Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Lane (1994:16) argues that the following factors also have to be considered in defining
rural tourism:
• holiday type
• intensity of use
• location
• style of management
• degree of integration with the community.
Using the continuum concept allows for the distinction to be made between those tourist
visits which are specifically rural, and those which are urban, and those which fall in an
intermediate category. Thus, any workable definition of rural tourism needs to establish
the parameters of the demand for, and supply of, the tourism experience and the extent to
which it is undertaken in the continuum of rural to urban environments. With these issues
in mind, it is pertinent to examine the most influential studies published to date by
historical geographers to illustrate how continuity and change in spatial patterns and
processes of tourism and recreation activity contribute to the landscapes of rural leisure
use in the present day.
RURAL RECREATION AND TOURISM IN HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
Rural environments, often referred to as the countryside or non-urban areas, have a long
history of being used for tourism and recreational activities in both the developed and
developing world, a feature frequently neglected in many reviews of rural areas. Towner
(1996) documents many of the historical changes and factors which shaped tourism and
leisure in the rural environment in Europe since 1540, observing how the rural landscape
has been fashionable and developed for the use of social elites at certain times in history
(e.g. the landed estates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). Such a review
provides an invaluable synthesis and point of reference on the history of tourism and
recreation. Towner (1996) reconstructs past geographies to show how the growth of
towns and cities during the industrialisation of Europe led to an urbanised countryside
around those nascent industrial centres (i.e. the construction of an urban fringe). Such
patterns of recreational and tourism activity all combine to produce a wide variety of
leisure and, more belatedly, tourism environments which exhibit elements of continuity
in use, but also have been in a constant state of change. For example, Towner (1996)
characterises the pre-industrial period:
where popular recreation in the countryside throughout much of Europe
was rooted in the daily and seasonal rhythms of agricultural life…and
took place in the setting of home, street, village green or surrounding
fields and woods and throughout the year, a distinction can be made
between ordinary everyday leisure and the major annual holiday events,
and between activities that were centred around home and immediate
locality and those which caused people to move.
(Towner 1996:45-6)
