Planning and Developing Trails and Routes - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 212

Case Study: The Cultural Avenue Project,
Budapest ( Continued )
spaces. They can also be important management strategies to deflect a
portion of the visitor pressure away from traditional and more popular
spaces and attractions. Thus, they can act as a form of substitution for
more popular and traditional visitor attractions, stops and spaces. Rátz
et al. (2008) wrote about the transformation of Budapest since 1989 and
how tourism and cultural regeneration have helped transform old spaces
into new places of interest. Budapest, often regarded as 'the most
Western of the East European capitals', has a well-visited central area
that includes the banks of the Danube and the Buda Castle Quarter
(a World Heritage Site (WHS) since 1987), and World Heritage-listed
Andrássy Avenue (inscribed in 2002) dominated by 19th-century archi-
tecture and elegant residential buildings. The majority of tourists visit
the WHS-laden center of Budapest, with less attention devoted to
newer tourism spaces on the urban periphery, such as the Statue Park
(an open-air museum of socialist statues removed from the streets
after the collapse of communism in 1989-1990) (Smith & Puczkó, 2011),
representing a political heritage attraction.
Even within the popular historic core/WHS zone there are sites and
attractions of lesser renown. To address this, the idea of creating a
Cultural Avenue was initiated in 2000, with actual development of a
route occurring in 2002. Tourist resources were re-packed in the form
of a route that linked museums, churches, cafes, historical buildings and
even a spa, offering visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in
the history, culture and traditions of Budapest. The Cultural Avenue
encompasses 59 stops, the majority of these being within the boundary
of the WHS area. According to Rátz et al. (2008: 445), the development
of this urban cultural route was designed to 'encourage visits to less
popular or not too-well known areas, to divert traditional tourist flows
and to provide an alternative itinerary'. In other words, the route acts
as a substitute for visits to the most popular stops/attractions on the
beaten tourist path of Budapest. Its goal is to demonstrate that experi-
encing Budapest's cultural heritage assets can involve multiple sightsee-
ing circuits.
Conclusion
This chapter has examined an integral part of our discussion on trails
and routes, namely how they have been planned and developed. Part of this
discussion has been tied to the wider policy environment that exists between