here we find some of the main sites, such as the Basilica of Saint Servatius, the Basilica of Our Lady and the remnants of the city fortifications. The old quarter on the right bank of the river Meuse is called Wyck, which is also the location of the main railway station, Maastricht also has some secondary heritage nodes on the outskirts of the city, for example Mount Saint Peter, the inner harbour, and a former industrial area, named for the Sphinx factory. In this exploratory research, quantitative methods were used to collect data. Specifically, this was done using a structured, quantitative questionnaire employed in face-to-face interviews. In addition, a GPS-tracker was used to gather information about the actual trajectories of tourists. This tracker records GPS-locations (dots on a map) making it possible to visualise the patterns of the tourists’ movements around the city and to identify which areas are visited and which areas remain unseen. The questionnaires were distributed in the period between 23 April 2016 and 7 May 2016, on both weekdays and weekends. From 10 am’ on, people arriving at the central train station of Maastricht were screened and the heritage tourists were selected.
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When we approached and selected the interviewees, we first confirmed that they were day-trip tourists interested in heritage, and only then were they included in the sample. We then briefly explained the nature and method of the research. The participants were asked a set of questions relating to their personal characteristics, their reasons for their visit, and the experiences they were seeking. This information was used to divide them into different categories of heritage tourists. Then they were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with statements about possible reasons for their visit, the experience being sought, and their engagement with heritage. The answers could vary on a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 represents complete disagreement and 5 represents complete agreement). Finally, they received a GPS-tracker, along with brief instructions about its use during their visit. The population in this study are tourists visiting Maastricht; only heritage tourists are included in the sample,1 which was selected through systematic random sampling of visitors. For practical reasons, only day-trip tourists2 were asked to participate. On some days, due to the bad weather, the number of tourists arriving in Maastricht was low. And although many potential respondents (i.e. heritage tourists) arrived at the train station, it was rather difficult to find tourists who were willing to participate in the research. And some of the selected potential respondents could not be included in the sample because they could not confirm that heritage was one of their main motives to visit Maastricht or because they were not returning to the station on the same evening (i.e. they were not day-trip tourists). In the end there were only 23 people with the right qualifications who were willing to participate in the research, admittedly a number too low to permit us to draw meaningful statistical conclusions. All the same, considering that our research is only exploratory, the number of respondents is not all that important. The main thing is that it is high enough to yield some initial insights into the relation between the tourists’ motivations and their actual visits to specific heritage sites. The age groups 40-65 and, especially, 50-60 are slightly overrepresented within the whole group of respondents. This is in line with Prentice’s conclusions (1993), since he found that visitors to heritage attractions tend to be older (Shoval & Raveh, 2004). However, for the most part, the age distribution shows considerable similarities with the Dutch population in general (CBS, 1 This research considers a heritage tourist to be anyone who visits a heritage site. 2 A recreational activity, that lasts at least two hours, without an overnight stay at the location of visit.
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2016), and we believe that the distribution within the group of respondents is quite representative of the general heritage tourist population. The educational level of the respondents does display some differences compared to the average of the Dutch population. Most of the respondents are highly educated, and most of them are women. All of the respondents visited Maastricht together with someone else or in a group of three or four people. Nearly half of the respondents (ten people) visited Maastricht in order to go sightseeing. It may be assumed that here heritage indeed played a role as a motivational factor. This group of respondents can best be described as sightseeing heritage tourists (see Figure 9.2), as they travel for cultural reasons but seek a rather shallow and more entertainment-orientated experience (McKercher, 2002). A second main reason for visiting the city is the heritage appeal of the city. Six respondents travelled to Maastricht specifically to experience the heritage of the city and can best be classified as serious heritage tourists. For some tourists, heritage is not the main reason for visiting Maastricht; they are primarily motivated by other factors, such as shopping (three respondents) or a day out (three respondents). ‘A day out’ is unfortunately a rather vague answer, since it is not clear what the respondents meant by that phrase, which presumably represents a more or less neutral attitude towards heritage. Those tourists, therefore, can probably be best described as incidental heritage tourists. Some respondents were primarily motivated by other reasons, such as visiting friends or family, walking in the area around Maastricht while visiting some heritage, or seeing just one attraction, like a museum (e.g. Bonnefantenmuseum). Classifying heritage tourists can be seen as an effective way to bring about deeper understanding of tourists and to explain, or even predict, their behaviour (Isaac, 2008). Our research classifies heritage tourists into four different groups (see Figure 9.2). It is important to notice that the outcome, i.e. their behaviour (visiting patterns), varies with these differences (Stebbins, 1996). It is also interesting to observe that only a very small number (two) of respondents can be classified as serious heritage tourists, as their specific aim is to learn something new and because they are enthusiastic about heritage. As is the case with the majority of all tourists, recreation and pleasure are more important than deep learning activities for the majority of heritage tourists. The serious heritage tourist is the exception rather than the norm, representing only a small minority of the people who participate in heritage tourism. Based on their answers, most of the respondents (twelve) are best classified as sightseeing heritage tourists. Although this group is
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interested in heritage, they visit the city for various reasons and not only because of its heritage appeal. Accidental and incidental heritage tourists are almost equally represented among the group of respondents (four and five respondents, respectively).
Results Visiting patterns For the definition of heritage, our research relies on an indicator of tangible cultural heritage, namely, having the status of a listed building.3 Figure 9.4, which shows the locations of all listed heritage buildings within the city of Maastricht, does indicate some similarities compared to Figure 9.5. The area with the highest density in listed heritage buildings is also the area with the highest density of GPS-dots. However, the map with monuments shows quite a few dots at the borders of the historic inner city, as well, and a comparison of the two maps reveals that most of those heritage sites remain unseen. Figure 9.5 showed that most of the respondents visited a distinct area, and moved within an oval area in the middle of the map. The inner city with its site-specific characteristics exerts a strong attraction on heritage tourists. In the above-mentioned work of Ashworth & Tunbridge (1990, 2000) concerning these characteristics, they develop the notion of the tourist-historic city, defined as an area within the city where the urban structure, architecture, and heritage artefacts are used to create a placebased heritage product, something which has proved to be a strong draw in many historic cities (Ashworth, 1992). Based on both maps (Figure 9.3 and 9.4) it can be concluded that such a tourist-historic city does indeed exist in the city of Maastricht; for its inner city is clearly a distinct, place-based heritage product which attracts many heritage tourisits. This attractiveness, however, comes at the expense of other heritage sites, especially those on the outskirts of the city (see Figure 9.3 and 9.4). Based on the density map (see Figure 9.4), it can be concluded that the historic inner city and especially the areas around well-known heritage sites, such as the Basilicas of Saint Servatius and of Our Lady, appeal to many tourists and that this area has, more or less, become a tourist product in itself. Yet, even within the 3 The criterion “listed cultural heritage” is in itself controversial. There is a lack of consensus about which buildings should have heritage status; about the criteria to be used to select candidates for conservation; and about the authenticity of rebuilt monuments and buildings.
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Figure 9.3 CBS (2016) Gemeenten 2016
CBS Wijk- en Buurtkaart
Figure 9.4 Map created by Karim van Knippenberg using ArcGis data
ArcMap 10.3.1. – ArcGIS Map Service, TOP10NL and ArcMap 10.3.1. – Esri Nederland & Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Rijksmonumenten
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Figure 9.5 Map created by Karim van Knippenberg using ArcMap 10.3.1
ArcGIS Map Service, TOP10NL
historic inner city, or the so-called tourist-historic city, there are recognisable differences in density. The research by Shoval & Raveh (2004) shows that it is possible to identify various clusters of tourist attractions within a tourist-historic city, in this case Jerusalem, where they identify the four clusters mentioned earlier. Other research (e.g. Dietvorst, 1994) seems to strengthen their conclusions. Dietvorst (1994), for example, identifies several distinct tourist spaces in the town of Enkhuizen. And a more recent study by Jansen-Verbeke & Lievois (2008) demonstrates the existence of several distinct areas in the city of Ghent, Belgium, some of which are core areas, while other heritage sites rarely attract visitors. A comparison of the various maps (see Figures 9.3 and 9.4) shows some remarkable similarities regarding core touristic areas. First of all, the core of the historic city is concentrated on the left bank of the Meuse River. The old quarter on the right bank of the river remains largely unseen: only one track shows a relatively high density. There is a secondary touristic cluster recognisable in the southeast, in the area around the Bonnefantenmuseum and including the main route to this museum. One can also see that the old Meuse bridge, which is the main connection between the two sides of
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the river, is part of a more or less fixed route through the historic city. This route links the well-known heritage sites, such as the Basilica of Our Lady, with the remnants of the city fortifications and ends near the core of the tourist-historic city – the Vrijthof square with the Basilica of Saint Servatius. Some tourists also visited the market square, yet none of them went to heritage sites on the outskirts of the city. Among these unvisited sites are monuments like the inner harbour, Mount Saint Peter, and the former Sphinx factory. These secondary heritage nodes are apparently located too far away to be visited. The concept of the “tourist gaze” could be one explanation for the existence of these different areas or clusters of heritage sites within the historic city. A biased way of experiencing a place, it is based on the tourists’ set of expectations about that place (Urry, 2002; van Gorp, 2005; van Gorp et al., 2006). During the visit, the tourist is seeking the objects and signs that conf irm these expectations. If a tourist visits a historic city like Maastricht, he or she expects to see certain “must-see” sights, such as the city walls and the Vrijthof with its churches, as well as narrow, cosy streets. The literature review provides some indication that the spatial concentration of visitors can be related to their reasons for visiting a city, and our own research does show that different types of heritage tourists do, in fact, visit distinct areas in the city. Admittedly, though, this relation is a rather weak one. While the serious heritage tourists do visit distinct areas in the city, such as secondary heritage sites at the borders of the historic city (for instance the Bonnefantenmuseum), it was expected that the paths taken by this group would differ more markedly than they actually do from those of, for example, the sightseeing heritage tourists. The tracks of the latter group are mostly located in the tourists-historic city, where they visited the main tourist sights and some secondary heritage sites. The accidental heritage tourists and the incidental heritage tourists both visited only a limited part of the city and a couple of heritage sites. With a few exceptions, their tracks are mostly located in a distinct area within the main touristic zone, and, overall, the areas visited by the latter two groups were more or less the same. There are some clusters that were visited primarily by one type of heritage tourist, but the tracks of the different types of heritage tourists display quite a bit of overlap. In general, then, the relationship between type of heritage tourist and the area visited in the historic city is rather weak. In the end, it is not possible to link any one cluster to just one specific type of heritage tourist.
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Conclusion This study offers several contributions to the theoretical investigation of heritage tourism. First, the results indicate that there are various reasons for visiting a city in which heritage can be found. Respondents (i.e. heritage tourists coming to Maastricht) are classified based on their reasons for visiting Maastricht and on the importance of heritage as a motivating factor. It appears that many shades of heritage tourists exist, with the spectrum ranging from recreational tourists who happen to participate in some cultural tourism activity to those who travel primarily to see heritage sites. The number of respondents visiting Maastricht for sightseeing reasons was relatively large, but only some respondents were motivated primarily by heritage. It can also be concluded that heritage tourists do not form a homogeneous group; there is wide variation in the level of their engagement with and interest in heritage sites. While the usefulness of classifying heritage tourists into different types seems to be quite limited, to a certain degree it does help us to understand the behaviour of these groups. Inspired by previous research, our own research assumes that differences in the level of interest in heritage do influence tourists’ decisions to visit certain places, which are then reflected in their visiting patterns. In order to identify those general visiting patterns, we analysed GPSsignals. It appears that the main touristic space is highly concentrated. The so-called, tourist-historic city is “the place to be” for heritage tourists, while other interesting, but slightly peripheral, clusters of heritage sites (e.g. the inner harbour) seem much less attractive to heritage tourists. The historic inner city of Maastricht does have a distinct heritage product which attracts many heritage tourists, but it appears to be thriving at the expense of other heritage sites, especially those on the outskirts of the city. Moreover, it appears that specific clusters can be identified within the tourist-histoirc city. As noted above, the analysis of the GPS-signals shows that the primary tourist space is highly concentrated. The use of GPS-data also makes it possible to identify less visited areas which are presumably less attractive to heritage tourists. An understanding of the different heritage components that attract heritage tourists is neither a goal in itself nor a purely academic exercise; it is a resource that can help us to make proactive decisions about new touristic uses of heritage sites, to improve sustainable management of these sites, and to plan a coherent historic city (Jansen-Verbeke, 1998).
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Most case studies, this one included, have only limited potential for drawing general conclusions and giving practical recommendations to local authorities. Still, such research holds some clues about what small-scale improvements are worth making, like signposting for certain routes through the historic city or the drawing up of plans for weak links, where tourists could get more clues on where to find places of interest in the historic city. The results of the current study can therefore be a useful source for city planners and policymakers seeking to improve their plans for the future development of heritage sites by helping them meet the needs and demands of different types of tourists. Beyond this, the results of the study could assist tour operators and urban-tourism developers and marketers to establish appropriate routes for their customers which will better reflect the latter’s interests. As in all research, this study has a number of limitations. Most prominent among these is the low number of respondents. Obviously, the results and, most likely, the scientific value of this research would have been different with a larger number of respondents. Another limitation is that this research focuses only on one specific type of users of heritage – heritage tourists. Moreover, the reliability of the GPS-data and the way that data is interpreted and shown in maps have limitations that should be taken into account. In addition, the influence of time- and place-specific circumstances (i.e. confounding variables), as well as the sensitivity of respondents to environmental issues, need to be considered. Furthermore, it became clear that there is a certain discrepancy between self-assigned or intentional motives (i.e. the answers to the questionnaire) and actual behaviour, something which might have been influenced by the way the research was explained to the respondents. Future research should explore the link between the factors identified here and issues such as tourists’ expectations from a visit as well as their experiences during or after their visit. It would be interesting to ask respondents during or after their visit about their specific motivation for visiting a specific place. Furthermore, information about actual use of space should be linked to data about the time spent at a certain location in order to analyse in what way tourists “consume” a place. In other words, do they really experience a location or do they just pass by it? Finally, it should be noted that geo-referenced data are very useful in analysing the interaction between visitor and environment. This can help us understand the way heritage resources shape the dynamics of tourism. Success in this regard might be an incentive to continue this line of spatial research on cultural heritage, and this could help illuminate the multiple meanings the latter assumes in touristic, economic, and social contexts.
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References Ashworth, G. (1992). Heritage and Tourism: An argument, two problems and three solutions. In C. Fleischer-van Rooijen (ed.), Spatial Implications of Tourism (pp. 95-104). Groningen: Geo Pers. Ashworth, G., & Tunbridge, J. (1990). The Tourists-Historic City. London: Belhaven Press. Ashworth, G., & Tunbridge, J. (2000). The Tourists-Historic City: Retrospect and Prospect of Managing the Heritage City. Oxford: Pergamon. CBS (2016). Bevolking; kerncijfers. Retrieved from http://statline.cbs.nl: http:// statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37296NED&D1=14-18 &D2=0,10,20,30,40,50,(l-1)-l&VW=T , last accessed on June 20th, 2016. Cooper, C. (1981). Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Tourist Behaviour. Regional Studies, 15, 359-371. Debbage, K. (1991). Spatial Behaviour in a Bahamian Resort. Annals of Tourism Research, 18, 251-268. Dietvorst, A. (1994). Cultural Tourism and Time-Space Behaviour. In G. Ashworth, & P. Larkham (eds), Building a New Heritage: Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe (pp. 69-89). London: Routledge. Garrod, B., & Fyall, A. (2001). Heritage Tourism: A question of definition. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(4), 1049-1052. Graham, B., Ashworth, G., & Tunbridge, J. (2000). A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture and Economy. London: Arnold. Gorp, B. van (2003). Bezienswaardig?: Historisch-geografisch erfgoed in toeristische beeldvorming. Delft: Eburon. Gorp, B. van (2005). Erfgoed, cultuur en het toeristisch imago van steden. In H. Ernste, & F. Boekema (eds), De cultuur van de lokale economie, de economie van de lokale cultuur (pp. 157-178). Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum. Gorp, B. van, Kelder, T., & Leest, F. van (2006). Van de gebaande paden af: Informatie als effectieve vorm van visitor management in cultuurhistorische steden? Vrijetijdstudies, 24(2), 19-31. Isaac, R. (2008). Understanding the Behaviour of Cultural Tourists: Towards a classif ication of Dutch cultural tourists. Doctoral dissertation. Groningen: University of Groningen. Jansen-Verbeke, M. (1986). Inner-city Tourism: Resources, tourists and promotors. Annals of Tourism Research, 13(1), 79-100. Jansen-Verbeke, M. (1998). Tourismification of Historical Cities. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(3), 739-742. Jansen-Verbeke, M., & Lievois, E. (1999). Analysing Heritage Resources for Urban Tourism in European Cities. In D. Pearce, & R. Butler, Contemporary Issues in Tourism Development (pp. 81-107). London: Routledge.
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Jansen-Verbeke, M., & Lievois, E. (2008). Visiting Patterns in Historic Cityscapes: A case study in Ghent, Belgium. In M. Jansen-Verbeke, G. Priestley, & A. Russo (eds), Cultural Resources for Tourism: Patterns, Processes and Policies (pp. 17-29). New York: Nova Science Publishers. Lazrak, F., Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P., & Rouwendal, J. (2014). The Market Value of Cultural Heritage in Urban Areas: An application of spatial hedonic pricing. Journal of Geographical Systems, 16(1), 89-114. Lew, A., & McKercher, B. (2006). Modelling Tourists Movements: A local destination analysis. Annals of Tourism Research, 33(2), 403-423. Loon, R. van, Gosens, T., & Rouwendal, J. (2014). Cultural Heritage and the Attractiveness of Cities: Evidence from recreation trips. Journal of Cultural Economics, 38(3), 253-285. Lowenthal, D. (1996). The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McKercher, B. (2002). Towards a Classification of Cultural Tourists. International Journal of Tourism Research, 4(1), 29-38. Nguyen, T., & Cheung, C. (2014). The Classification of Heritage Tourists: A case of Hue City, Vietnam. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 9(1), 35-50. Poria, Y., Butler, R., & Airey, D. (2004). Links between Tourists, Heritage and Reasons for Visiting Heritage Sites. Journal of Travel Research, 43(1), 19-28. Prentice, R. (1993). Tourism and Heritage Attractions. London: Routledge. Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (2016). Monumentenregister RCE. Retrieved 21 March 2016 from http://monumentenregister.cultureelerfgoed.nl/php/main. php, last accessed on date. Shoval, N., & Raveh, A. (2004). Categorization of Tourist Attractions and the Modeling of Tourist Cities: Based on the co-plot method of multivariate analysis. Tourism Management, 25(6), 741-750. Silberberg, T. (1995). Cultural Tourism and Business Opportunities for Museums and Heritage Sites. Tourism Management, 16(5), 361-365. Smith, M. (2009). Issues in Cultural Tourism Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Stebbins, R. (1996). Cultural Tourism as Serious Leisure. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(4), 948-950. Timothy, D. (2011). Cultural Heritage and Tourism: An Introduction. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Urry, J. (2002). The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage.
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About the authors Karim van Knippenberg has a background in spatial planning. His personal interest in heritage made him decide to apply for the master’s programme in Heritage Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Next to this, he is currently finalising his master’s programme in Spatial Planning at the Wageningen University. Linde Egberts is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in Heritage Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she focuses on European and regional heritage, identities, landscapes, and tourism. She is the author and editor of books on international heritage revivals (Springer, 2014) and regional identity (Routledge, 2017).
10 The Construction of a Tourist-Historic Icon The case of the Palace of Westminster, London Linde Egberts and Renée Melgers
Egberts, Linde & Alvarez, Maria D. (eds), Heritage and Tourism: Places, Imageries and the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462985353/ch10 Abstract In this chapter we will assess the historical process by which the popularity of urban heritage attractions is constructed, based on the example of one of these famous tourist-historic icons, as we call them. We will examine this process from both a historical and a spatial perspective. The Palace of Westminster in London with its world-famous Big Ben clock serves as a case study. The main question of this chapter is: What is the relationship between the history of heritage sites and their sacralisation as tourist-historic icons, as illustrated by the Palace of Westminster in London? The development of the Palace of Westminster as a heritage site has resulted in a dynamic, but also consistent image over the course of the centuries, also during the rise of mass tourism and mass media. Based on MacCannell’s model of sacralisation of tourist attractions, we trace the five phases in the process of becoming a tourist-historic icon, ranging from naming, framing & elevation, and enshrinement, to mechanical reproduction and social reproduction. Our case study shows that the sacralisation process MacCannell describes does not exist separately from the heritagisation of historic sites. It shows that a site with a complex layering of historic, political, symbolic, and cultural meanings may reflect all five phases, though not in a linear order. We show how intertwined the historical development of this site is with its more recent sacralisation as a tourist attraction. The narratives and values that are communicated by markers like travel guides, films, and images on social media convey the image of the palace as the centre of a well-organised empire and of Britishness. These values were not invented for the purpose of attracting tourists.
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Rather, the narrative of the Palace of Westminster as a tourist-historic icon confirms and builds upon the values long associated with the site. Keywords: tourist-historic icon, MacCannell, World Heritage, Palace of Westminster
Introduction Urban centres have been a focal point for travellers since the early days of tourism, starting with medieval pilgrimages to important religious centres such as Rome. Then, from the late seventeenth century onwards, the Grand Tour became popular: an educational tour through Europe encompassing the highlights of (mainly classical) Western art and culture. Initially, only young noblemen made these tours, but beginning in the eighteenth century it also became a popular practice among the wealthy bourgeoisie (Urry, 2011, p. 4-5). Cities have remained much-loved destinations, with heritage forming the core of their tourist appeal. In more recent times, mass tourism in historic urban centres intensified in the 1970s in many Western European countries, led by Great-Britain (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000, p. 54-55). Tourists visit historic cities nowadays for two main reasons: historic urban cores represent the past, creating a counterweight to the rapid changes in modern society; and their distinctive architectural heritage offers “authentic” historical and cultural experiences, in stark contrast to modern, international architecture and urban design movements (Gospodini 2001, p. 928). Tourist attractions do not become famous overnight; their popularity often has a long history. They have been described and depicted in letters, paintings, books, travel guides, novels, films, blogs, and so forth, swelling a set of mental images that are reproduced time and again. Moreover, the popularity of these representations has influenced the ways in which historical heritage sites have been preserved, altered, and appropriated (Melgers, 2016). In this chapter we will assess the historical process by which the popularity of urban heritage attractions is constructed, based on the example of one of these famous tourist-historic icons, as we call them. We will examine this process from both a historical and a spatial perspective. Although MacCannell (2013, p. 44, 45) proposed an influential theory of how sites turn into touristic attractions, only a limited amount of research has been done on actual “icons” based on these theories (Richards, 2001, p. 15; Barthes & Lavers, 1972, p. 111). Moreover, the existing literature has not yet clarified how the historical development of heritage sites contributes to their transformation into icons.
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The Palace of Westminster in London with its world-famous Big Ben clock is a particularly interesting case study, since London is the fourth most visited city in the world (London and Partners, 2016). To understand how heritage sites become icons, this chapter focuses on the following question: What is the relationship between the history of heritage sites and their sacralisation as tourist-historic icons, as illustrated by the Palace of Westminster in London? Drawing on a substantial body of historical, heritage, and tourism studies, we start by discussing the theoretical framework for the main concepts we will use. Following an introduction of the case study, we recount how Westminster Palace has evolved into the highly prized urban heritage site it is today. We also describe how the palace (together with its Big Ben) has become a major tourist attraction, aided by its representation in the arts and media. Lastly, we conclude that the history of the Palace of Westminster as a heritage site and our mental image of it are inextricably linked; that is why it has become what we call a tourist-historic icon.
Theoretical framework Due to the worldwide increase in numbers of travellers and a growing appreciation of heritage in the last thirty years tourism has made a huge impact on the historic cityscape. This change has brought about the emergence of what geographers Ashworth and Tunbridge call the tourist-historic city. Their evolutionary model analyses how functions in the city become separated, resulting in a commercial city and a historical city. This process encompasses a re-evaluation of the “historic-architectural heritage” within the city and of the city’s preservation policies (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000, pp. 2-3, 48-49). As increasing numbers of tourists visit them, cities begin to function in a different way, changing spatially as well as socially and culturally. The notion of the tourist-historic city is of fundamental importance to this chapter, and therefore we devote part of our attention to the spatial aspects of urban heritage that attract tourism. But we also consider the history of representation, a topic closely bound up with this same notion. We thus concentrate more on iconic urban heritage sites than on historic cities. An icon, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration” (2016). It is opposed to the concept of symbol, which is “a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional – so that this relationship must be agreed upon and learned”.
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The icon concept suggests a strong relationship between what is presented (the signifier) and what is represented (the signified) (Chandler, 2002, p. 36). By employing this concept, we suggest that there is a relationship between the physical heritage site and the mental image of tourist attractions. However, in tourism studies that are influenced by semiotics, researchers take the opposite position. In line with Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality (1994), Richards argues that tourist attractions are the ultimate examples of symbols in modern society, because they are removed from their historical context and placed within the tourist’s practice (Richards, 2001, p. 15). Working from the perspective of semiotics, MacCannell (2013, p. 110) proposes the following model for understanding tourist attractions: Semiotics: [represents / something / to someone] sign Tourist attraction: [marker / site / tourist] attraction
In this scheme the marker plays an important role, because it is what connects the site with the tourist, leading to its development into an attraction. MacCannell defines a marker as information given within a range of media about a specific site, and he argues that tourists often see a marker before they see the actual site. Although MacCannell does not use the word icon, his analyses of what he calls sacralisation form a solid basis for understanding how touristic-heritage icons are constructed (2013, p. 110). MacCannell discerns several stages in the process of sacralisation by which a heritage site becomes a tourist-historic icon. He focuses not so much on changes to the site as on changes to the markers that refer to it. Therefore, MacCannell does not write about sites (the generally accepted practice in archaeology and heritage studies) but about sights. His stages are: 1 Naming: Marking out a sight as being more worthy than others of being seen or visited. This involves processes of authentication in which experts define the value of an attraction; 2 Framing and elevation: Placing an off icial boundary around an attraction; 3 Enshrinement: A special setting created for veneration; 4 Mechanical reproduction: Representation of a site in photographs, postcards and guides – indicating the moment when it becomes perceived as something to be visited; 5 Social reproduction: The naming of other places and groups after a sight. (MacCannell, 2013, p. 44-45)
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The urban researcher Konrad (2010, p. 229) argues that mental images of icons are constructed as “unique abstractions of the reality”. She suggests that the main semiotic level of a tourist attraction is its shape; based on the latter tourists create an abstract image of the icon, thereby making a place recognisable. Tourists perceive these unique iconic shapes as attractions (Konrad, 2010, p. 228-230). Other academics have linked the construction of representations of cities to the construction of a space. Boyer, for example, considers the entire city to be a system of representation that is built up from representational forms: “Representational forms are metonymic figures in which one element is taken for the whole”. “Through a process of inversion, these figures of a static order, a totalizing gaze, and a decomposed image become an accepted way of seeing, knowing, and representing the city” (1994, p. 33). Boyer argues that we perceive a city principally through these representational figures. Icons can thus be conceived of as examples of the representational forms that people utilise to create a mental image of a place. In her book The City of Collective Memory, Boyer describes cities as highly constructed entities created with certain aims, for example attracting visitors. She claims that cities try to offer the visitor an experience in the cityscape. To her this is “inseparable from the representational images” which help to create a personal perception of a city that is constantly changing (Boyer, 1994, p. 32). According to Boyer, sites are thus deliberately created with the aim of influencing the visitor’s mental image of a city. The connection that Boyer makes between the physical-spatial world and the mental image is similar to the one that the urban planner Kevin Lynch described in his book The Image of the City. He states that a city has a certain degree of imageability, defined as “quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer” (Lynch, 1960, p. 9). His concept can be applied to an entire city, as well as to a specific space, area, or building. Lynch thinks that these images are mentally constructed as “the result of a two-way process between the observer and his environment” (1960, p. 6) and that they can be manipulated by city planners and other interested groups to steer the construction of a city in a specific direction.
Case study The fit between mental images of places in a city and their physical appearance is the focus of this article. We chose London as our case study as it is the European city with the most overnight visitors (Gemeente Amsterdam,
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Figure 10.1 Site demarcation used in this study
Adapted from Google Maps by Bert Brouwenstijn
2015, p. 49) and the fourth most visited city in the world – it received 12.2 million holiday visits in 2014 (London & Partners, 2016). In particular, we examine the iconic meaning of the Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, which together constitute the most historically, politically, and culturally layered heritage site in Britain, one with very few parallels anywhere in the world (Brindle, 2015). Big Ben is the common name for the Elisabeth Tower, the palace’s northern tower, named after its Great Bell. The complex, a highly important symbolic site, is the dominant subject of photographs of the city (Stevenson & Inskip 2010, p. 107-8). Moreover, Westminster Palace has gained the highest status possible for a monument: that of UNESCO World Heritage site, acknowledgement of its outstanding universal value for humankind. The site of the Palace of Westminster is defined in several different ways. The UNESCO World Heritage site consists of two separate areas, including the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, and St Margaret’s Church (according to the UNESCO map of 2008). The City of Westminster uses a much broader demarcation, covering the area running along the Thames from Bridge Street, Great George Street, and Old Queen Street in the north to as far south as the Lambeth Bridge, encompassing Parliament Square and the Victoria Gardens (according to the Westminster City Council Conservation Areas map of 2013). In order to narrow our research focus to the building itself, we define the Palace of Westminster site as the area along the Thames which includes Westminster Bridge, the Palace of Westminster, Bridge Street, Parliament Square, Abingdon Street, and the Victoria Gardens (Figure 10.1).
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Westminster is an intensely used area. Its primary function is governmental: the Palace is the seat of the two Houses of Britain’s Parliament as well as of other governmental bodies, and 6,500 officials and politicians work in or close to the site (Westminster World Site Management Plan Steering Group, 2007, p. 74). The area is also home to a religious institution of national importance, namely Westminster Abbey, where three public services are held daily and where ceremonies involving the royal family, including weddings and funerals, also take place. In addition, within its boundaries one finds an educational institution, the Westminster School, which lies just south of the Abbey precinct, and finally, about 30 houses, according to the Abbey’s website. The public space is used predominantly by tourists, who make 1.4 million visits per year to the four main attractions within this World Heritage site. 70% of them visit Westminster Abbey and 22% the Palace of Westminster (the other two attractions are the Chapter House and Pyx Chamber, and the Jewel Tower; see Westminster World Site Management Plan Steering Group, 2007, p. 76). Observations we made on the street reveal that a large number of people do not go into any of these buildings, being satisfied to stay outside and view the buildings’ exteriors. There is considerable automobile traffic around Parliament Square in front of Westminster Palace, where several roads meet.
The construction of the Palace of Westminster as a layered heritage site Our historical overview of the development of Westminster Palace as a heritage site is based on recent historical and architectural-historical scholarship (Rodwell & Tatton-Brown, 2015; Shepherd, 2012), as well as on a study of current policy concerning the area (Westminster World Site Management Plan Steering Group, 2007). We highlight the cultural-historic characteristics of the site, seeking to understand how the palace functions now, as well as its spatial construction over time. Archaeological findings prove that the Westminster area has been in use since the Roman period and most likely before. The history of the site as we know it today, however, begins in early medieval times, when a small church was built on an island in the Thames River, and functioned as a suburb of nearby London. In the tenth century a Benedictine Abbey was constructed on the remains of the parish church and a settlement developed there. The area’s importance increased during the reign of King Edward
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the Confessor (1003-1066), who rebuilt the Benedictine Abbey and created a palace for himself. Edward was the first king to be buried in the Abbey, and this signalled the beginning of the relationship between the church and the crown at Westminster (Shepherd, 2012, p. 12). After Edward’s death, his successors bolstered their claim to legitimacy by reusing this site for coronations and as a residence (Shepherd, 2012). The appropriation of heritage to legitimise royal power had begun, and it continued with the gradual expansion of state functions in Westminster. This led to extensions of the settlement around the royal grounds. Merchants began to arrive and markets started to take place in the area (Croot, 2014, p. 88-89). When Henry VIII (1491-1547) decided to live elsewhere, Westminster, after five centuries as the royal residence, became, instead, the administrative centre of England. In the turmoil occurring after the Church became Anglican, Henry preserved Westminster Abbey, turning it into a cathedral and tightening the bond between royal and religious power even further. Despite gradual expansions in the course of the centuries, the Palace of Westminster remained an ensemble of mainly medieval buildings until 1834, when a fire destroyed most of the palace. A new parliamentary complex was planned, and a national competition was held for the design of the New Palace of Westminster in “Gothic or Elizabethan” style, in line with the Gothic revival of that period, which was strongly associated with Britain’s national identity (Kostof, Castillo, & Tobias, 1995, p. 572). The winning design, by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, fit in well with the nineteenth-century approach to city planning, which considered its task to be comparable to making a work of art. The result sought was a well-defined work, with strong scenographic qualities and an iconography aimed at educating the elite and elevating its morals (Boyer, 1994, p. 34). Barry and Pugin paid tribute to the centuries-old heritage of royal power by incorporating more of the remaining parts of the old palace into the new design than the guidelines prescribed (Brindle, 2015). The building can thus be understood as a representation of nineteenth-century British nationalism. The choice of neo-Gothic style for the new palace made a deliberate connection with the Gothic style of Westminster Abbey, one of the most important monuments of medieval England. That choice also made a clear connection with the monarchy. This visual link, established by the use of a similar architecture in both buildings and emphasised by clearing the area between the two buildings, created a site that was understood to be the absolute centre of the nation and empire. Thus, at this point in the
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nineteenth century the present heritage site established its characteristic look and added an extra layer of meaning (Brindle, 2015). Since a new political centre was needed after the fire of 1834, the building of the current Palace of Westminster was a highly anticipated process. Its construction at a location which, on several levels, linked it with the old palace and with Westminster Abbey placed it at the centre of the English nation, exemplifying Boyer’s contention that architecture and its structure is ordered in such a way as to reveal the rationally organised state through its compositional form (1994, p. 34). During the thirty years of the construction of the palace, the area around it was transformed: the slums between Westminster Abbey and the palace were cleared, making way for what became Parliament Square. This transformation continued in tandem with infrastructural developments, such as Victoria Street (1845-1851) and a new Westminster Bridge (1862). The buildings between the palace and the new bridge were also cleared in 1866. Finally, the old buildings and wharves on the south side of the palace were demolished (1880-1912), and the Victoria Gardens were developed (Figure 10.2), creating a modern governmental centre in Westminster. No further major spatial transformations occurred in the area until the Second World War. After the air raid of 1941, restoration work on the Palace of Westminster and its surroundings was largely in response to the challenges posed by modern society. In the 1950s and 1960s, for example, space was created for automobile traffic (City of Westminster, 2008, p. 20-21). Within the last twenty years no new construction has been initiated with the exception of Portcullis House, built on the other side of Bridge Street in 2001.
Sacralisation of the Palace of Westminster The spatial and architectural development of the Palace of Westminster and the accompanying process of its heritagisation – through which it came to be considered a site worth preserving, restoring, and consuming (McCrone, Morris, & Kiely, 1995) – are intertwined with its sacralisation as a tourist attraction. In order to understand the process during which the Palace of Westminster turned into a tourist-historic icon, we utilise the five phases of sacralisation described by MacCannell (1999, p. 44-45). In the case of Westminster Palace, however, these stages do not always follow the sequence outlined in his model. This is because the history of the site’s heritagisation begins much earlier than modern tourism does.
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Phase 1: Naming The Palace of Westminster attained its status as a national monument in 1970, and in 1987 it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site based on its symbolic and historical significance, first, as the location of coronations over nine centuries and, second, as an excellent example of neo-Gothic architecture (UNESCO, n.d.). These nominations can be considered off icial recognition of the site’s historical value. As is generally the case for heritage sites (Bourdeau, Gravari-Barbas, & Robinson, 2015), once the palace was listed as a World Heritage site, it became an even bigger tourist destination. Long before the preservation of monuments became professionalised and institutionalised there existed a tradition of representing the Palace of Westminster – in paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs of all sorts, including works by famous painters like Claude Monet (1899-1901). These markers have strengthened its public image and made it visible to a wide audience extending far beyond those who visit the site in person. People use the Palace of Westminster, together with St Paul’s Cathedral, as a principal landmark for orientating themselves in London, and it is an important component of the city’s identity (Mayor of London, 2012, p. 29-30). Thus, the city’s “imageability” is closely linked with the palace, and it affects how people perceive the entire city – both large areas of the inner city and areas beyond it, as well, thanks to the existence of guidelines restricting buildings’ heights in order to protect views of important landmarks. This process started with the formation of a stereotypical depiction of the palace from the South Bank, across the Thames. This façade was visible from public space, while the area around the palace itself was closed off by gates and by the river from the “normal” people (Sawyer, 2003, p. 239) (Figure 10.2). That perspective remained dominant throughout the history of the palace, especially following the construction of the second bridge over the Thames, in the 1750s; this increased traffic over the river to the Westminster area, which at the same time was made accessible to the public. The new palace’s architects, Barry and Pugin, made a deliberate choice to maintain this sightline across the river; thus, the façade is visible in all its length, revealing in one look the massive size of the building (Mayor of London, 2007, p. 47). Recently, a walking route has been developed to showcase this historic viewing point (Figure 10.3).
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Figure 10.2 Westminster Hall in 1647 across the river, painting by Wenzel Hollar. Westminster from the river, state 2 (n.d.)
Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons
Figure 10.3 Tourists walking on the Westminster Bridge towards Westminster Palace
Photo by Renée Melgers
Phase 2: Framing and elevation In the second phase, a location is officially declared a significant site. In this process an area is clearly demarcated and considered as a single unit. The designations of the Palace of Westminster as a monument of national and, later, of international status are of, course, key moments in the recognition of the site as worth protecting and, indirectly, worth visiting. When the Palace of Westminster, as part of the bigger World Heritage site, was listed in 1987, its outstanding universal values were described using
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well-established terms. They also draw on the same mental images that guidebooks have been using since the nineteenth century. The image of the palace as a representation of the nation-state is bolstered by descriptions of the royal family and by references to its location as the birthplace of the parliamentary system. Overviews of the lives of kings and queens are often given, including their contributions to the site and important events during their reigns, such as decapitations and trials. Most of these events occurred before the building of the new palace in 1834, demonstrating that this connection goes back to the Middle Ages (see for example William Collins Sons & Co., 1877; Thompson, 1861; Thomas Cook, 1861; John Murray, 2003). According to the UNESCO designation: With their intricate silhouettes, [the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church] have symbolized monarchy, religion and power since Edward the Confessor built his palace and church on Thorney Island in the 11th century AD. Changing through the centuries, they represent the journey from a feudal society to modern democracy and show the intertwined history of church, monarchy and state (UNESCO, n.d.).
This description frames the area as a focal point of monarchy, religion, and power since medieval times and designates this symbolic representation as the site’s most important aspect. During the period when the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt, London was the centre of the British Empire, then at its height, making Westminster the centre of a worldwide empire. This exalted position was mentioned in various historical travel books. For example: “Here we are at the very core of the British Empire. From this centre radiate all the arteries and pulsations which set in motion the life of a thousand colonies”; “… and here have been enacted the scenes of such vital importance to the entire human race” (Thompson, 1861, p. 14). And: “Parliament is the mainspring of the British system, and its action or example bears directly on the life of every subject in the Empire” (Byron, 1937, p. 16). The Palace of Westminster came to represent the nineteenth century’s Anglo-centric way of looking at the world and the desire of the British to create a grand and just Empire: “It [the new Palace of Westminster] was a masterpiece, symbolizing a strong nation’s confidence in the future” (Nicholson, 1990, p. 82). And: “The city’s finest Victorian edifice and a symbol of a nation once confident of its place at the centre of the world, it’s best viewed from the south side of the river, where the likes of Monet and Turner
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once set up their easels” (Cook & Humphreys, 2015, p. 49). After the Second World War, the guidebook entries no longer go into these matters in detail; taking it for granted that the reader is aware of them, they offer only summaries. The Palace of Westminster has thus become a symbol for many of the values that represent the British nation and that require no elaboration. These are the explicit and implicit messages conveyed to tourists today, but they were also perceived by travellers who visited the city in the early days of mass tourism. In the nineteenth century, for example, travellers flocked to the city from other European countries, as well as from the British colonies (Burton, 1998; Parsons, 1998; Morgan, 2008). Phase 3: Enshrinement The third phase, the enshrinement of a site, occurs when it is placed into a certain context that gives it an added value (MacCannell, 2013, 45). In our case, new streets, squares, and parks were laid out on the different sides of the palace and the abbey. And a visual link was created between the palace and the abbey when “the original face of the building (was) restored to public view”; this led to renewed public interest in Gothic architecture as the style of the nation, crown, and ecclesiastical power (Sawyer, 2003, p. 245). This was the period when the state developed the area around the palace in a way that would make it representative of the entire country, thus marking the site as especially worthy of a visit. Thanks to the comprehensive approach taken during the clearing of slums and in designing the new Palace of Westminster, the area came to be perceived as a single spatial entity, and thus a clearly demarcated site. At the same time, it became the national centre, constructed in the national architectural style, the Gothic. This built upon the meaning the palace already possessed as a governmental and royal centre and helped turn it into a shrine for the nation, encompassing its three pillars: church, monarchy, and parliamentary power. This can be seen as the moment when the palace entered MacCannell’s third phase. The representational function of the palace as the centre of English democracy is reflected in the guidebooks we studied. For example: “The New Palace of Westminster, worthy home of the Mother of Parliaments, dates only from the middle of the nineteenth century. But from time immemorial Westminster has been the centre of our national life” (Cassell, 1906, p. 54). And: “She is the mother of free institutions. She remains their strength and shelter” (Byron, 1937, p. 8). These quotes indicate how the building itself and the function it serves are presented as valued institutions in today’s Great Britain.
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Phase 4: Mechanical reproduction In MacCannell’s fourth phase of sacralisation the site or object becomes a subject of mechanical reproduction. As we already discussed, the view of the palace from across the Thames has long presented it as the political and religious centre of the empire. This imagery has been almost seamlessly taken over in what MacCannell calls tourism markers: travel guides and postcards, at first, and then films, such as Walt Disney’s Peter Pan (1953), Mary Poppins (1964), and James Bond films (1964, 1969, 2006, and 2015). The UNESCO description of the palace, in which it is accorded outstanding universal value, includes not only sights but also sounds. Since 1923, the chimes of Big Ben have been heard every New Year’s Eve on BBC World Radio, and throughout the Second World War they were broadcast as a sign that London was still free. Now the chimes are broadcast every day on the BBC. According to a recent policy statement: “The clock tower, the clock, the bell, ‘Big Ben’ itself, and the sound of the bell’s chimes are one of the pre-eminent symbols of Britain, visual and aural shorthand for the whole country” (Westminster World Site Management Plan Steering Group, 2007, p. 100). A similar assessment can be found in a UNESCO document: “The iconic silhouette of the ensemble is an intrinsic part of its identity, which is recognized internationally with the sound of ‘Big Ben’ being broadcast regularly around the world” (UNESCO, n.d.). In popular culture and media, the meaning of the Big Ben reaches far beyond its location. During the Second World War, its chiming symbolised the undisturbed continuity of “business as usual” internationally (Butler, 2006, p. 169). It also served as the fixed, external time in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1928, p. 66). In addition to the mechanical reproduction of the famous chimes, the practice of taking photographs of the Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster developed with the increased tourism following the Second World War. In its typology and framing, it drew on the centuries-long tradition of depicting the palace, particularly from the riverbanks. These photos have long been shared in photo albums, and now online sharing on platforms like Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, and Snappchat has accelerated the reproduction of the Big Ben as an icon of London. For example, Instagram shows over 2.1 million pictures tagged with #bigben, whereas #eiffeltower results in 3 million pictures and #reichstag 150.000 (on 21 December 2016). As these images are part of a long tradition of depicting the palace and particularly the Big Ben, they explicitly and implicitly communicate the values associated with democracy, continuity, power, and imperialism. In these photos, the Big Ben often appears as part
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of a lively, busy downtown London, yet its silhouette and clock also seem to point beyond their local spatial context. Phase 5: Social reproduction Within the phase of social reproduction, other objects or places name themselves after the attraction in question (MacCannell, 2013, p. 45). In the case of the Palace of Westminster, this is particularly true of brands that present themselves as being quintessentially British. HP Brown Sauce, for example, dates as far back as 1895 and is named after the Houses of Parliament. Its label boasts the traditional image of the palace as seen from the Thames. Far more popular than the palace is the iconic Big Ben; among the products named for it are a brand of pipes, clothing for boxers, and a shoe polish. Recently, Pimm’s – a popular British drink – was a sponsor of the ongoing restoration of the palace in return for having its logo placed on the clock face of the Big Ben. These examples illustrate the broad scope of the social reproduction of the Palace of Westminster and its tower, just as they reinforce the values of Britishness that are associated with it and that date to the era before the emergence of mass tourism.
The Palace of Westminster as a tourist-historic icon Unlike what has occurred in many other historic cities, in London its tourist areas have for the most part not become spatially separated from its political and economic centre (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 2000). The Palace of Westminster has remained in the heart of the city – and, as we have seen, at the heart of the British nation – in the course of its development into a tourist-historic icon. Our case study shows that the sacralisation process MacCannell describes for tourist attractions does not exist separately from the heritagisation of historic sites. It also shows that a site with a complex layering of historic, political, symbolic, and cultural meanings may reflect all five phases that MacCannell outlines, though not in a neat, linear order. We see clearly how deeply intertwined the historical development of this site is with its more recent sacralisation as a tourist attraction. The narratives and values that are communicated by markers like travel guides, films, and images on social media convey the image of the palace as the centre of a well-organised empire and of Britishness. These values were, of course, not invented for the purpose of attracting tourists. Rather, the narrative of the Palace of Westminster as a tourist-historic icon confirms and builds upon the values long promoted at the site.
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MacCannell’s model analyses the sacralisation of sights, but it does not show how the sacralisation process results in changes in their physical organisation. Several recent developments have influenced the spatial layout of the Westminster area. The multiple functions it serves – as a political and religious centre, as well as a traffic hub – result in the intensive use of public space, which requires constant attention and management. In this regard, the work of Kevin Lynch (1960) can be illuminating, especially his notion of imageability, that is to say, the ability of a place to evoke an image in somebody. The different groups of people responsible for constructing an area, such as urban planners and architects, can create a space with a high imageability. The importance of the latter in our case is obvious; indeed, it is officially confirmed by the London View Management Framework, which is designed to protect views within London. The views of the Palace of Westminster from across the Thames are prominently mentioned in it, and, in any case, its World Heritage status requires that such views be protected (Mayor of London, 2012, p. 41, 160-163, 170-173, 182-186). Measures such as a buffer zone around the World Heritage site and a pedestrian zone around the palace can also be interpreted as ways of strengthening its imageability. They have been developed partly out of concern for the safety of users confronted by the constant traffic, but they are also aimed at improving the visitor experience, thus safeguarding the imageability of the palace and its Big Ben. All this concurs with Boyer’s assertion that cities are constructed spaces composed of representational figures that are deliberately organised to create a particular experience for those who look at these spaces (1994, p. 32-33). Although we observed that in the last two phases of MacCannell’s model for the sacralisation of sights – those of mechanical reproduction and social reproduction – the Big Ben has come to play the main role, we did not devote much attention to its spatial, cultural, or historical contexts. Our material simply does not permit us to draw clear conclusions in this regard. However, it does seem that the Palace of Westminster can be considered a tourist-historic icon, while the Big Ben might have become so detached from its context that it is gradually becoming a symbol, in other, words, that it does not resemble what it refers to but is purely conventional (Chandler, 2002, p. 36). If this is true, then the Big Ben can be said to symbolise the city of London and values and ideas like democracy, Britishness, imperialism, and the passing of time, even for those who do not know it is part of the Palace of Westminster. Further research into the representational history of the palace could clarify in what ways the image of the Big Ben has begun to float in hyperreality and could help determine whether it remains primarily
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a historic place in the urban fabric of London that can be visited and gazed upon.
Conclusion This study contributes to the understanding of the development of the Palace of Westminster as a tourist-historic icon; at the same time, it provides an example of how sites with long heritage traditions have turned into touristic attractions, creating a reference point for other cases worldwide. The findings of this study could prove useful in informing policy and city planning. The scope of this research is limited, however, leaving out many aspects that could have helped furnish a clearer picture or a more nuanced conclusion. Among other things, it would have been useful to include an analysis of the behaviour of individual tourists and the ways in which it is linked to representational practices. One example of this can be found in the work of Sander van der Drift (2015), which offers insights into how tourists in Amsterdam move through the city, based on the photographs they uploaded onto social media. This resulted in “heat maps” revealing how tourists frame the city and transform their on-site experiences into online representations that, in turn, could influence our mental images of the city. Our research method could be relevant for the study of other touristicheritage icons, complementing other research methodologies that also shed light on the relationship between spatial characteristics of heritage in urban centres and their cultural representations (like the Sagrada Familia or the Eiffel Tower). On the other hand, whatever method is used, the results could be very different from those of our research, since Westminster has few parallels when it comes to its atypical mixture of tourist-historic and economic functions, as Ashworth & Tunbridge (2000) suggest. Moreover, the combination of political and ecclesiastical power with the strong imageability of the site’s architecture makes Westminster Palace even harder to compare with other tourist-historic icons. The broad historical span of this chapter combined with its interdisciplinary approach obliged us to refrain from examining some aspects of this subject in as much detail as they merit. One of the topics that we have not addressed is commodification: the process by which resources become objects of trade. Cultural heritage is often said to be commodified as it becomes a profitable tourist attraction (Meethan, 2011), and this certainly applies to Westminster Palace and, particularly, the Big Ben. One could
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argue that the fifth phase of MacCannell’s model – social reproduction – could also be interpreted as the phase of commercial reproduction. In fact, an important part of the social reproduction of the Palace of Westminster as a tourist-historic icon remains unexamined here: namely, the meanings and values this site has for its daily users and for the inhabitants of the surrounding area. One of the questions that remains unanswered is whether these users and inhabitants identify with the iconic image that is being reproduced, or whether they would offer more differentiated narratives.
References Ashworth, G.J., & Tunbridge, J.E. (2000). The Tourist-historic City: Retrospect and prospect of managing the heritage city (1st ed.). (Advances in tourism research series; Advances in tourism research series). Amsterdam: Pergamon. Barthes, R., & Lavers, A. (1972). Mythologies. New York: Hill & Wang. Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Bourdeau, L., Gravari-Barbas, M., & Robinson, M., (eds). World Heritage, Tourism and Identity: Inscription and co-production. Farnham: Ashgate. Boyer, M.C. (1994). The City of Collective Memory: Its historical imagery and architectural entertainments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Brindle, S. (2015). The New Palace of Westminster. In Rodwell, W., & Tatton-Brown, T.W.T. (eds), Westminster: The art, architecture and archaeology of the Royal Palace and Abbey. Part 2 (pp. 257-270) (British Archaeological Association conference transactions). Leeds: Maney. Burton, A. (1998). At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the colonial encounter in late-Victorian Britain (1st Indian ed.). New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Butler, R. (2006). Conceptual and Theoretical Issues (The tourism area life cycle, 2; Aspects of tourism, 28). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Byron, R. (1937). Imperial Pilgrimage . Westminster: London Trart. Cassell and Co. (1906). Cassell’s Guide to London: With 10 plans and numerous illustrations. London: Cassell. Chandler, D. (2002). Semiotics: The basics. London: Routledge. City of Westminster (2008). Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square Conservation Area Audit. Retrieved from http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/docstores/ publications_store/Westminster%20Abbey&Parliament%20Sq%20CAA%20 SPD%20small.pdf, 25 August 2017. Cook, S., & Humphreys, R. (2015). London (3rd edition). London: Rough Guides.
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Croot, P. (2014). A Place in Town in Medieval and Early Modern Westminster: The origins and history of the palaces in the strand. London Journal, 39(2), pp. 85-101. Drift, Sander van der (2015). Revealing Spatial and Temporal Patterns from Flickr Photography: A case study with tourists in Amsterdam. Master thesis Wageningen University. Gemeente Amsterdam (2015). Stad in balans. Retrieved from https://www.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/739542/stad_in_balans.pdf, 25 August 2017. Gospodini, A. (2001). Urban Design, Urban Space Morphology, Urban Tourism: An emerging new paradigm concerning their relationship. European Planning Studies, 9(7), pp. 925-34. John Murray (Firm) (2003). Murray’s modern London, 1860: A visitor’s guide. Moretonhampstead: Old House Books. Konrad, D. (2010). Collecting the Icon or: Semiotics of Tourism. In Richter, J. (ed.), The Tourist City Berlin: Tourism and architecture (pp. 226-34). Salenstein: Braun. Kostof, S.K., Castillo, G., & Tobias, R. (1995). A History of Architecture: Settings and rituals (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. London & Partners (2016). London Tourism Report 2014-2015. London: London & Partners. Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT. MacCannell, D. (2013). The Tourist: A new theory of the leisure class. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mayor of London (2007). The Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including St Margaret’s Church World Heritage Site Management Plan. Retrieved from https://www.westminster.gov.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/workspace/assets/ publications/westminsterplan-1374853002.pdf, 25 August 2017. Mayor of London (2012). London View Management Framework: Supplementary planning guidance. London: Mayor of London. McCrone, D., Morris, A., & Kiely, R. (1995). Scotland – The Brand: The making of Scottish heritage. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Meethan, K. (2011). Tourism in Global Society: Place, culture, consumption. New York: Palgrave. Melgers, R. (2016). Iconic Heritage: The Palace of Westminster. Constructing an icon out of sites and images. Master thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Morgan, C.L. (2008). “A Happy Holiday”: English Canadians and transatlantic tourism, 1870-1930. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Nicholson, L. (1990). London: Louise Nicholson’s definitive guide. London: Bodley Head. Oxford Dictionaries (2016). Icon. In Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries. com/definition/english/icon, 25 August 2017.
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Parsons, N. (1998). King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African eyes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Richards, G. (2001). Cultural Attractions and European Tourism. New York: CAB International. Rodwell, W., & Tatton-Brown, T.W.T. (2015). Westminster: The art, architecture and archaeology of the Royal Palace and Abbey. Part 2 (British Archaeological Association transactions). Leeds: Maney. Sawyer, S. (2003). Delusions of National Grandeur: Reflections on the intersection of architecture and history at the Palace of Westminster, 1789-1834. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 13(1), pp. 237-50. Shepherd, R. (2012). Westminster: A biography: from earliest times to the present. London: Bloomsbury. Stevenson, N., & Inskip, C. (2010). Seeing the Sites: Perceptions of London. In Maitland, R., & Ritchie, B.W. (eds), City Tourism: National capital perspectives (pp. 94-109). Cambridge: CAB International. The Picture of London for 1816: Being a correct guide to all the curiosities, amusements, exhibitions, public establishments, and remarkable objects, in and near London (17th ed.) (1816). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown. Thomas Cook (Firm) (1937). London: A combined guidebook & atlas. London: T. Cook & son. Thompson, A.B. (1861). The Visitor’s Universal New Pocket Guide to London: Arranged in daily routes, and descriptive of five hundred places of especial interest. Illustrated with numerous engravings. London: Ward and Lock. UNESCO (n.d.). Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including Saint Margaret’s Church. Retrieved 25 August 2017 from http://whc.unesco.org/en/ list/426, 25 August 2017. Urry, J. (2011). The Tourist Gaze (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. William Collins Sons & Co. (1877). Collins’ Illustrated Guide to London and Neighbourhood: Being a concise description of the chief places of interest in the metropolis, and the best modes of obtaining access to them: with information relating to railways, omnibuses, steamers, &c. London: W. Collins. Woolf, V. (1928). Mrs Dalloway. New York: Modern Library.
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About the authors Linde Egberts is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in Heritage Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she focuses on European and regional heritage, identities, landscapes, and tourism. She is the author and editor of books on international heritage revivals (Springer, 2014) and regional identity (Routledge, 2017). Renée Melgers has a background in Cultural Studies and holds a master in Heritage Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She currently works at Haarlem municipality on a large-scale heritage inventory project.
11 Conclusion Linde Egberts and Maria D. Alvarez This book has focused on the intricate but symbiotic relationship between heritage and tourism. As reviewed in the ten chapters included in this work, heritage feeds tourism with its stories and myths, ties to a past that is often glorious but may also be troubled and dark. This imagery is carried out and extended with the help of new technologies that play an intrinsic role in creating experiences for the consumption of the visitors. Thus, in cultural studies, geography, and cultural anthropology, heritage tourism is often framed and perceived as a quest for something authentic, as well as a means of escaping from modernity’s sense of alienation. It is associated with turning heritage into a spectacle, an exercise in staged authenticity – in other words, the replacement of a formerly vital tradition that is perceived as more authentic (MacCannell, 1973). Moreover, some believe that the processes of commodification pollute existing cultures (Meethan, 2011). This way of thinking leads Ashworth & van Vroger to assert that “heritage is important to tourism but tourism is not important to heritage” (Ashworth & van Vroger, 2005, p. 196). Without denying such processes of heritagisation and commodification, we regard this nostalgia and this anxiety about loss of authenticity inherent to what MacDonald calls the memory phenomenon, which encompasses various ways of giving the past a place in the present, whether the vehicle for this be history, memory, or heritage (MacDonald, 2013). The contributions in this book suggest that the relationship between heritage and tourism is more complex than the one Ashworth & van Vroger (2005) perceive. The introduction points out some of the elements that enter into it, and our contributors reflect more deeply on various aspects of this complex connection, which is also the subject of the Heritage Tourism and Hospitality International Conference series that gave rise to this volume. While we have looked at the role and support that heritage bestows on tourism, the book also contends that tourism has the potential to give meaning to heritage resources. As such, the attention of tourists to local heritage can be a source of communal pride, an acknowledgement of local traditions and practices on the part of a wider audience. Tourists become that audience, creating a stage for self-representation before a group of outsiders (Cohen, 1988) and helping to generate a positive shift in how local communities see themselves and their pasts (Salazar & Zhu, 2015).
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As it appears from many contributions in the book, the Digital Age has manifold impacts on the intertwining of heritage and tourism. Firstly, it is clear that the information about heritage sites that is available to tourists has changed dramatically. Written as well as visual communication have drastically increased and changed in character with the development of the internet and new digital devices. New technologies offer many possibilities to tourism organisations for personalisation and customisation (Coşkun & Yılmaz, 2016). Chapter 7, for example, illustrates how the web environment gives rise to specific tourist offers that are created by adapting World Heritage sites to the varied characteristics of audiences from different backgrounds. Chapter 8 also explores the opportunities of customisation of heritage experiences by using digital technologies on the site itself. But these technologies of course are not only suitable to cater to the tourist’s needs. They also enable heritage professionals to tell new stories about heritage sites, or to present these places in different ways, thus conveying the complexity, layeredness, multi-vocality, and conflictedness of heritage to visitors. Finding synergies and balance between co-creating engaging tourist experiences on the one hand, and nuance and historical correctness on the other, is one of the central challenges that heritage experts are faced with (Egberts & Bosma, 2014). Secondly, consumers have turned into prosumers in this era of digital information, which allows peer-to-peer and peer-to-mass interaction and enables individuals to create online content (Coşkun & Yılmaz, 2016). Tourists themselves have become important authors in narratives about heritage, as Chapter 6 illustrates in the case of Cusco, Peru, where individual travellers are studied as authors of a discourse on sustainability in heritage sites. By sharing their heritage experiences on social media, individual travellers personalise and adapt longstanding authorised narratives. The iconic imageries of heritage sites that circulate in digital media almost seem to have become detached from the physical places they refer to, as they circulate in a different reality of images referring to other images. It would require more investigation to analyse this in detail, but the outcomes of Chapter 10 suggest that these imageries do not only reinforce much older, authorised heritage narratives, but also influence the ways in which the physical heritage sites are designed, shaped, and managed. Thirdly, the Digital Age opens up many new possibilities for researchers to analyse the behaviour and appreciation of individual heritage tourists, be it online, during their heritage visit, or both. Chapter 9 addressed the opportunities of using geodata to map the spatial patterns of heritage tourists in historic city centres, which can yield important information for the management of these areas in the future.
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As discussed throughout the book, tourism takes on the role of defining the meaning and identity of the heritage, creating a specific interpretation and understanding of the past. It is through the process of crafting experiences for the tourists that a heritage-tourism destination invents itself and delineates its boundaries. This process is not always easy, and in some cases may give rise to contested interpretations and conflicts of the past. However, tourism provides an opportunity for heritage to engage in a self-reflecting exercise, a sketching of self.
Future areas for discussion While this work has touched on many topics that delineate the often conflicting relationship between heritage and tourism, there are other themes that emerge from this work and point to future areas in need of greater examination. As discussed, tourism and heritage are becoming increasingly engaged in a reciprocal relationship where each part benefits from the other. As such, tourism profits from an attractive offering for the visitors, while it, in turn, provides help in preserving the culture of the destination, generating income for the preservation of heritage assets and for a better quality of life for the local community (Aas et al., 2005; Keshodkar, 2015). However, achieving these benefits through tourism development is a complicated matter and requires institutional mechanisms that can address the relevant issues. In short, some governmental intervention is necessary, since, if permitted, market forces are more likely to promote private gain than the public interest (Fayos-Solà & Alvarez, 2014). Thus emerges the need to consider institutional aspects of this relationship in more detail. This need to ponder on institutional frameworks that may guide the operation of heritage sites derives from the fact that the nature of these places is fundamentally different from those found in general tourism (Garrod & Fyall, 2000). These differences of perspective influence the managers of heritage-tourism destinations, who often consider themselves guardians of the sites, responsible for their maintenance and conservation (Garrod & Fyall, 2000). However, as heritage sites become tourist destinations, managers come under increasing pressure to achieve goals different from those of conservation. In this regard, Garrod & Fyall (2000, p. 691) identify eight different elements in the mission of heritage attractions: conservation, accessibility, education, relevance, recreation, finances, community relations, and quality. Their managers may thus find themselves called upon to realise a variety of divergent and even contradictory objectives. Nigro,
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Iannuzzi, & Petracca (2016) hold that mere preservation is no longer sufficient: heritage-site managers should also attend to market dynamics, focusing on competitiveness, fundraising, and marketing objectives. While the book has briefly discussed the need for heritage managers to consider a diversity of viewpoints that different stakeholders may have, it has not discussed in any detail institutional issues pertaining to this topic. This is also an area in the literature that is in need of further investigations. While stakeholders’ collaboration in the creation of a unique identity for the heritage destination is discussed by authors such as Aas et al. (2005), there are scarce studies that mention the legal and institutional frameworks needed to manage the interaction between heritage and tourism. In addition, the book has mainly considered the benefits that tourism and heritage may derive from their mutual interaction, but has only to a lesser extent examined the downsides of this relationship. As such, the exposure of vulnerable objects and sites to large numbers of visitors can lead to excessive wear and other types of damage, caused, for example, by exposure to light, change of humidity, wandering feet, and curious hands. Heritage tourism also creates a need to provide drinks, food, tickets, souvenirs, rest rooms, trash bins, benches, and security exits, as well as facilities which may threaten the physical conditions of the site. Additionally, the convergence of heritage and tourism may result in visitors displacing the inhabitants from their neighbourhoods, or in threatening the fragile ecosystems of historic city centres and thus negatively impacting the residents’ quality of life. Conservationists, in particular, object to the negative effects of tourism on heritage sites (Salazar & Zhu, 2015), contending that heritage tourism often disregards conservation goals in favour of purely economic objectives (Nuryanti, 1996). Sometimes there are clashes between the preservation of heritage resources as public goods and the offer of attractive experiences to tourists, which is often handled by private firms (Nuryanti, 1996). Thus emerges the question of balance between the status of heritage as a public good and its potential to provide financial returns. This dilemma is definitely an area that is worth more investigation, as heritage-tourism destinations are striving to create a balance and invent solutions that can be of use to heritage managers in their new roles as both custodians and managers. Some of these matters have been addressed for World Heritage sites (Bourdeau et al., 2015), but need to be considered within a wider perspective. All in all, the book has delved into many topics that define the convoluted connection between heritage and tourism. As the past and its stories unfold
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themselves under the eyes of the visitors, so does history gain meaning through tourism. Nevertheless, a complex relationship such as that of heritage and tourism is not easily examined in a few chapters. Indeed, we hope that this volume serves as a building foundation for other works that will dig deeper into this topic.
References Aas, C., Ladkin, A., & Fletcher, J. (2005). Stakeholder Collaboration and Heritage Management. Annals of Tourism Research, 32(1), pp. 28-48. Ashworth, G., & Vroger, B. van (2005). Heritage and the Consumption of Places. In Laarse, R. van der & Vree, F. van (eds), Bezeten van vroeger. Erfgoed, identiteit en musealisering (pp. 193-206). Amsterdam: Spinhuis. Bourdeau, L., Gravari-Barbas, M. & Robinson, M. (eds) (2015). World Heritage, Tourism, and Identity: Inscription and co-production. Farnham: Ashgate. Cohen, E. (1988). Authenticity and Commoditization in Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 15(3), pp. 371-86. Coşkun İnci Oya, Yılmaz, H. & Esezgin, S.E. (2016). An Introduction to Consumer Metamorphosis in the Digital Age. In Sezkin, E., e-Consumers in the Era of New Tourism (pp. 1-12). Singapore: Springer. Egberts, L.R., & Bosma, K. (eds) (2014). Companion to European Heritage Revivals. Dordrecht: Springer. Fayos-Solà, E., & Alvarez, M.D. (2014). Tourism Policy and Governance for Development. In Fayos-Solà, E., Alvarez, M.D., & Cooper, C. (eds), Tourism as an Instrument for Development: A theoretical and practical study (pp. 101-24). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Garrod, B., & Fyall, A. (2000). Managing Heritage Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(3), pp. 682-708. Kaminski, J., Benson, A.M., & Arnold, D. (2014). Introduction. In Kaminski, J., Benson, A.M., & Arnold, D., Contemporary Issues in Cultural Heritage Tourism (pp. 3-18). Oxon: Routledge. Keshodkar, A. (2015). Local Consequences of Global Recognition: The “value” of World Heritage status for Zanzibar Stone Town. In Bourdeau, L., Gravas Barbas, M. & Robinson, M. (eds), World Heritage, Tourism and Identity: Inscription and co-production (pp. 93-106). Farnham: Ashgate. MacCannell, D. (1973). Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of social space in tourist settings. American Journal of Sociology, 79(3), pp. 589-603. MacDonald, S. (2013). Memorylands: Heritage and identity in Europe today. Abingdon: Routledge.
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McKercher, B., Ho, P.S., & du Cros, H. (2005). Relationship between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management: Evidence from Hong Kong. Tourism Management, 26(4), pp. 539-48. Meethan, K. (2011). Tourism in Global Society: Place, culture, consumption. New York: Palgrave. Nigro, C., Iannuzzi, E., & Petracca, M. (2016). The Governance Dynamics in Italian State Museums. In Alvarez, M.D., Go, F.M., & Yüksel, A. (eds), Heritage Tourism Destinations: Preservation, communication and development (pp. 154-68). Oxfordshire: CAB International. Nuryanti, W. (1996). Heritage and Postmodern Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(2), pp. 249-60. Ricci, A. & Yılmaz, A. (2016). Urban Archaeology and Community Engagement: The Küçükyalı ArkeoPark in Istanbul. In M. Alvarez, A. Yüksel & F. Go (eds), Heritage Tourism Destinations: Preservation, communication and development (41-62). Oxfordshire: CAB International. Salazar, N.B., & Zhu, Y. (2015). Heritage and Tourism. In Meskell, L. (ed.) Global Heritage: A reader (pp. 240-58). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Index Bold page numbers indicate figures, italic numbers indicate tables. 3D modelling of multilayered history 89-90 3D printed souvenirs active participation of visitors 154 authenticity 164-166 comments by participants on 162, 162-163 emotional engagement with 163-164, 164 engagement with production of participants 162 experiential impact 165-166 feelings towards of participants 163, 163 future research 166 individualisation of experience through 152 knowledge of, participants’ 161-162 maker culture 154 participants in research 161 personalisation of souvenirs 156-158 positive responses to 164-165 “Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs” (Serrano) 157 research design 158, 161 souvenirs defined 154-155 Stirling Castle research 153, 158, 159-161, 161 sustainability 166 tangibility of artefacts 154 technological determinism 153 A-Bomb Dome, Hiroshima 64, 65 A. Ahlström Ltd 99, 103-104 Aalto, Alvar 105 absence, musealisation of 43-44 Adhe, P. 156 Airey, D. 178 Amsterdam movement of tourists around 209 tourist guides 39-41 see also Anne Frank House Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl 43 Anne Frank House 40 delocalisation of 42-48, 44, 45 Antelj, K. 157 appropriation 17-18 Byzantine heritage 86 dynamic process of 47 Fethiye Mosque and Museum 84 by heritage tourists 41 transformative power of heritage 47-48 Arai, S.M. 164 Argentina, Centro Ana Frank 45-46 Ashworth, Gregory 42, 177, 183 atomic bombs see Hiroshima; Nagasaki Auschwitz (camp) 34, 35 Auschwitz (town) 38 Austrian National Tourist Office see localisation
authenticity 19-20 3D-printed souvenirs 164-166 commodification of resources 46-47, 215 historical/staged 41, 46 loss, musealisation of 43-44 significance of objects 46 souvenirs 155-156 trust in, loss of 46-47 Bartu, Ayfer 81-82 Bianchini, F. 97 Boyer, M.C. 197 branding further research 110-111 Ironworks Village, Finland 102-108, 107 Jewish Amsterdam, tourist guide to 39-41 joint region/destination brands 98, 102 leadership in 109 literature review 97-98 network, actors in 102-108, 107 research design 98 value co-creation 109 BRICK (Benefits, Risks, Interaction, Coordination, Keenness) 102, 107, 107-108, 111 brochures, discourse analysis of tourist 62-63 see also Hiroshima; Nagasaki Buenos Aires, Argentina, Centro Ana Frank 45-46 Butler, R. 178 Byzantine heritage Fethiye Mosque and Museum 82-87 Küçükyali ArkeoPark Project 90-91 Centro Ana Frank, Argentina 45-46 Choi, H. 118 cities appeal for tourists 194 imageability of 197, 202, 208 tourist-historic 177, 187, 195 urban renewal projects 20 visiting patterns in historic 178-179 see also icons City of Collective Memory, The (Boyer) 197 classification of tourists 174-175, 175, 176, 176, 178-179, 182-183, 186-187 collaboration see networks commercialisation see commodification commodification 19-20 authenticity and trust, loss of 46-47, 215 tourist/resident, of place 42 conflict Catholic/Jewish Holocaust heritage 34 conflicts of interest 19-21
222 consumption of history 41-42 by tourists/residents, of place 42 contested heritage Küçükyali ArkeoPark Project 90-91 presentation of 89-90 religious 80-87 Cooper, M. 61-62 cooperation see networks Cottrell, S. 118 crafting of heritage experiences 23 critical discourse analysis of tourist brochures 62-63 Hiroshima 64, 65-66 Nagasaki 62-63, 66-70, 67 cultural networks actors in 102-108, 107 BRICK (Benefits, Risks, Interaction, Coordination, Keenness) 102, 107, 107-108, 111 coordination of 97-98 data sources and collection 99-100, 100, 101 entrepreneurs in 96 further research 110-111 joint region/destination brands 98 leadership in 109 literature review 97-98 motivation for cooperation 102 municipality, coordinating role of 102-108, 107 research design 98 stakeholders 96, 101, 101 validity and trustworthiness of study 110 value, historical, increased appreciation of 108 value co-creation 100-101, 109 cultural values analysis of national tourism websites 142-145, 144-145 content analysis of websites 138, 138-140, 140-141 criteria for measurement 141-142 defined 132-133 on destination websites 132 High-Context (HC)/Low-Context (LC) dimensions 136-137, 139-140, 141, 144, 145 Individualism (IND)/Collectivism (COL) dimension 135, 138, 140, 143, 144-145 limitations of study 146 localisation of websites 133-134 methodology for research 137-142, 138-140, 140-141 models for measuring 133-134 multiple-dimension model 133 Power Distance (PD) dimension 135, 139, 140-141, 143, 145 research design 134-137 Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) dimension 136, 139, 141, 143, 145
HERITAGE AND TOURISM
user scenarios 137, 143 websites analysed 135 culture defined 132 heritage as mode of cultural production 41 Japanese, in Hiroshima 66 maker culture 154 multicultural identity of Nagasaki 69-70 role in tourism 18 see also cultural networks; cultural values Cusco, Peru selection of for research 122 sustainability attributes 123-126 dark tourism elements of 57 sacralisation 57 spectrum 57 see also Hiroshima; Holocaust heritage tourism; Nagasaki Debbage, K. 178 delocalisation of Anne Frank 42-48, 44, 45 Desmet, P. 165 destinations attractiveness of 18 images as framing 21-22 sustainability of 20 see also sustainability Dietvorst, A. 178-179 digital era/age 216 see also technology digitalisation 17-18 communication of experiences 23-24 presentation of multilayered history 89-90 see also localisation; technology discourse analysis of tourist brochures 62-63 Hiroshima 64, 65-66 Nagasaki 62-63, 66-70, 67 Drift, Sander van der 209 Easton, G. 99 entrepreneurs 96 see also networks Eraqi, M.I. 164 Europe Holocaust experience 31-32 Holocaust sites as icons of identity 33-34 Fairclough, N. 63 Fethiye Mosque and Museum building complex 77-81, 78, 79, 80 cultural heritage 87-91, 88 meaning, construction of 84, 89 multilayered religious history 80-87, 85 as not touristic 82 presentation of multilayered history 89-90 Finland see Ironworks Village, Finland Frank, Anne, delocalisation of 42-48, 44, 45
Index
future research 3D-printed souvenirs 166 branding 110-111 institutional issues 218 motivation, tourists’ 188 networks 110-111 reciprocal relationships 217 sustainability 127 visiting patterns 188 Fyall, A. 217 Garrod, B. 217 gaze, tourist 175-176, 176, 186 Ghilardi, L. 97 global positioning signals (GPS) see visiting patterns Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) 118 Gordon, B. 155 Gorp, B. van 179 Grönroos, C. 96 Gruber, Ruth Ellen 41 healing experience, Holocaust heritage tourism as 33 Hekkert, P. 165 heritage attractiveness of 18 benefits of 176-177 as mode of cultural production 41 role in tourism 18 transformative power 47-48 heritage dissonance 57 heritage tourism academic study of 17-18 challenges 18 complexity of 12-13 defined 173-174 elements in 217-218 experience economy 41 growth of 18 local communities and 11 negative impacts of 115-116, 218 public good/financial returns balance 218 relational 12-15 Hermann, I. 22 Het Achterhuis 43 Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome 64, 65 as Chugoku region gateway 66 culture, Japanese 66 discourse analysis of tourist brochures 62-63, 64, 65-66 duty of remembrance 63, 64, 65-66 Honkawa Elementary School 65-66 identity formation of 57 Itsukushima shrine 66 Japan’s presentation of war heritage 56 Nagasaki comparison 71 Peace Memorial Museum 65
223 post-war identity compared to Nagasaki 58-62 pre-war 58 Tosho-gu shrine 66 victimisation narrative 61, 63, 70-71 historic cities 177 visiting patterns in 178-179 see also cities history consumption of 41-42 multilayered religious 80-87, 89-90 of places, and identity 56 see also heritage; heritage tourism Hofstede, G. 133 Holocaust heritage tourism Auschwitz 34, 35 Catholic/Jewish 34 European/American experiences 31-33 Frank, Anne, delocalisation of 44 as healing experience 33 as icons of identity 33-34 Jewish Amsterdam, tourist guide to 39-41 Jewish roots travel 34-36, 36 Poland’s Jewish past, identification with 36-38 transformative power 47-48 Honkawa Elementary School, Hiroshima 65-66 Hoogendijk, Oeke 31-32 Iannuzzi, E. 217-218 icons defined 195-196 enshrinement as sacralisation phase 205 framing as sacralisation phase 203-205 of identity, Holocaust heritage sites as 33-34 imageability of cities 197, 202, 208 intervention due to status as 47 limitations of research 209 mechanical reproduction as sacralisation phase 206-207 naming as sacralisation phase 202 Palace of Westminster 197-209, 198, 203 as representational forms 197 sacralisation model 196, 201-207 shape of 197 social reproduction as sacralisation phase 207 identity construction of 21-22 European Holocaust sites as icons of 33-34 Hiroshima and Nagasaki 57, 58-62 history of places 56 multicultural identity of Nagasaki 69-70 Image of the City, The (Lynch) 197 imageability of cities 197, 202, 208 images, and construction of identity 21-22 individualised experiences growth of 152 see also 3D-printed souvenirs
224 industrial heritage Ironworks Village, Finland 99, 104-105 Nagasaki 68-69 information communication technology see technology innovation communication of experiences 23-24 tourism experience 22 see also 3D-printed souvenirs; technology Innovation Norway see localisation interaction between people, product and place see visiting patterns Ironworks Village, Finland A. Ahlström Ltd 99, 103-104 actors in the network 102-108, 107 architectural reputation 104-105 BRICK (Benefits, Risks, Interaction, Coordination, Keenness) 102, 107, 107-108 data sources and collection 99-100, 100, 101 history 99-100 industrial activity as continuing 104 industrial heritage 99, 104-105 municipality, coordinating role of 102-108, 107 validity and trustworthiness of study 110 value, historical, increased appreciation of 108 Islamic heritage of Fethiye Mosque and Museum 82-87 Istanbul see Fethiye Mosque and Museum Itsukushima shrine, Hiroshima 66 Jansen-Verbeke, M. 179, 185 Japan presentation of war heritage 56 see also Hiroshima; Nagasaki Jewish Amsterdam, tourist guide to 39-41 Jewish past, identification with in Poland 36-38 Jewish roots travel 34-36, 36 Jewishness, virtual 41 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 41 Knippenberg, Karim van 176 Konrad, D. 197 Krakow, Poland, identification with Jewish past 36-37 Küçükyali ArkeoPark Project 90-91 Kylänen, M. 96 Lauder Foundation 35 Lievois, E. 179, 185 Littrell, M.A. 155-156 local communities heritage tourism and 11 presentation of contested heritage 90-91 localisation analysis of national tourism websites 142-145, 144-145
HERITAGE AND TOURISM
content analysis of websites 138, 138-140, 140-141 cultural values 133-134 cultural values on destination websites 132 defined 132 High-Context (HC)/Low-Context (LC) dimensions 136-137, 139-140, 141, 144, 145 images 144 Individualism (IND)/Collectivism (COL) dimension 135, 138, 140, 143, 144-145 limitations of study 146 methodology for research 137-142, 138-140, 140-141 Power Distance (PD) dimension 135, 139, 140-141, 143, 145 research design 134-137 Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) dimension 136, 139, 141, 143, 145 user scenarios 137, 143 of websites 132, 133-134 websites analysed 135 loss, musealisation of 43-44 Lowenthal, David 32, 176, 177 Lozano-Oyola, M. 118 Lublin, Poland, identification with Jewish past 38 Lynch, Kevin 197, 208 Maastricht 180 tourist-historic city 183, 185 visiting patterns 183, 184, 185, 185-186 see also visiting patterns MacCannell, Dean 38, 196, 201, 205-208, 210 MacDonald, S. 215 McKercher, B. 174-175, 175 McLean, F. 119 maker culture 154 marketing for sustainability 116-117, 119 meaning, construction of Fethiye Mosque and Museum 84, 89 by tourists 215 memory phenomenon 215 Mendelsohn, Daniel 48 mental images of city places 197 Morasha schools 35 mosque heritage of Fethiye Mosque and Museum 82-87 motivation, tourists’ age distribution of participants 181 classification of tourists 174-175, 175, 176, 176, 178-179, 182-183, 186-187 data collection 180-181 educational level of participants 181 future research 188 gaze, tourist 175-176, 176 methodology for research 180-183 selection of participants 180-181 studies of 172 see also visiting patterns
225
Index
multilayered history Küçükyali ArkeoPark Project 90-91 presentation of 89-90 religious 80-87 multiple-dimension model of cultural values 133 Nagasaki atomic bomb tourism 66-68, 67 discourse analysis of tourist brochures 62-63, 66-70 Hiroshima comparison 71 industrial heritage 68-69 Japan’s presentation of war heritage 56 languages used in brochures 69-70 multicultural identity of 69-70 National Peace Memorial Hall 66-67 post-war identity compared to Hiroshima 58-62 pre-war 58 Urakami Cathedral 67, 68 victimisation narrative 61, 63, 70-71 narratives of the past, conflict in creation and interpretation 20-21 National Peace Memorial Hall, Nagasaki 66-67 national tourism websites see localisation Necropolis (Pahor) 49 Netherlands see Amsterdam networks actors in 102-108, 107 BRICK (Benefits, Risks, Interaction, Coordination, Keenness) 102, 107, 107-108, 111 capability to manage 97-98 coordination of 97-98 data sources and collection 99-100, 100, 101 entrepreneurs in 96 further research 110-111 of heritage-tourism organisations 12 joint region/destination brands 98 leadership in 109 literature review 97-98 motivation for cooperation 102 municipality, coordinating role of 102-108, 107 research design 98 stakeholders 96, 101, 101 validity and trustworthiness of study 110 value, historical, increased appreciation of 108 value co-creation 100-101, 109 Nigro, C. 217-218 Norway national tourist office see localisation Ottoman heritage 86 Ousterhout, Robert 86 Pahor, Boris 49 Palace of Westminster 1647 painting 203 as case study 197-198
enshrinement as sacralisation phase 205 framing as sacralisation phase 203-205 functions of 199 imageability of cities 208 limitations of research 209-201 mechanical reproduction as sacralisation phase 206-207 multi-layered history of 199-201 naming as sacralisation phase 202 sacralisation process 201-208 site demarcation 198, 198 social reproduction as sacralisation phase 207 as tourist-historic icon 207-209 tourist visits to 199 Westminster Bridge, tourists on 203 Pammakaristos/Fethiye complex see Fethiye Mosque and Museum patterns, visiting see visiting patterns Peace Memorial Museum, Hiroshima 65 personalisation of souvenirs see 3D-printed souvenirs Petracca, M. 217-218 places history of, and identity 56 interpretation as heritage sites 23 see also visiting patterns Poland, identification with Jewish past 36-38 Polish Tourist Organisation see localisation Poria, Y. 178 Pratt, M.-L. 21 Prentice, R. 178 presentation of heritage Küçükyali ArkeoPark Project 90-91 local community involvement 90-91 marketing for sustainability 116-117, 119 multilayered history 89-91 sustainability 126 preservationist perspective 21 pull factors 14 push factors 14 Ravald, A. 96 Raveh, A. 178-179 “Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs” (Serrano) 157 relational heritage tourism 12-15 religious heritage Fethiye Mosque and Museum 80-87 presentation of multilayered 89-90 Ricci, A. 86 Richards, G. 196 Russo, A. 119 S. Climent De Taüll, Catalonia 90 sacralisation 57 enshrinement as phase of 205 framing as phase of 203-205
226 mechanical reproduction as phase of 206-207 model 196 naming as phase of 202 Palace of Westminster 201-207 process 196, 201-208 social reproduction as phase of 207 Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome 90 Saraniemi, S. 96 Scotland see Stirling Castle, Scotland Serrano, Héctor 157 Shoval, N. 178-179 Siegenthaler, P. 61, 63 Silverstein, M. 157 Singh, N. 134 Sirakaya, E. 118 Skayannis, P. 22 souvenirs authenticity and 155-156 defined 154-155 inscription of 157 personalisation of 156-158 “Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs” (Serrano) 157 see also 3D-printed souvenirs Spek, S. 156-157 stakeholders conflicting interests of 19-21 in cultural networks 101, 101 institutional issues 218 Ironworks Village, Finland 102-108, 107 networks 96 Stamboulis, Y. 22 Stebbins, R. 174 Stirling Castle, Scotland 3D-printed souvenirs 153, 158, 159-161, 161 see also 3D-printed souvenirs Stone, P. 57 sustainability 3D-printed souvenirs 166 advice and guidance for destinations 118 Cusco, Peru 122-126 of destinations 20 economic attributes 120, 123-124 environmental attributes 121, 125-126 future research 127 importance for destinations 116 marketing for 116-117, 119 measurement of 117-118 methodology for study 121-123 model for demand-based perspective 119-120, 120-121, 127 presentation of 126 socio-cultural attributes 121, 124-125 supply-based perspective 118 tourist-based perspective 118-119 TripAdvisor comments used for research 122-123
HERITAGE AND TOURISM
TripAdvisor’s Green Leaders programme 116-117 Swanson, K.K. 155 symbols, tourist attractions as 196, 208 Takase, T. 60 technological determinism 153 technology communication of experiences 23-24 impact of 216 presentation of multilayered history 89-90 shifts brought by 11-12 tourism experience 22 see also 3D-printed souvenirs; localisation; visiting patterns The Holocaust Experience (Hoogendijk) (documentary) 31-32 The Lost. A Search for Six of Six Million (Mendelsohn) 48 Tigre Moura, F. 134, 138, 141-142, 146 Timothy, D.J. 155 Torabian, P. 164 Tosho-gu shrine, Hiroshima 66 tourism as agency 38 negative impacts of 115-116 see also heritage tourism; tourism experience tourism experience 18 commodification of resources 19-20 crafting of heritage experiences 23 heritage tourism as pioneer of 41 individualised 152 innovation 22 tourist gaze 175-176, 176, 186 tourist guide to Amsterdam 39-41 tourist-historic cities 177, 183, 185, 187, 195 transformative power of heritage 47-48 travel industry 22 TripAdvisor website comments on used for research 123 and sustainability 116-117 sustainability attributes in comments 123-126 tourist’s comments on sustainability 117 trust, loss of 46-47 Tunbridge, J. 177, 183 Turkey see Fethiye Mosque and Museum Turkish History Thesis 83-84 UNESCO World Heritage sites see World Heritage sites Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki 67, 68 Urban, G. 157 urban heritage see cities Urry, J. 175
227
Index
value, co-creation of in networks 100-101, 109 values traditional, and modern lifestyles 20 see also cultural values victimisation narrative in Japan 61, 70-71 virtual Jewishness 41 virtual reality, presentation of multilayered history via 89-90 visiting patterns age distribution of participants 181 aims of research 173, 179-180 classification of tourists 174-175, 175, 176, 176, 178-179, 182-183, 186-187 data collection 180 educational level of participants 181 future research 188 gaze, tourist 175-176, 176, 186 GPS-trackers, use of 180-181, 183, 187-188 historic cities 178-179 limitations of study 188 listed heritage as indicator 183 Maastricht 183, 184, 185, 185-186
management of sites 173, 187-188 methodology for research 180-183 motivation, tourists’ 174-175, 175 selection of participants 180-181 studies of 172-173 tourist-historic cities 183, 185, 187 war tourism see Hiroshima; Holocaust heritage tourism; Nagasaki Waterton, E. 89 Watson, S. 89 Westerbork barrack 47 Westminster Palace see Palace of Westminster World Heritage sites 17 A-Bomb Dome, Hiroshima 64, 65 Auschwitz (camp) 34, 35 Chugoku region, Japan 66 Hiroshima Sea Route 66 Itsukushima shrine, Hiroshima 66 see also localisation; Palace of Westminster Zavrl, F.V. 157