Tourism, Recreation and Trail Impacts - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 163

preserve local cultural heritage and provide at times a necessary means of
access and egress for communities in remote environments.
Lastly, the economic costs and benefits of trails have been an area of
some discourse which has served as the third element of this chapter, address-
ing the initial costs of developing trails and routes and the subsequent returns
that accrue once they are designed. Much of the latter research has examined
user expenditures on trails that vary in both scale and type. Purposive routes
have been shown to be indirectly economically valuable, in terms of offering
regions a new attraction, themed experiences and linear or circuitous space
around which a critical mass can be established to enable the success of local
businesses. Two significant results of urban tourism and city heritage routes
have been the rejuvenation or gentrification of the built environment and
increased property prices in neighborhoods adjacent to trail development.
With respect to all three types of impact, the authors have provided
detailed case studies throughout this chapter as a way of helping readers to
understand the nature of trail-based tourism impacts, both positive and
negative. Some of the case studies have alluded to the need for management
responses to these impacts, and so it is to the topic of planning and manag-
ing trails and routes that attention now turns in the chapter that follows.