tourism trends tourism culture and cultu

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Tourism trends: Tourism, culture and culturalroutes (2011)

For an updated version of this paper (November 2014), see:

https://www.academia.edu/9491857/Tourism_trends_The_convergence_of_culture_and_tourism

Greg Richards
https://www.academia.edu/9491857/Tourism_trends_The_convergence_of_culture_and_tourismhttps://www.academia.edu/9491857/Tourism_trends_The_convergence_of_culture_and_tourismhttps://www.academia.edu/9491857/Tourism_trends_The_convergence_of_culture_and_tourismhttps://www.academia.edu/9491857/Tourism_trends_The_convergence_of_culture_and_tourismhttps://www.academia.edu/9491857/Tourism_trends_The_convergence_of_culture_and_tourism


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Contents

Introduction

Macro trends in tourism

The major drivers of tourism

Cultural Tourism

Trends in European Cultural Tourism

Discussiontowards a new tourism?

Challenges for the cultural routes and the Council of Europe


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Introduction

Over the past 20 years, tourism has become one of the most dynamic elements of the globaleconomy. Tourism accounted for over 9% of global GDP and almost 3% of employment in 2009.International tourism has grown by an average of 4-5% a year over the past decade, outstripping mostother major economic sectors. Even though global tourism was severely hit by the economic crisis,falling by 4% in 2009, there was a strong recovery in 2010, with growth of 6.9% in international tourism

arrivals, according to the UNWTO. Worldwide the number of international arrivals reached a record935 million in 2010. The UNWTO forecasts growth of around 4%-5% in 2011. However, most of thegrowth is due to emerging economies, and Europe is likely to experience lower growth rates, predictedto be between 2% and 4% in 2011.

Tourism has become a major industry and through the 1970s and 1980s developed a fordistproduction system, with standardised mass production of package holidays. In the 1990s marketmaturity and slowing demand growth encouraged the developed of new models of postfordist,customised production. The mass market began to fragment into a variety of niches, of which culturaltourism was one of the most important. The growth of tourism also produced growing awareness of itspotential negative effects, and sustainability also became a major issue. In the past decade tourismhas continued to develop rapidly, with the rise of budget travel, more holistic, spiritual and creative

forms of tourism and the rise of more individualised production and consumption, facilitated by thegrowth of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

In recent years, therefore, attention has shifted from the purely quantitative growth of tourism demand,towards qualitative change in the nature of that demand. The following sections consider first the maindrivers of tourism growth and development, and then look in more detail at the consequences ofchange for the nature of tourism production and consumption.

Macro trends in tourism

In general, the development of tourism in recent decades has been heavily influenced by thedevelopment of society as a whole. The rise of the industrial society turned tourism into a mass leisure

activity, while globalization and postmodernisation have created an increasingly fragmented,individualized and diverse field of tourism supply and demand. According to the OECD (2010), thecurrent growth of tourism is largely a result of increasing globalisation, which has strengthened anumber of key drivers in international tourism:

Rising incomes

New and cheaper means of transport

Intensive use of ICT

These changes are bound up with the development of a global network society.

The network society

One of the basic changes that is taking place across social, economic, cultural and political realms isthe growth of the network society (Castells, 1996). The implications of the increasing importance ofnetwork and the rise of the networked organization and the networked individual are profound. In therealm of tourism this is leading to a number of interlinked changes that will have important implicationsin the future:


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Increased networking between producers

In an increasingly competitive marketplace suppliers need to move quickly and to seize everyopportunity for competitive advantage. Increasingly this can be done through cooperation andpartnershipthe search for collaborative advantage. The IPK trend study (2009) points to theimportance of co-operationpublic-private partnerships, but also partnerships between different

sectors of the industry (such as airlines, hospitality groups, tour operators, niche market associations,etc) and, increasingly important, technology specialists able to help in developing new mediamarketing campaigns.

Increasingly networked consumers

Social networks and other forms of networking are becoming vital in our leisure and our work. Theimportant of groups and individuals is increasingly assessed by their linkages and membership ofdifferent networks. Networks assess their importance by their membership. The very importance ofnetworking means that the boundaries between work and leisure are becoming more vague we useour social networks to make friends with those who are useful to our careers and can provide contactsand knowledge for our work. The networks we belong to therefore have an increasingly important

influence on our decision making in a wide range of fields.

Changing value chains

Traditional vertical distribution chains are giving way to a more complex value chain involving a widerange of different suppliers from within and beyond the travel sector. Travel is no longer dependent onthe infrastructure of the old economyairline seats, hotel beds and travel agent's shelves. We areentering a new, flexible, networked economy in which ICT, local culture and society, education, etc,become part of the tourism value chain. In fact, the inter-relationships between travel, other economicsectors and society as a whole have become so integrated that we might conceive of a value networkrather than the old value chain.

Traditional tourism value chain


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New value network

In the new tourism value network, the destination, rather than being a simple supplier of inputs to thetourism value chain, becomes an integral part of the value creation process in tourism. The narrativesand images attached to the destination become an important determinant of the value of places to theconsumer and therefore their decision-making in terms of destinations and willingness to pay.

The growing importance of events and other coordinating mechanisms

The trend towards the growing importance of events has been well charted (Richards and Palmer,2010). In many ways the rise of the eventful society is linked to the network society: we need events tomark the times and places where networked individuals can come together. Our growing isolation fromother individuals creates the need for significant moments of co-presence, where a feeling ofcommunitas can be created, however briefly. This is underlined by the success of the Hansa Days

organized by the Hansa Route.

As the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute (2006) report notes:

Travel markets are relationship markets. We travel to meet families and friends, to encounternew personalities, to have casual sex or because we are secretly hoping for the love of ourlives. The search for a new partner is proving increasingly difficult for a growing number ofsingles. Under the new circumstances in which we live, conventional ways of finding a partnerare inadequate. One of the main reasons why online dating services are doing so well is thatthere are no on-land alternatives for older people. There is nowhere that people in the matureage groups can go to meet a new partner or lover in an easy and uncomplicated way.

The general conclusion that can be drawn from the development of tourism and other areas of socialand economic intercourse in recent decades is that the advent of the network society has broughtprofound changes to the relationship between production and consumption. We can therefore contrastthe overarching themes of the former industrial era with the driving concerns of the network society.

Visas

Websites

Educat ion

Web

access

Adv en tu re

Cards

Culturalsites

A irl in es

Hostels

Food

Guide

books

Budget

hotels

Local

communi ty

Work

abroad


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Industrial society Network societyMarket transactions RelationshipsMass production Customisation, individualizationEconomic capital Social capitalInnovation CreativityCompetitive advantage Collaborative advantage

Branding AuthenticityInformation KnowledgeUnskilled consumption Skilled consumption

In order to ascertain what effect these macro trends are having we must first develop an overview ofthe way in which these forces are driving the development of tourism.

The major drivers of tourism

The Future of Leisure TravelTrend Study (Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, 2006) identified a number of

key drivers for the development of global tourism, which can be grouped into social, technological,economic, ecological and political drivers.

1. Social drivers

Ageing society: In 2020, the elderly will be in the majority in Western

Europe. Children and young people will be in short supply.

Individualisation. Growing demand for individual holidays. Falling demand for package tours.

New family structures. More and more singles. Ever fewer families with children.

Health consciousness grows. Destinations with potential health hazards will come underpressure. Areas with contaminated water and beaches, polluted air, ugly buildings, a risk ofinfection, etc., will be avoided.

Value orientation increases resulting in a new competition of values. Ecological, ethic andsocial values become ever more important.

Decline of the middle class in Western Europe.

Leisure time declines. Western Europe must work longer again. Raising the pension ageretards the growth of senior travel.

2. Technological drivers

Availability of information. The spread and performance of information and communicationtechnology continue to increase. and booking information will become even simpler,

Transport: more, faster and cheaper long-distance

New search and mapping services. Geo-tagging, revolutionise maps.

Tracking services make it possible to mark travellers and to locate them at any time. Extreme engineering: opening up new destinations closed to tourists, e.g., underwater hotels

and space

Environmental-control technology will become more important

3. Economic drivers

Greater competitive pressure. Tourists expect more for less money.

Booming Asia. Wealth and power shift towards the East.

Polarisation of demand for cheap and luxury offers. Growing pressure on the middle.

Daily rock-bottom prices are normal and expected. The downward price spiral will revolve


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faster and faster and the margins will shrink.

End of industrial working in Western Europe.

Growing vulnerability of financial markets.

4. Ecological drivers Unspoilt nature will become scarcer and, therefore, more valuable. Climatic change. Regional climatic advantages shift, new tourism areas open up..

End of the oil reserves, opportunities for new travel forms and slow tourism.. Traffic jams will become chronic, the consequential effects increase and make travelling an

even more difficult. Ozone hole: the sun is dangerous. Sun? Just say no!5. Political drivers

Political uncertainties increase and prevent or restrict travel.

Growth of terrorism. Security measures, visa regulations and entry controls will become evenstricter and make travel more complicated.

Declining trust in politics. More political support for tourism as a source of income and as asupport for culture.

Disintegration of shared values. Clash of cultures. Intercultural conflicts spread and intensify.Thus, travelling will become more dangerous again.

These and other trends identified by analyses by the European Travel Commission, the UNWTO andother have a number of important implications for the development of tourism production andconsumption.

More individualized consumption.

Leisure tourism is still a mass market. However, it will be less organised and a more individual form ofmass consumption. Holidays will be less frequently booked as package arrangements and more oftencompiled from individual elements.

but also a search for community

As a counter trend to individualisation, many people are looking for a greater sense of community. Inmany cases, the need for personal contact and to be together with friends and family is the reason fortraveland this will become increasingly important. In the future, tourism will increasingly become asocial and communal space within pressured leisure time.

Travel as everyday life

As life becomes more complex and chaotic, as we are forced to be more mobile and travel withincreasing frequency, we look for holidays as a counterbalance offering a touch of normality andstabilityeither stay at home or traveling to the same place year in, year out.

Hybrid tourism

Leisure, tourism and work are increasingly being mixed. Pilgrimage becomes a form of tourism,tourists become pilgrims, popular culture becomes high culture, and vice versa. Holidays arebecoming increasingly bound up with other activities. The number of hybrid arrangements offered willgrow, e.g., hotels that merge with clinics, academies or museums, vacation clubs that also operatehandicraft workshops, tower blocks with wellness resorts, cruise liners with temporary jobs.


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Growing competition between places

Globalisation has arguably made places increasingly the same and intensified competition betweenplaces around the world for flows of finance, people and talent and knowledge. At the same time, acounter-trend towards localization has made locality even more important, and tourism destinationsincreasingly emphasize the local aspects of culture and everyday life in their marketing. There is agrowing need for distinctiveness in all areas of life in a globalizing world, which drives a relentless

search for USPs, genus loci and authenticity in places around the world.

New consumers

Two main trends are discernable. On the one hand, new tourism consumers are coming from theemerging economies as these become richer and travel restrictions are eased. At the same timetourists from the developed world are increasingly experienced and are looking for new types of touristexperiences. Because air travel has increasingly made the exotic into the everyday, for some, thesearch for newness and difference now occurs closer to home, in the rural areas of Tuscany, the backstreets of Barcelona or the East End of London.

Old consumers

The aging population of Europe is a major issue considered in all tourism trend studies. In recentdecades the older population groups have been the silver panthers of tourism, travelling voraciouslywith their new found wealth and free time as pensions rose and life expectancy lengthened. However,the current trend is towards a raising of the pensionable age across Europe, and many are seeingtheir final salary pension schemes cut or abolished altogether. Many younger people, used to thesafety net provided by the state, have not even bothered to build up pensions or have had theirentitlements restricted by frequent job-hopping. This will mean a growing number of elderly poor infuture, who will not have the high tourism purchasing power of former generations.

New forms of travel

People are making more, shorter trips. This has led to an overall growth in city trips in Europe and tothe development of new destinations in rural areas and small cities, largely thanks to the growth of thebudget airlines. According to IPK (2009), within Europe, air travel is gaining market share in the longterm, although it has been hit by the crisis in the last couple of years. Rail travel has been enjoying arecovery, from low levels, in terms of tourism demand, associated with the introduction of new high-speed services, and this is likely to continue as new routes are developed. Coach travel has seen arelatively steep decline in recent years.

Tourists are also developing alternative means of travel, such as couchsurfing, which effectivelybypass traditional modes of travel organization and offer new experiences of travel.

New forms of information and travel purchase

The growth of the Internet and other technology has produced a massive shift in the way in whichpeople gather information about potential destinations and book their travel. Data from the EuropeanTravel Commission indicate that almost half of all trips made by Europeans are now booked online,and the vast majority of people now look for information about their holidays online even if theysubsequently book via more traditional channels.


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European online travel trends, January - August 2008-09

(% of trips) Jan-Aug2008 Jan-Aug 2009

Online booking 41 45Online 'looking' 14 14

All internet users 55 59Non-internet

users

45 41

In 2011 Phocus Wright reported a proliferation of the Internet in making travel plans: Among thosewith internet access, just 6% of French travellers, 9% of German travellers and 5% of UK travellersplan and book their trips completely offline. The use of social media such as Facebook to plan andgather information on travel is also rapidly increasing. This allows people to gather tips from friendsand other virtual contacts, and social media are also beginning to pay attention to the marketingpotential of social networks.

Geographic shifts in demand

Europe is losing market share in global tourism, partly as a result of the growth of tourism in other

world regions, but also because Europe has become relatively more expensive. The source marketsexerting the largest contributions to the decline in market share since 2000 are the Americas andEurope itself. Travel within Europe accounts for approximately 88% of foreign visitor arrivals. The

Americas are the largest source market (over 6% of visitor arrivals) outside of Europe.

Domestic tourism makes up approximately 70% of Europe's tourism business. At a very basic level,therefore, the core markets for cultural tourism and the cultural routes remain European and are likelyto come from domestic or cross-border travel.

Source markets for international tourism in the European Union

Domestic

tourists

70%

European Union

26%

Rest of the

world

4%


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Within Europe, the highest tourism growth rates are recorded in the south and east, while the relativelymature markets of northern and western Europe are growing more slowly. This pattern is producing aslow shift in the centre of gravity in European tourism.

Change in market share of overnights (Willms, 2007)

Cultural Tourism

The tourism segment that most directly relates to the cultural routes is cultural tourism. Culturaltourism essentially involves visits to cultural attractions and events by culturally motivated people.

Taking the World Tourism Organisation definition of tourism as its basis, the ATLAS definition ofcultural tourism is:

The movement of persons to cultural attractions away from their normal place of residence,with the intention to gather new information and experiences to satisfy their cultural needs.(Richards, 1996)

This definition is not very precise, because of the vast range of cultural attractions and events and thedifferent cultural motivations that people may have.

There is some evidence to show that cultural tourism is an increasingly important segment of the totaltourism market. For example, figures from the World Tourism Organisation indicate that the proportion

of international trips accounted for by cultural tourists grew from 37% in 1995 to 40% in 2004.Although this seems a small increase, the large growth in global tourism volumes means that by 2009there were around 375 million international cultural trips. Cultural tourism is also seen as a desirablemarket by many countries and regions because it is generally high spending tourism, usuallyundertaken by highly educated individuals who stimulate cultural activity in the destination. Localresidents also seem to appreciate the potential benefits of cultural tourism. When asked what forms oftourism hey would like to see developed in future, over 90% of Barcelona residents indicated that theywould prefer to develop cultural tourism. They also saw benefits from cultural tourism, such asincreased local incomes and support for local cultural institutions (Richards, 2006). The OECD reporton culture and tourism (2009) indicated that the main drivers for developing culture and tourism


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policies are:

Valorising and preserving heritage Economic development and employment Physical and economic regeneration Strengthening and/or diversifying tourism Retaining population

Developing cultural understanding

The growth of cultural tourism demand has also stimulated the development of many new culturalattractions and cultural tourism marketing strategies, as different countries and regions compete for ashare of this lucrative market. For example, it is estimated that the number of museums in Spain hasincreased by 100% over the past 20 years. Barcelona, one of the leading city break destinations inEurope in recent years, has targeted cultural tourism as a major growth area, and saw attendance atcultural attractions rise from 4 million a year in 1994 to 13.2 million in 2005 as a result. Tourists nowaccount for 71% of all visitor admissions at cultural attractions in the city. In order to succeed in thismarket, therefore, regions not only need to have a good supply of cultural attractions and events, butthey also need to be able to meet stiff international competition through effective marketing. This isturn requires a clear understanding of the structure and needs of the cultural tourism market, as well

as developing cultural products that can satisfy market demand.

The main quantitative trends identified by the ATLAS research that are relevant for this analysis are:

Increased number of cultural holidays Rising education, income and status levels in the market More use of Internet for information gathering and booking More visits to cultural events and festivals, driven by increased supply and a desire for co-presence

However, the ATLAS research has also identified a number of qualitative changes in demand whichare also important to consider. In general terms, there seems to have been a general shift towardsnew areas of culture, particularly popular and intangible forms of culture. There is also more

evidence of omnivorous patterns of cultural consumption, as people combine both high and popularcultural forms in their leisure time.


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Production

Consumption

High culture

Popular culture

Everyday culture

Passive Active

Heritage tourism

Cultural tourism Creative tourism

Arts tourism

Crafts tourism

Popular culture is therefore emerging as an important market for cultural tourism alongside the moretraditional high culture and historic attractions. For example, tourism associated with the Beatles isestimated to account for 600,000 visits to Liverpool a year, with these visitors spending some 20million in the local economy.

Arts and creative activities are also becoming more visible in the cultural tourism market. Major artsexhibitions are now an important source of tourist flows in many cities, and the organisation ofblockbuster exhibitions has become an important part of the cultural tourism strategies of manymuseums. The performing arts are also becoming more orientated towards tourist audiences, as

music and theatre performances are used to draw residents and visitors to new performing artsvenues, and programming is increasingly geared to tourist tastes (such as the growth in musicals inmajor cultural tourism destinations such as London).

Creativity is also becoming linked to cultural tourism, as people utilise their increasingly scarce leisuretime to develop their own skills and experience local culture at the same time. There has been averitable explosion of courses in areas such as languages, gastronomy, art and photography inrecent years, driven not only by high demand for creative skills, but also by a growing number ofcreative producers who have started to service this market (see below).

The main qualitative trends might therefore be summarised as:

Growing interest in popular culture, or the everyday culture of the destination Growing role for the arts in cultural tourism Increased linkage between tourism and creativity, and the growth of creative tourism. Growing omnivorousness of cultural consumption.

Within the cultural tourism market, a number of different demand segments can be identified. In broadterms, the main segments tend to relate to people who have either a general interest in culture, andwho see culture as just one aspect of the destination, and those with a specific interest in culture, forwho culture is the main reason for travelling to the destination. Paschinger (2007) combines the

ATLAS distinction between specific and general cultural tourism with the work of McKercher and Du


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Cros (2002) to explain the cultural tourism market:

The purposeful cultural tourist, comparable to the specific cultural touristintroduced byRichards (1996, p. 34), is entirely motivated by culture in visiting a certain destination orcultural attraction, and engages in a deep experience.

The sightseeing cultural tourist is chiefly motivated for cultural reasons; too, however thisexperience remains more shallow.

The serendipitous cultural tourist does not plan to travel for cultural motives, but afterparticipating still ends up having a deep cultural experience.

The casual cultural tourist offers only a weak motive for visiting a certain cultural attraction ordestination, and as a result, this experience remains shallow.

Finally, the incidental cultural tourist does not travel for cultural tourism reasons at all, andwhen they find themselves engaged in some sort of cultural activities, those typically remainshallow.

The implication is that not all attractions can appeal to all cultural tourists, and that many visitors willhave only a tangential interest in the specific cultural offering. This is important in marketing terms,since it means that attractions need to think about the specific and general appeal that they may havefor tourists. This principle is clearly evident in the TRANSROMANICA route, for example, where

research for the CrossCulTour project has indicated a clearly identifiable segment of visitors with aspecific motivation to visit Romanesque sites (see TRANSROMANICA case study).


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Trends in European cultural tourism

Europe is a key cultural tourism destination, with a large number of major cultural sites and a strongflow of culturally-motivated international and domestic visitors. It is estimated that cultural tourismaccounts for around 40% of all European tourism (including general and specific cultural tourists). Inthe last couple of yearscultural trips in Europe declined as a result of the economic crisis, but appearto have been less hard hit than some other tourism sectors. Data from IPK (2009), for example,

indicate a 5% drop in city trips (usually closely related to cultural tourism), compared with a 20% dropin touring holidays and rural tourism, and a 15% fall in mountain recreation in 2009.

One of the reasons for the resilience of cultural tourism is the fact that the range of cultural motives fortravel is broad and rapidly increasing as a result of postmodern fragmentation. In place of a massmarket for cultural tourism, one can identify a growing range of cultural tourism niches related tospecific facets of culture that appeal to tourists or which are being developed by destinations.

Time >

Creative tourism

Languages

Architecture

Gastronomy

Cultural Tourism

Among the most important of these new market niches are:

Creative tourism

Educational tourism

Visiting friends and relative (VFR tourism)

Religious tourism Volunteer tourism

Gastronomic tourism

Language travel

Wellness and spa tourism

Spiritual and holistic tourism


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Creative tourism/educational tourism

Richards and Wilson (2006) have suggested that in some cases cultural tourism is developing into'creative tourism', which is defined as:

Tourism which offers visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential through activeparticipation in courses and learning experiences which are characteristic of the holiday

destination where they are undertaken.

In the field of creative tourism the emphasis shifts from tangible to intangible culture, and the basicexperience consists of an exchange of knowledge and skills between host and guest. This produces amore locally-driven, equitable and arguably more 'authentic' form of cultural tourism. The developmentof creative tourism is evident in rural areas (where creativity is needed to combat a lack of economicalternatives) and in cities, which are viewed as the engines of the creative economy. Rural creativetourism is being developed in many rural areas of the UK, Scandinavia and France. In major citiessuch as Barcelona, Paris and Rome creative tourism is now being developed as an alternative tomass cultural tourism (www.creativetourismnetwork.org).

VFR tourism

VFR tourism is broadly linked to migration flows. As people move to other countries and settle there,they tend to travel back to their own country, and/or are visited by friends and relatives from theirhome country. This type of tourism therefore becomes a very physical manifestation of the history ofmigration to and within Europe. This type of tourism is expanding in line with global migration and asthe income levels of migratory groups and their home populations rise.

In the UK, for example, the volume of VFR tourism grew from less than 4 million visits by internationaltourists in 1990 to almost 10 million in 2008. For UK residents, 20% of all international trips are nowVFR trips. In Poland, 17% of inbound tourists were VFR visitors in 2010, and 25% of Polish outboundtrips were for VFR purposes.

In many areas there are specific marketing programmes that are aimed at VFR markets, often relatedto people tracing their roots in the home country, This is a fairly large market for tourism to Europeancountries such as the UK and Ireland, and potentially it could be actively developed in many differentareas.

This particular market is a crucial relevance to cultural routes because these often trace particularlymigratory routes or links between different population groups. A number of projects have beendeveloped linking cultural routes to VFR tourism (for example the Routes to the Roots project,originally funded by the EU: http://www.routes.de/).

Religious tourism

There has been a significant growth in religious tourism in recent years, particularly with a resurgenceof pilgrimage to important shrines and a growth in more general spiritual tourism (see below). It isestimated that there are over 250 million pilgrims undertaking tourism trips each year. A study by

ATLAS indicated that about 50% of visitors to sites along the Camino de Santiago had a religiousmotive. This figure is much lower for lesser known shrines in Northern Portugal, where a the mainmotive is meeting local people (Richards and Fernandes, 2007).The religious motive often means thatpilgrims travel along specific routes to visit a number of shrines or even to complete lengthy itineraries.Increasingly, purely religious motives are becoming mixed with more secular forms of religioustourism, which often centre around specific religious sites.


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Volunteer tourism

Volunteer tourism has been another major growth market in recent years, again often fuelled by adesire to get to know other cultures. Tourism Research and Marketing (2007) estimated that there areup to 600,000 volunteer placements offered worldwide each year. This segment of tourists isparticularly significant because of the long length of stay in the destination. Many volunteer tourism

projects are also based on the conservation or restoration of heritage. The cultural routes have astrong potential link to volunteer tourism through heritage and through the desire to have intensiveexperiences with local people.

Language travel

Travelling to learn a language is an increasingly important market in many countries, particularly thosethat can offer one of the major global languages. It is estimated that there is a potential global marketof 375 million people wanting to travel to learn languages, although the actual earnings of languageschools were a mere 15 billion in 2008 according to the trade association ALTO. Very often languagecourses are combined with cultural activities, offering the possibility to package language and localculture.

Wellness and spa tourism

There has been a revival of interest in spa destinations in Europe as a result of the general trendtowards wellness travel. A new generation of visitors is discovering traditional spa destinations, but isnow demanding more luxury and add-on experiences. The global market for wellness travel isestimated to be around 30 billion. This is particularly relevant to specific cultural routes which linkspaand other wellness destinations.

Spiritual and holistic tourism

The journey within is also an area of cultural tourism growth, as tourists seek to develop their own

spirituality or discover the spirituality of others. This is also linked to holistic approaches to wellness.Spiritual tourism was identified by the UNWTO as one of the fastest growing travel segments in 2007.However, pinning down this segment is difficult, as it spans a wide range of motivations, from moretraditional religious tourism through alternative medicine to tree-hugging.

Discussion towards a new tourism?

Longer term changes in tourism are strongly influenced by general social and economic trends. Thereview of the tourism literature clearly identifies a number of these, such as the shift towards moreindividualized production and consumption, the desire for experiences and the shift towards electronicdistribution and booking. Most of these trends can be related directly to features of the contemporary

network society (Castells, 1996).

Scitovsky (1976) noted the transition from unskilled to skilled forms of consumption. As societydevelops so material wealth increases, and basic needs (food, shelter) are easily met and peoplebegin to acquire an increasing range of goods. Over time, the satisfaction and distinction that can bederived from possession of goods diminishes, since they tend to provide repetitive experiences. Theemphasis therefore shifts to skilled forms of consumption, such as cultural activities, where increasedconsumption leads to skill development and therefore enhanced enjoyment. The growth of skilledconsumption is also often linked to a rising demand for authenticity among more discerningconsumers (Zukin, 2010).


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A similar progression is foreseen in the production of culture by Pine and Gilmore (1999), in theirvision of the Experience Economy. They argue that the basis of value production has shifted fromextraction of raw materials to production of good and then services, each producing increasing addedvalue. However services canbe easily copied, and intensifying competition leads suppliers to developcomplete experiences as an added value compared with services. In the experience economy, theyargue, producers no longer charge for goods or services, but for the experience. This is the basic

business model of Disney or Starbucks, who extract premium prices through theming and otherelements of staging and narrative.

This trend is clearly observable in tourism, where services are being enhanced through thedevelopment of scripts and performance, such as the development of themed attractions, culturalitineraries and staged events. Specific attractions now market themselves as experiences, such as theCourt Room Experience in Bodmin, Cornwall, the Rotterdam Port Experience and Sport ExperienceHeerenveen in the Netherlands. The explosion of experiences in tourism has also arguably led to aform of 'serial reproduction', in which destinations around the world are busy developing similarexperiences (Richards and Wilson, 2006). As a result, Pine and Gilmore have suggested that the nextphase of value creation will be in the area of 'transformations', or experiences which actually changethe person having the experience.

Extract

commodities

Make goods

Deliver services

Stage

experiences

Create

transformations

Differentiated

Undifferentiated

Market PremiumPricing

Coproduction

Productfocus

The trajectory of production - from goods to experiences

A similar progression is captured in the work of Rolf Jensen (2001) on the dream society. He suggeststhat modern society has inverted Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs so that self-actualisation is now thegreatest need. The desire to develop the self through dreams and imagination has produced a shiftfrom need-driven information to story-driven imagination. Story-telling will become one of the majordrivers of the dream economy in the future. Stories engage people and add value to experiencesthis is the basic business model used by Hollywood for generations, and it is now extending to otherareas of the economy. Cars are no longer a means of transport, they are a story about their owners.


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People purchase cars to say something about themselves as individuals, as part of their own lifenarrative.

In the same vein, value creation in tourism is increasingly about the stories and narratives that tourismcarries, creates and facilitates. In order to stand out in the contemporary marketplace, destinationsneed to have a clear narrative about who they are. For tourists, Paris is not just a city, but also adream of romance. Selling dreams has long been a preoccupation of the tourism industry, but the

difference now is that those dreams are not necessarily pre-packaged, but co-created with the tourist.Because the tourists are in search of their own dreams, they are far more knowledgeable than theproducersso the producers have to work with the tourists to make their dreams a reality. Dreamsare also far more complex than hotel beds or restaurants or amusement arcades. They require thecollaboration of a large number of different producers, coordinated by what Jensen would call dreammakers - the new cultural intermediaries for the 21stcentury.

Looking at these macro trends in the economy as a whole and in tourism in particular, we can begin toidentify how the basic nature of tourism has shifted.

Production focus

(Mass Tourism)

Integration of production and

consumption

(Co-creation)

Consumption focus

(Experiences)

There has been a shift from a purely production focus (mass tourism) and a primarily consumptionfocus (experiences) to the integration of production and consumption (co-creation). In a system of co-creation, the links between actors and organizations become vital, as these facilitate the co-creationprocess. These linkages depend not just on the form of information flows, but also on the content of

the information. Although changes in the form of communication, such as the advent of Internet andsmartphones, has revolutionized the way we communicate and the way we travel, the information alsohas to be shaped to provide the specific content that people want. In other words, the story-telling thatmakes a particular place attractive to travel to, or information on the specific benefits that are beingsought from the destination. This means a shift from the simple provision of information and servicestowards the creative co-creation of experiences, narratives and dreams.

In the field of cultural tourism we can see a similar shift away from static museums and monumentstowards more interactive and intangible experiences and the creative development of narrative. Forexample, Frey (2009) outlines how cultural tourism and creativity are becoming integrated. He sees


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cultural tourism not as a passive activity, but as a means of creating places:

The cultural capital and creative resources of places are a resource forcultural tourists (who)are considered cultural pioneers who (can) re-evaluate doubtful places and have a decisiveinfluence on them (revitalisation).

Cultural tourists can therefore help to forge new creative or trusting spaces and play an active role inplace-making. Certain groups of cultural tourists (or creative tourists) can read and understand thelanguages of creative places, the spatial complexity of structural, social, economic and cognitivefactors (that) are seen as a specific local identity.

Because of these creative skills, cultural tourists seek out the local and the defining elements of theatmosphere of places. This enables them not only to see or experience a place, but to live and dwell inthe culture itself.

Frey argues that the resource of place has four dimensions:

the physical-material constitution of the place and the consequent possible forms of utilisation,

a cultural symbolism of the place which uses and thus contributes to creating an identity. Thisatmosphere of local identity marks the habitus of the place

the neighbourhood environment of the place, which by its utilisation and activation structuresthe socio-spatial habitat of the place and

infrastructural features and the connection of the quarter to city structures.

The amalgamation of these different narratives effectively constitute the genus loci of a place.Successful places are arguably those that manage to coordinate all of these cultural-creativeresources to make themselves more attractive as places to live, work, enjoy leisure and invest in,

thereby increasing the quality of life. In the network society, the vital function that enables places toachieve this is the ability to link different networks into regimes that can manage the internal (spaceof places) and external (space of flows) resources effectively.

In line with general network theory, Frey argues that successful creative places are those that cangenerate weak ties which enable them to generate bridging social capital (to link to the space of flowsand to other communities) and bonding social capital (to link people locally). The essential quality ofsuch places is fluidity, which enables different people to meet, so that there are unexpectedsituations, spontaneous actions, as well as heterogeneous and varied lifeworlds and that in this waypoints of view besides usual paths and routines may develop. (Frey, 2009)

This process is difficult to manage: Frey (2009) argues that it must be determined which kinds of

support for creative processes are suitable for facilitating the self-management of those openstructures that creative people need for their work and leisure. Thus, apart from focusing on the placeas a creativity-developing resource, there must be consideration of the producers of creativity andtheir ability to meet and co-create new knowledge and innovations. In this context the functions oftrust, solidarity and context-bound, implicit knowledge in creative milieus are of particular importance.The meetings and moments of co-presence established through networks also create opportunities forrisk-taking and surprise, which are vital to the creative process.

Paradoxically, the development of creativity also presupposes the establishment of routine, ofsedimented practice which establishes the contours of normality or the everyday. Without these


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structures, there is no difference, no resistance, and no possibility of action and re-action. Without thebox, there is no potential for thinking outside the box. The same applies to cultural tourism as well.Successful cultural tourism experiences are often those which provide a link to the culture of thetourist, as well as a confrontation with the new. Translated into the discourse of the route, the beatenpath is necessary for people to deviate from it, and to recognize that there are new ways to act. In thisway, there is a dialectic relationship between the development of established routes, and thedevelopment of new, creative concepts of culture. Only once something becomes normal can it be

challenged and changed.

De Cauther (2009) argues that the development of modern society produced a rush of sensations andexperiences which made the extraordinary normal and produced a dulling of the senses whichgenerated a desire for more and more extreme experiences. Modern journeys were therefore oftenaimed at the different, the exotic. In the past, therefore, the cultural tourist sought culture as somethingexternalthe products of other cultures encapsulated in the museums and monuments that representthe commanding heights of national and local culture. As cultural tourism has developed, however,many tourists have voraciously consumed these cultural symbols until a certain level of saturation isproduced, monument fatigue, been there, seen it, done it, which generates a desire for newexperiences. Arguably these new experiences are to be found within, rather than outside the tourist.GDI (2006) sees a trend away from adrenaline kick to endorphin kick. Instead of a high and ecstasy,

people want meditative tranquillity and spiritual experiences.

We also need our grounding in tourism as an everyday experience in order to be able to appreciatethe differences offered by the host culture. This applies to all aspects of the culture, not just thecommanding heights. As J. B. Priestly remarked: Agood holiday is one spent among people whosenotions of time are vaguer than yours in other words it is the practice of everyday life that makes aculture different and attractive to many cultural tourists, not just specific tourist attractions.

Tourism itself has developed in a similar way. In the early days of tourism, travel itself was novel, andonly over time did mass travel become an excepted, sedimented practice, which participants began totake for granted as part of their everyday world. However, the very fact of travel becoming normal hascreated new possibilities. The practice of travel equips tourists with skills for travelling, and eventually

these skills are used to travel outside the box and to create new possibilities for tourism. This isevident in the range of new travel experiences which are now offered via the Internet and depend to alarge extent on the consumption skills and trust developed through tourism. Examples includecouchsurfing, home swapping and guided by locals schemes.

The important point is to see cultural tourism as more than just tourists being attracted by culture.Tourism itself is a creative force. Tourists do not just consume culture, they can also make culture. Insome cases this can be negative, as in the commodification of local culture. But in other case it leadsto creation of new and positive phenomena, including new creative activities and organizations, newinsights and new forms of intercultural dialogue. The point is to use the creative potential of tourism tocreate new possibilities not just for the tourists, but also for local communities. This is a challenge thatcould be taken up by the cultural routes.

The journey within: routes for the new cultural tourism

Cultural tourism is essentially about journeys. Not just because the tourists by definition travel toexperience culture, but also because culture itself is a journeya voyage of discovery and self-realisation.


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Summarising the trends outlined above, the new cultural tourism can be characterized in terms of:

Co-creation

Increasing linkages between suppliers and consumers

Increased contact with the local culture

Increased emphasis on the everyday and intangible heritage

A shift towards events as a means of valorizing place

Creative spaces

Holistic, spiritual approaches

New grounds for authenticity (a move away from authority towards context and originality)

In this new landscape of cultural tourism, the cultural routes potentially have a new and important roleto play. Cultural routes can act as spiritual recharging stations, meeting spaces and trusting spaces.The growing range of roles that the cultural routes can play is also evident in the work done by theEuropean Institute of Cultural Routes (EICR) for Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, whichidentifies a range of trends relevant to cultural tourism:

The increasing importance of showcase exhibitions and of European capitals for culture offers;

The increasing importance for visitors of museums of territories and scientific museums,backed on living presentations i.e. with people working;

The increasing importance of industrial heritage sites;

The increasing importance of military architecture sites;

The increasing importance of sites of memory;

The increasing importance of natural and historic parks;

The importance of celebrations, mainly those of prominent local, national or European figures;

The increasing importance of annual themes coordinating a common policy for territories;

The case studies of the cultural routes also show that there is collaboration emerging between thecultural routes and tourism SMEs to develop new forms of cultural tourism. Examples include:

The development of interactive guides (TRANSROMANICA)

Links to new audiences via social media (TRANSROMANICA, Hansa Youth)

New celebrations (e.g. Hansa International Festival)

New heritage merchandise (All routes)

Joint marketing with hotels and restaurants (All routes) Joint promotion with transport providers (Hansa)

Gastronomic tourism (Olive Tree Route)

Agrotourism/ecotourism (ViaFrancigena, Al-Andalus)

This underlines the fact that there is still relatively limited articulation between the cultural routes andnewly developing themes in cultural tourism. In particular, the types of tourism activities beingdeveloped by most of the routes seem to have little overlap with some of the other main themes of theCouncil of Europe, such as


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Human rights

Cultural rights

Democracy

Social cohesion

Intercultural dialogue

What is increasingly missing in the contemporary network society is a sense of narrative, which canprovide the essential link between people, communities, places, institutions and times. Very often asense of narrative is missing because the previous links which underpinned narrative have beenweakened or brokenthe family, the neighbourhood, the tribe, etc. One of the aspects of culturaltourism that makes it particularly relevant for the Council of Europe is the intercultural dimension, asmany different cultures are brought together in the development, consumption and communication ofcultural tourism. Cultural tourism has been shown to have the potential to influence attitudes amongboth the host population and tourists. On the positive side, research by the World Youth, Student,Educational Travel Confederation (Richards, 2005) indicated at young people travelling abroad forextended periods were primarily interested in having contact with local people and the local culture.The research found that increased contact with the local culture promoted higher levels ofinterpersonal trust, tolerance and self-confidence.

What is interesting about such intercultural dialogue is that it exposes the double-sided developmentof narrative. Not only does cultural tourism develop a narrative about the place in which both localsand tourists dwell, but it also develops narratives about the individual tourists who go through andexperience interculturality in those places. The narrative of tourism therefore links place and journey,local and global, dwelling and mobility.

In the past, narrative was often linked to journeys, often because narratives provided links to peopleand places only experienced in the imagination. Today, the travel has become more concrete, but thenarrative has lost its connection with the space of places. Cultural routes can play an important role inanchoring narrative in the cultural spaces through which they travel, providing:

Raw materials for narrative Linkage between narrative and place

Creative spaces for narrative development and intercultural dialogue

The cultural routes are important not just because of the physical journey, but also because they are inthemselves a form of narrative. Routes tell stories about the places they pass through and link, andalso about the people who travel them. This is most clearly evident in the case of pilgrimage routessuch as the Camino de Santiago, but it should be an essential element of all routes. The moderntourist needs to have a story they can relate to and which says something about them as people aswell.


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Creative

space

Links

Clusters

The shift towards storytelling in cultural tourism is well illustrated by the example of the city of DenBosch in the Netherlands. Den Bosch originally sold itself as a meeting city, which did not project avery strong image or say anything about the uniqueness of the place. This is one of the reasons whyDen Bosch changed course in 2006 and decided to position the city as the home of the famousmedieval painter Hieronymus Bosch. By linking the city brand with a figure known all over the world forhis use of fantastic imagery it was hoped that a more meaningful narrative could be created about the

city, its history, identity and character. Bosch is also a good starting point for developing events, andthe city is now staging a series of events and theme years around the 500 th anniversary of thepainters death in 2016. The power of the Bosch narrative is evident in the relative success of the cityin gathering funding for the event in an adverse economic climate. The use of the Bosch narrative hasalso succeeded in gathering support among the local population, over 80% of whom think that the useof Bosch to represent the city is a good idea. On the basis of the Bosch narrative the city has alsobeen able to forge a link with other cities which have a Bosch link in particular those which holdartworks by the painter. As these cities include London, Madrid, Vienna and Los Angeles, Den Boschhas immediately placed itself in a different league in cultural tourism terms. This example also validatemany of the trends that the EICR has emphasised, in terms of the growing importance of event andcelebrations linked to famous people. These kinds of developments, which link heritage andcontemporary creativity, events and places, policies and markets, will become more important in the

future development of cultural tourism in Europe.

Challenges for the cultural routes and the Council of Europe

This review of tourism trends in Europe points to a number of challenges which need to be met by thecultural routes and the Council of Europe in future. In particular, it raises some basic questions aboutthe role of the cultural routes as currently constituted with respect to tourism developments and theposition of the Council of Europe:


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Given the growth of tourism as a major leisure industry in recent decades, is there a role for theCouncil of Europe in tourism development and promotion and development?

How can intervention by the COE in tourism markets be justified with respect to other actors (e.g.market failure, development of specific values, etc)?

What is the added value of intervention by the Council of Europe in cultural tourism and cultural routesin relation to other key actors, such as the European Union and UNESCO?

If the Council of Europe wishes to develop tourism through the cultural routes, then what form shouldthis take (mass vs niche cultural tourism/broad access vs targeted dissemination of knowledge)?

What is the role of the Council of Europe in tourism development and promotion relative to otheractors (most relevant in the current context, SMEs, but also national, regional and local authorities?

If the Council of Europe wishes to continue playing a major role in the development of cultural tourismin Europe, then it needs to think strategically about these questions and to find a clear position foritself in the broader cultural tourism field. In particular it needs to consider how the values it wishes to

promote via the cultural routes can best be promoted. Is it sufficient to maintain a general commitmentto COE values in the development and management of the routes, or is there a need to stimulatemore direct and positive action? If the latter is desirable, then it seems that the Council of Europe willneed to find ways to stimulate the desired effects both through financial and other instruments. Thecase studies underline the fact that the cultural routes have limited resources to act outside thetemporary and sporadic stimuli provided by EU funds. This suggests a need for more funding, but italso importantly suggests that the cultural routes currently lack the non-financial motivational powerachieved by programmes such as the European Capital of Culture or the UNESCO World Heritagedesignation. In a climate of fiscal stress it is likely that achieving a similar status will be important ingathering the resources necessary to make the cultural routes a more valuable tool for achieving thebroader aims of the Council of Europe.


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