Cultural Routes and Heritage Trails - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 19

trails as a way of improving their images. Mayfield, New South Wales,
Australia, developed a heritage walk to convert its persistent negative stereo-
type of an old, industrial suburb into a more visitor-friendly destination. This
was enacted at the local level to achieve a more positive image and cultivate
a sense of community pride (Markwell et al. , 2004: 462). Such efforts have an
ability to empower communities socially, psychologically and politically so
that they are better able to determine their own future development options,
including tourism (Timothy, 2007). Trail development also contributes to a
deeper sense of place (Hayes & MacLeod, 2007) as important local events
and cultures are highlighted for outside consumption.
This leads to the third purpose of cultural trails: economic development
(Garcés Feliú, 2011). In addition to strengthening a sense of place and enhanc-
ing a regional image, trails can also serve in place promotional efforts. They
often feature in tourism marketing campaigns and can be prominently
showcased on destination websites and in books and brochures. In addition
to their conservation ethos, heritage routes were recognized by the Council
of Europe as being important in encouraging the growth of European heri-
tage tourism (Hitrec, 1996; Moulin & Boniface, 2001). Much of the rationale
for establishing trails is their economic potential for bringing income to the
destination, providing jobs for locals and creating tax revenues. As stimula-
tors of local economies, people are hired not only to manage the trails them-
selves, but participating organizations, retailers, attractions and other service
providers along the trails see important economic outcomes as well. This
appears to be especially true in the case of purposive cultural trails, which
are often linked assemblages of individual businesses and heritage sites
along a planned corridor, such as wineries, vineyards or viticulture muse-
ums along a wine route.
Finally, like other cultural heritage attractions, trails are sometimes bred
to become political pawns or other instruments to exercise power and per-
suasion (Timothy & Boyd, 2003, 2006). Their very role of conserving and
interpreting elements of the human past renders them political by default,
for the people or organizations that establish a given route are the ones who
dictate the content of the events it aims to commemorate. They emphasize
the dominant culture or people in power and are selective in what they por-
tray to users. In the words of Shaw and MacLeod (2000: 173), visitors are 'set
on a prescribed route designed to convey a particular story or place image'.
According to Teather and Chow (2003), the Sun Yat-sen Heritage Trail in
Hong Kong makes a loud political statement in commemorating the relin-
quishment of colonial power in the former British colony. It intentionally
ignores most references to the colonial past and connects sites in Hong Kong
that were critical to the Sun Yat-sen revolution.
Several trails focus on telling a more holistic truth about heritage by
emphasizing the peoples, places and events that have been, through the gen-
erations, written out of official history. For instance, the Clerkenwell Historic