Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Elisabeth Dumont, Mikel Asensio and Manuel Mortari
Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium
Introduction
on the crossing, sometimes confl icting, or even
internalized gazes of citizens, tourists and author-
ities in charge of tourism. They all cast a light on
parts of heritage, leave out others and in some
cases even create shadows and shapes that
would not be there without the light.
Over the past few decades, many European
towns have considered tourism a major source
of income and a potential means of alleviating
the crises suffered by many urban centres (Law,
2000). Tourism indeed brings with it an aura of
economic benefi ts, allied with improved quality
of life for residents. In fact cultural tourism is
hailed as a solution to urban growth and a factor
of development, since new cultural and leisure
activities may serve both tourists and local
residents in search of a 'richer and denser life'
(Ashworth, 2001). Towns now face increasing
pressure to market themselves as attractive tour-
ist destinations. Small cities, of 10,000-50,000
inhabitants, and medium-sized cities, of 50,000-
250,000 inhabitants, accommodate more than
60% of the European population (Cavallier,
1998). Decentralization offers them great oppor-
tunities to develop tourism but they often lack
the means or resources to do so. In this market-
ing enterprise, visuality plays a major role, as
town attempts to create an image that will prove
attractive to tourists. As such, the tourist gaze is
said to play a major role in shaping tourism poli-
cies. Taking different examples across Europe,
this chapter shows the intricacy of construction
and presents some factors that play a role. It
foregrounds the phenomenon of image con-
struction that towns go through, when starting to
engage in tourism and develop policies. It focuses
Study Context/Background
Research was carried out in the context of the
PICTURE project, which aimed to develop a
strategic urban governance framework for the
sustainable management of cultural tourism
within small and medium-sized European cities.
This framework is meant to help establish, eval-
uate and benchmark integrated tourism policies
at the local level with a view to maximizing the
benefi ts of tourism upon the conservation and
enhancement of built heritage diversity and
urban quality of life. This framework was based
on an evaluation of the dynamics of the effects
of tourism at large, upon the social, environ-
mental and economic wealth of European small
and medium-sized towns, as well as an identifi -
cation of innovative urban governance strat-
egies for sustainable development of cultural
tourism within these towns. Special attention
was given to strategies and means of increasing
the attractiveness of cultural sites to visitors and
extending tourists' stay in specifi c destinations,
Search WWH ::
Custom Search