Box 3.3. Experience: Europe by Bicycle
My husband and I have always been avid bikers. A few years ago, we learned about Bicycle Adventure Club—a nonprofit where members organize bicycle tours both in the United States and around the world for other members. We had just retired, so we had lots of free time, and the idea of biking in Europe appealed to us. We started with a tour in Italy and have since done others in Switzerland/France and Slovenia/Austria/Italy. We bike from town to town and spend one or two nights in a place before traveling to the next one. Each night at the hotel we read in our guidebook about the places we’re going to visit the next day so that we know what we want to see and do along the way. A lot of the sightseeing that we do takes place from our bicycles during the ride, but we also have some additional time, especially after we arrive at a town for the evening, to visit other sites as well.
The tour organizers provide everyone a route sheet, a map, and GPS coordinates to get you from one town to the next, and then you’re on your own. No one actually leads you as a group, so you have some flexibility to see what you want. You do occasionally get lost, though. On our trip through Switzerland, we arrived at the designated town in the late afternoon, but we couldn’t find the hotel—it was around a corner behind another building, and the directions were pretty vague. It took us about a half hour of walking around, trying to ask people in English, showing them our map and the name of the hotel, before the tourist information office was finally able to get us there. But there were other people in the group who had even more trouble and didn’t actually get in until about 8 p.m. We normally get to the hotel much earlier so that we can shower and relax a bit before a 7 p.m. dinner.
The tours are given a difficulty rating based on the number of miles covered and the amount of climbing involved per day. I think the first one we did in Italy was rated a 3B or 3C—that’s up to 3,500 feet of climbing and 65 miles per day. Everyone is responsible for bringing their own equipment, so I had bought a folding bicycle that I could pack for the flight to Europe. It was a very small bicycle with twenty-inch wheels, which made this challenging ride extremely difficult. I now have a regular size breakaway bicycle where all of the parts actually fit into my suitcase, and I’ve never had to pay oversized/overweight luggage fees. There’s a van that takes your luggage from one hotel to the next, and there may be a vehicle that picks people up who aren’t going to be able to make it on that particular stage, but for the most part, you are expected to complete every ride as scheduled.
On one of our rides in the tri-border region between Slovenia, Austria, and Italy, I blew out a tire. It was stupid, but the road going down from the mountains in Slovenia to Austria was very steep and very bad with lots of potholes. It was a little scary, so I rode my brake too hard. The wheel overheated, the tire blew off, and the tube was ruined. I couldn’t replace it, and I couldn’t fix it. A nice couple—the woman was English—with a car stopped and ended up taking me back to the hotel. It turns out we had both taught in the same field.
Each of our trips has been amazing. Biking in Europe—especially places we’ve toured—can be extremely challenging. Vršič Pass in Slovenia, for example, is a route through the Julian Alps with steep grades and fifty switchbacks—twenty-four up and twenty-six down. Sometimes when I’m biking here in Colorado and I start to get tired, I think to myself, if I can bike Vršič, I can do anything! So it is also rewarding and a tremendous amount of fun. The scenery is beautiful, the towns are lovely, and it’s such a different way of seeing a place than when you’re traveling by car. One of our favorite experiences was on the Switzerland/France tour. It was so much fun for us to know that three different days of that trip we followed the same route as the Tour de France that year. Our trip was in June, and we watched the Tour on TV in July and saw all of the places we had just been. We definitely plan on doing more tours in the future.
—Sara
In particular, some of the best-known forms of rural tourism make use of local agricultural industries. This may also be described as farm or agricultural tourism (agritourism or agrotourism). Activities within this product vary widely. Tourists may participate in activities set in the farm environment, such as horseback riding or hiking farm trails. They may consume farm produce, such as eating at a farm restaurant, purchasing items at a farm market, or even doing the “pick-your-own” option. Tourists may also participate in farm activities. Some activities are simulated, such as tourist cattle drives and cowboy cookouts hosted by dude ranch resorts, but there are also working farms and ranches on which the tourist learns about and assists in daily chores or harvests. For these activities, tourists will stay on the farm in facilities converted to serve as a bed and breakfast or specially constructed facilities such as cottages. Farm tourism has a particularly strong tradition in Europe.
In addition, new products based on even more specific interests continue to evolve out of this product. For example, wine tourism has become so popular that it has grown into a distinct product. This involves traveling to wine regions to visit vineyards and wineries, participate in wine tastings, and purchase wine at the source. This supplements income generated from the production of wine and promotes the product to wider markets. Wine tourism now takes place all over the world, including traditional producers such as France and Italy, as well as the United States, Chile, Australia, and South Africa.
Urban Tourism
As with rural tourism, urban tourism may encompass activities considered with other products, such as cultural and heritage tourism or event tourism (below). Towns and cities have an array of attractions upon which urban tourism may be based, and some of the largest tourism destinations in the world are major cities, such as Paris, New York City, Bangkok, and Dubai. These urban attractions fall under either category of human attraction (see chapter 2), including those that originally had some other purpose and those that were built for the purpose of tourism. In many cases, attractions will be spatially concentrated in particular parts of the city, such as historic neighborhoods, shopping and entertainment districts, or waterfront developments.
For example, cities all over the world attract tourists for their “old town” areas that feature historic buildings from ancient ruins to churches and cathedrals or castles and palaces. Serving different purposes over time, these areas may be preserved as attractions. Urban amenities such as upscale or boutique shopping, museums, art galleries, theaters, concert venues, sports arenas, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and more serve the dual purpose of providing a desirable living environment for residents and an attractive environment for tourist visits. In some cases, an additional category of attraction has developed: those that originally served a specific purpose but have since been transformed into something else entirely. For example, the Meatpacking District in Manhattan developed based on the spatial concentration of slaughterhouses and packing plants. In recent years, this area has been redeveloped into New York’s most fashionable neighborhood with diverse restaurants, trendy clubs, fashionable boutiques, and luxury hotels. This, combined with historic district designations, has given rise to walking and guided tours of the area.
Cultural Tourism
Cultural tourism is arguably one of the oldest tourism products, as many of the earliest tourists traveled for the experience of other cultures and cultural attractions. As the tourism industry began to develop specialized products, cultural tourism was considered a niche tourism product oriented toward a small subset of affluent and educated tourists interested in authentic experiences of other cultures. Today, however, cultural tourism is recognized as one of the broadest tourism products, which encompasses a vast range of attractions and activities and has extensive overlap with other products. Some reports suggest that as many as 70 percent of international tourists today participate in cultural tourism.4 Given its tremendous extent and importance, we will examine the cultural resources for tourism in greater depth in chapter 6.
Cultural tourism is based on human attractions
, and in particular, elements of a society’s culture. For the most part, cultural tourism pertains to the unique cultural patterns that have evolved in a specific place over time to serve a purpose for that group of people, not to attract tourists. This includes the patterns of lifestyles, cuisine, clothing, art, music, folklore, religious practices, and more that make a place distinct. In the modern world, with increased globalization and the perception of uniform contemporary lifestyles, there is often an interest in and a demand for experiences of different cultures. Although many of these patterns no longer have a role in the daily lives of these people, this demand means that they may in fact maintain elements of traditional culture for the purpose of offering a unique experience for tourists (figure 3.5). There is considerable overlap between this brand of cultural tourism and heritage tourism, as well as certain types of event tourism such as festivals. In addition, as elements of traditional culture are more likely to be an available attraction in rural areas, there may be overlap with rural tourism as well.
Figure 3.5. Elements of traditional culture create a distinct attraction for foreign tourists. These people in an ethnic Miao village in rural Guizhou, China, are dressed in traditional costumes to greet a group of American tourists with music, dancing, and liquor. (Source: Velvet Nelson)
At the same time, the role of contemporary culture should not be underestimated in tourism. Elements of contemporary culture may be used specifically for the purpose of attracting tourists, but tourism may also be a side effect. This may be associated with some aspect of high culture, such as artistic works and performances. England is particularly known for its literary destinations—places specifically associated with a well-known writer or referenced in a widely read work. In these cases, tourism to a place is not a goal of the writer, yet tourism stakeholders in a place may use the work to their advantage. This may also be associated with popular culture. For example, some of the major film projects over the past decade, such as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean, have all generated significant tourism to film sites. Again, tourism was not the primary object in producing the film but is clearly a by-product.
Although attractions developed specifically for the purpose of tourism do not fit traditional ideas of cultural tourism, they are nonetheless shaped by and represent aspects of contemporary culture. For example, Disneyland and Disneyworld are two of the most visited tourism destinations in the world and have been described as epitomizing American culture. Likewise, the theme park–like environment of Las Vegas is distinctly part of popular American culture. In contrast with tourism related to elements of traditional culture associated with rural areas, these activities are associated with urban areas and overlap with urban tourism.
Heritage Tourism
As heritage tourism overlaps with cultural tourism, interest in cultural heritage has a very long history. However, heritage tourism only recently emerged as a distinct tourism product and is considered one of the fastest growing. Heritage tourism encompasses travel to varied sites of historic importance such as the Parthenon or the Taj Mahal, sites where important historic events occurred such as Gettysburg National Military Park or Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and sites that represent the stories and people of the past such as the South African Cultural History Museum or Mozart’s Birthplace museum. These sites may be located in either rural or urban areas.
Given the considerable overlap between heritage and cultural tourism, the two may be combined into a single “cultural heritage tourism” product. However, that may unnecessarily limit heritage tourism. For example, heritage tourism activities may be oriented around United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)–designated World Heritage Sites. These are sites deemed to be of outstanding universal value based on a specific set of selection criteria. These criteria are predominantly based on human/cultural factors, but there are also four criteria based on physical/natural factors that encompass those places of important natural history and biodiversity, as well as places of spectacular natural beauty.5 While these places would likely serve as tourism attractions regardless, the World Heritage Site designation often raises the site’s profile and increases visits.
Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) Tourism
Visiting friends and relatives (VFR) is one of the most common tourism products in which most people participate. This product developed significantly in the second half of the twentieth century with increased mobilities. People in many parts of the world experienced greater abilities to move to new locations, within their own country or abroad, based on a variety of opportunities for school, work, or otherwise. This created dispersed networks of family and friends. At the same time, people experienced greater abilities to travel to visit these family and friends. VFR is often domestic tourism; however, this is also one of the largest tourist products for places with high rates of emigration. This form of international tourism links the place of origin, whether it is a small Caribbean island like Trinidad or a large country like India, with the places to which these people have migrated.
Still, VFR tourism is a product that generally receives little attention. Many people won’t consider VFR trips to be tourism because it may be seen as an obligation rather than a vacation or simply “going home” rather than “going away.” Moreover, VFR tourists are often seen as existing “outside” the normal tourism industry. Their patterns of behavior might be determined by different factors than those of other tourists. For example, their destination choice is based on where friends or relatives live as opposed to the attractions of a place. Their choice of activities is influenced by their friends’ and relatives’ regular activities, interests, and recommendations. In addition, they may be less reliant on the tourism infrastructure. They may stay in and eat at people’s homes as opposed to staying in hotels and eating at restaurants. They may rely on their hosts’ personal cars rather than renting one or using local transportation, and their hosts may serve as their guides rather than hiring one or taking a tour. Although these tourists may contribute less to the tourism industry at a destination, they are nonetheless contributing to the local economy.
There may be overlap between this product and others in terms of motivations. For example, people may travel to their birthplace for events such as weddings or reunions. In addition, there will be overlap with other products as people participate in tourism activities during the course of their visit with family and friends. Because of the tremendous variations within this product, some researchers have argued for it to be broken down into smaller segments, including domestic and international, short-haul and long-haul, or visiting friends and visiting relatives.
Event Tourism
Event tourism is based on special events as a category of tourism attractions. Special events have long been an attraction for localized markets and have often generated day trips, for example, as people travel to neighboring towns to participate in local festivals. However, as more people are enabled to travel farther distances, this product has exploded. It now encompasses a diverse set of events that are global in nature or highly localized, always in the same location or at various locations, religious or secular, annual or one time only.
Kumbha Mela is a riverside festival held four times every twelve years at four different sites in India. It is considered to be one of the world’s oldest religious festivals and the largest. The most recent Purna Kumbh Mela (the complete festival every twelfth year) in 2001 was attended by more than 60 million people over the course of the six-week celebration. This has been described as the largest human gathering in the recorded history of the world. Some traditional religious festivals also continue to be celebrated around the world but have evolved into new forms over time and in different places. For example, carnival has a long history, particularly in the Catholic religion, and pre-Lenten carnival festivals now attract visitors from all over the world. However, based on different traditions and influences, carnival in Venice is a much differ
ent experience than carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Moreover, popular events such as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras have taken on a host of new activities and meanings.
Secular festivals take place all over the world based on a range of attractions, from popular culture—such as music or film festivals—to local heritage or even local produce. Oktoberfest, held in Munich over a seventeen-day period at the end of September and the beginning of October, is one of the most famous of these events. The two hundredth-anniversary celebration in 2010 saw approximately six and a half million visitors, who consumed an estimated seven million mugs of beer.6 The Sauerkraut Festival started as a small local festival in Waynesville, Ohio, a town with less than three thousand residents, and has grown into a major event attracting approximately 350,000 visitors from all over the country. In addition to the more than 450 juried craft vendors, there are more than 30 food vendors offering everything from traditional pork and sauerkraut dishes to sauerkraut ice cream.7
Major sporting events are some of the most widely known forms of event tourism. In some cases, these are annual events that occur in the same place. As a result, these destinations are often closely associated with the event. For example, the Kentucky Derby is a world-famous thoroughbred horse race held in May at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, that attracts approximately 155,00 visitors each year.8 Wimbledon is one of the most prominent professional tennis tournaments, held in June at The All England Lawn Tennis Club in the London suburb of Wimbledon. The two-week-long tournament is attended by approximately 450,000 visitors.9
An Introduction to the Geography of Tourism Page 9