Managing Quality Cultural Tourism

Priscilla Boniface

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415642378
• eBook ISBN: 9781134856978
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Business

Managing Quality Cultural Tourism is an authoritative look at how to manage cultural tourist sites to best meet the needs of the visitors, the presenters and the site itself. As cultural tourism increases the management of heritage sites becomes more complex. Priscilla Boniface addresses these crucial management issues using a marketing approach to identify the needs of all concerned.

This volume is specifically aimed at professionals and students of leisure, tourism and heritage management. It provides an invaluable background to cultural tourism and then focuses on some important issues involved with managing a heritage site - education, entertainment and preservation - and considers appropriate ways of dealing with the needs of the tourist, the presenters and the cultural site.

Managing Quality Cultural Tourism suggests a way forward for cultural tourism. It is an indispensable tool for all involved in tourism and heritage industries.

Part 1

Introduction

1.1 The situation of cultural tourism

Issues and questions
Further reading

1.1

The situation of cultural tourism

The intercultural tourism ideal

It could be asked who of any among the community of the world would dare even to consider for a second that tourism, and more especially cultural tourism, should be exclusive? Our society is global but it is composed of myriad different cultures. To live together harmoniously we need to:

i) know about,

ii) respect,

and, if possible,

iii) understand

each other’s ways of life. Selective denial of such knowledge, respect and understanding, therefore, would be unfair and unsuitable. Problematic though it may be in practice – and often it is very, very difficult, sometimes impossible – we must surely set out to find a solution to the many and various problems attendant upon acceptance of the point from a place of departure which says this: that, in theory at least, provided other criteria are met, there should be equal right of opportunity of access, or where unavoidable non-access, to any part of the cultural heritage.

General methods of approach to the management of cultural tourism

Tourism is a massive ingredient of the modern world. We live in the modern world, and we must seek modern methods to make tourism work. Trying to apply methods from a different age is unlikely to be successful in our times. Approaches such as ‘green’ and ‘eco’ tourism, founded on precepts of being gentle to people and places, are fine, but on their own, and without their being given contemporary interpretation and application, such endeavours cannot hope to meet cultural tourism needs and demands on the scale and complexity of the present day. Methods for our times are required, fuelled with all the humanity and holism learnt from earlier ages and from less complex societies, but created nevertheless for us now. Our approach needs to be humanistic and holistic while, at the same time, the most up-to-date and sophisticated technology is deployed to achieve aims.

The cultural tourism spread across the world: ranges of, and reasons for, the variety of visitor loads

In many places across the world, many cultural tourism attractions are suffering visitor overload already, while others are visited to capacity. Elsewhere, and often in these very same overall locations, there are cultural items which are intended to attract visitors yet, for a reason or reasons, they are not fulfilling that role with much success. In other places cultural tourism has scarcely, or not at all, been begun as an industry or activity.

In the situation so described, it is not difficult to see that the tourism aims for one group are scarcely likely to be the same as another.

1 Cultural sites: World Heritage Sites as example

World Heritage Sites might be thought, by their nature, to fall entirely into the first category described above – to be over-visited or visited to capacity – and certainly many are, such as Mesa Verde, Mont St Michel, the Pyramids (at least until the radical change in situation brought about through tourists in Egypt becoming a focus of religious fundamentalists’ attention), the Tower of London and the Taj Mahal. Yet, it is not this simple, even with a World Heritage Site.

First, a total global heritage overview is precluded because not every country in the world is a signatory to the World Heritage Convention. A country which has put forward its site to the World Heritage Committee for inclusion on the World Heritage List in the first instance, for very good reasons of its own, may know the Site is under stress but, for economic reasons, not care to admit it. In other instances, one part of a Site may be worn down while another may be almost deserted, possessing the capacity to bear plenty more visits: either way, local people involved in associated entrepreneurial activity may be ‘crying out’ for more people to visit, while other disinterested locals might want to be left in peace. The physical state of what remains of the original fabric of the relevant portion of the – immensely long overall – Great Wall of China, where VIPs tend to be taken for valuable photo-opportunities, is scarcely likely to be a first concern of host or visitor. Here, looking good is the prime requirement.

2 Why visitors are brought to a site

Among the reasons for promoting, or not promoting, one attraction at the expense of another, those of economic and/or political or social prestige are usually to the fore. As will be demonstrated, however, there are also many other possible reasons. And, as will be shown, all the promotion in the world may not be able to overcome a basic element of ‘turn off’ to tourists about a site.

3 Why visitors are motivated to visit a site

The explosion in tourism in general is principally rooted in better communications, increased affluence and more leisure. In regard to what is seen as cultural tourism, as was suggested in the Preface, any tourism, even tourism ostensibly of the ‘sun and sand’ variety, or, for that matter, with the purpose of ‘visiting a friend up the road’, would have little power of attraction without the presence of some alien culture, of differentness. Without this, what would be the point of leaving home?

4 The needs of the visitor; the presenter; the cultural site/item

The variety of needs which may be the impulse for cultural tourism on behalf of visitor and presenter will be looked at more closely in Chapters 2.1 and 2.2 respectively. The needs of the object of attention, the cultural site or item, will be addressed in Chapter 2.3.

Cultural tourism: an appraisal

Culture has terrific power. We stand in awe of what our fellow men have done, and can do. It inspires us to do things ourselves, things that we might otherwise never have thought of doing or felt capable of attempting. We ‘feed’ off other people’s culture for our own ends. We hope our culture does the same for them. A visit to a cultural site, if it goes ‘right’, can be a very strengthening experience. It has the capacity to disturb us, and if it does this it is not necessarily a bad thing.

Tourism is now integral to modern life: not merely in financial terms, such as the assessment of the WTTC that by 1990 tourism accounted for 5.5 per cent of the world gross national product,¹ but in much deeper, more radical ways as well. As Deyan Sudjic has unequivocally pronounced in his book The 100 Mile City,² ‘As a force for social change, tourism has had an impact of the same order as the industrial revolution. In less than three decades, tourism has transformed the way the world looks and works.’

The first and only basis for consideration of the most appropropriate way to conduct cultural tourism is a recognition that the agenda must be determined, and then implemented, globally, on the basis of an acceptance of our complete interdependence. To the question ‘Western vs Non-Western: Whose Culture will Save the Environment?’³ which UNESCO posed for its International Symposium on Culture and Environment in Indonesia, the answer would be that there can only be one answer and that is ‘both, together’. This is, of course, much easier said than done but the existence, and their concern in this area, of supra-organizations such as UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICOM, WTO and the WTTC, and the staging of such events as the global Earth Summit in Rio, are indicative that, whether in theory or not, at least acceptance of the principle is widespread. Putting noble thoughts and aims into action, however, perhaps because of other consequences regarded as more immediately dire at the local level, may militate against the necessary ‘follow through’. Emblem to such difficulty is the global split revealed at the 1992 Rio conference: and much is the sympathy for hard-pressed areas, desperately trying to solve urgent basic problems of human need, who see conservation, preservation and gentle tourism as luxuries they cannot afford. As was opined by François Ascher in a UNESCO publication,⁴ ‘Tourism is an economic activity which may be said to trade in the cultural and natural heritage of countries. It thus involves an inseparable combination of economic and socio-cultural problems and immediately raises the issue of development options.’

While not all the world’s population yet travel physically, we are a stage when most places are, to a degree, visited by outsiders. Viewed from some perspectives, this can produce unfortunate inequalities: some people can enjoy the life of a global citizen, while others may rarely, or never, go further than their own backyard. However, when considering how to manage cultural tourism, that entity is being viewed in its widest sense, since it is regarded as essential to the search and discovery of an appropriate agenda for cultural tourism that this be done.

The ‘think global, act local’ mantra has permeated well certain strata of society, including many of the media. This can tend, due to the high visibility character of their opinion, to lend the impression that the point has been taken universally. It is debatable whether, even in this day and age, everyone knows what is said in such media-orientated circles, and if they do they will not necessarily share their viewpoint. For reasons such as ignorance, self-interest or selfishness, some portions of world society are still likely only to think, as well as to act, local. Even well-meaning pan-national or cultural gatherings can end with the victory of individual interest against that of the group as a whole.

So tourism, as a global industry, is liable to be influenced by the forces of, politics, economics and culture. For the practice of cultural tourism, the Preface outlined the suggested aims for achievement in terms of suitable conduct, by the meeting of the three needs of:

i) an item of heritage,

ii) its presenter,

iii) its audience.

As has been indicated above, those needs will be discussed in separate chapters.

Main methods of use

Here will be outlined what are considered to be the three main tools or methods for use. First, though, what is extremely obvious should nevertheless be stressed. This is that, in the case of a world industry of massive complexity, there can be no easy answers to how it can be run appropriately. The purpose of this book is to suggest the principal routes of approach, those which, it is thought, are most likely to lead to the most success.

One way is, quite simply, the traditional style of management, but done better. Another is a different style of management, a shift in perspective in other words. The last way is one upon which I place the most emphasis, not just because I believe it holds out the best hope of ameliorating cultural tourism’s current situation of crisis, but because it seeks to solve a contemporary problem through contemporary means. By nature, instinct and intellect, I am impelled to think that, in the conduct of cultural tourism, provided it is used both subject to and harnessed with human sensitivity and creativity, and in alignment and harmony as far as possible with nature, technology represents the best route forward and the most appropriate way to proceed. We need to be imaginative and innovative.

Possibly few people would guess correctly which was the most visited cultural site in the European Community in 1988. The Tower of London, perhaps? Versailles? The Louvre? No, it was the Pompidou Centre, by a margin of 3.9 million visits over its nearest rival, the Louvre, with 4 million visits. This is interesting and seems to suggest various things, not least about visitors’ motivations in regard to the cultural heritage. The subject of the Pompidou Centre is discussed in Chapter 2.1. Indicative, meanwhile, and very relevant in considering the most appropriate way of managing the cultural heritage for tourism, is that Richard Rogers – a l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• About the book for teaching purposes
• Part 1 Introduction
• Part 2 Components
• Part 3 Objectives
• Part 4 Conclusion
• Glossary
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Index