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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
In geography, a region is one of the most obscure and controversial scientific research objects. However, the tourism sector frequently uses the term, both in the communication of tourism destinations and in daily-life vocabulary, to characterize spatial practices that overtake the scale of a place. That said, a geographic concentration of place, equipment and accommodation does not equate to a tourist region. In order to define the tourist region, this book presents the common thoughts and interpretations of it, which have been advanced by geographers since the beginning of the 20th Century. The Tourist Region also examines stakeholders' logics that are identified in the practices of a tourist destination in a regional dimension, and explores the tourist region as a territorial co-construction. Finally, this book analyzes multi-level regional networks of tourist places, built according to tourist mobilities. By presenting several measurement methods of the tourist region, this book explains the spatial practices of tourists and anticipates the actions for tourism professionals.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Table of Contents
Cover
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
PART 1: The Region, a Complex Concept Applied to Tourism
1 Tourist Places, with their Foundations in the Tourist Region
1.1. The tourist place, a locality chosen in spatial tourism practices
1.2. Diversity of tourist places according to practices
1.3. Basic tourist places at the local level
1.4. Tourist places on a regional scale
1.5. Conclusion
2 The Tourist Region, a Localized Area and Localizer
2.1. How to define the tourist region?
2.2. Regional spatializations of the tourism phenomenon
2.3. Construction of a regional tourism area
2.4. Conclusion
3 Geographical Approaches of the Tourist Region
3.1. A regional geography of tourism
3.2. The functional region of tourism
3.3. The tourist region, a lived space
3.4. Tourist places and mobility in a regional dimension
3.5. Conclusion
PART 2: Stakeholder Logics in the Practice of a Tourist Destination in a Regional Dimension
4 Tourists and their Territories Practices in a Regional Dimension
4.1. Spatial skills linked to tourist mobilities within a space of regional dimension
4.2. Itineraries and routes according to tourist mobilities on a regional scale
4.3. Reading tourist mobilities to understand spatial practices with a regional dimension
4.4. Conclusion
5 Investors and their Structuring of Regional Tourist Territories
5.1. The private investor and their creation of regional tourism territories
5.2. The public investor and its regional spatial planning through tourism
5.3. Conclusion
6 Developers and Local Actors Mobilization for Promotion of their Regional Territories
6.1. Public actors and the collective interest of a territory in a regional dimension
6.2. Private actors and their territorial valuations in the interest of their companies
6.3. Make the territory a shared brand to develop a regional tourist destination
6.4. Conclusion
7 The Prescribers and the Encouragement of Regional Practices
7.1. The prescription to guide tourists in their choice of places
7.2. The prescription of the local advisors to select the places
7.3. The prescription for a regional experience
7.4. Conclusion
PART 3: Reading the Tourist Region Using Networks of Places Analysis
8 Regional Tourism Distribution in Networks of Places
8.1. Translating tourist mobilities, according to stories, into graphs and matrices
8.2. Neighborhood relationships to analyze the regional dimension of networks
8.3. Multi-level regional networks of tourist places according to mobilities
8.4. Conclusion
9 Definition of Regional Tourist Functions of Places
9.1. The recreational functions of places according to tourist practices
9.2. The regional tourism function of places according to recreational functions
9.3. Evolution of a place to develop the regional tourist function
9.4. Conclusion
10 Place Positions in the Tourist Region
10.1. The inclusion of places in the networks of tourist places according to mobilities
10.2. Developers are involved in positioning the place to be integrated into tourists’ spatial practices
10.3. Conclusion
11 Connection of Tourist Places in Networks via Tourist Mobilities
11.1. Measurement of the nodality degree of tourist places in networks
11.2. Some results of the nodal function of the tourist places within the Lake Geneva region
11.3. Suggesting the connection of tourist places and changing nodality
11.4. Conclusion
Conclusion
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1. Distribution of international tourist arrivals by continent [DEH 03, …
Chapter 7
Table 7.1. Places integrated into the visiting tours of two tour operators (desi…
Chapter 8
Table 8.1. Example of a matrix of the places linked by the tourists interviewed …
Table 8.2. Example of a matrix of neighborhood relationships of directed graphs …
Table 8.3. Example of a matrix of neighborhood relationships of directed graphs …
Chapter 9
Table 9.1. Recreational function categories by tourism activities
Table 9.2. Description of activities and ranking by recreational functions in Ge…
Table 9.3. Characterized regional tourism functions by dominant recreational fun…
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1. The Pointe du Raz tourist site (France) (source: J. Piriou, March 20…
Figure 1.2. Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum in Nanjing (China)
Figure 1.3. Canals of the city of Bruges (Belgium)
Figure 1.4. Promenade des Anglais in Nice (France)
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1. Boutique of regional products in Sologne, France (source: J. Piriou,…
Figure 2.2. Village of Montrésor in Touraine (France)
Figure 2.3. Avoriaz resort in the French Northern Alps
Figure 2.4. Information panel on the regional landscape in the village from Mont…
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1. Beach cabins on the beach of l’Écluse in Dinard (France) (source: J.…
Figure 3.2. Rosas, Costa Brava in Spain
Figure 3.3. Old Town Square in Prague (Czech Republic)
Figure 3.4. Conques en Rouergue in the South of France
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1. Great Wall of China in Badaling (China) (source: J. Piriou, December…
Figure 4.2. Tourists in front of Chambord Castle: (France)
Figure 4.3. Tourists taking pictures of the clear view of the riverbanks from th…
Figure 4.4. Types of mobility carried out by tourists during their stays [PIR 09…
Figure 4.5. View from Lake Geneva of Montreux (Switzerland)
Figure 4.6. Interviews with tourists around Lake Geneva (October–November 2009) …
Figure 4.7. A schematic map of the mobility of the tourists interviewed in Molés…
Figure 4.8. A schematic map of the mobility of the tourists interviewed in Lausa…
Figure 4.9. A schematic map of the mobility of the tourists interviewed in Gruyè…
Figure 4.10. A schematic map of tourist mobility interviewed at Évian-les-Bains:…
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1. Esplanade of the Deauville International Center (France) in front of…
Figure 5.2. Bridge of the Arc in the gorges of the Ardèche (France)
Figure 5.3. Cruise on the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo (China)
Figure 5.4. Futuroscope park (near to Poitiers, France)
Figure 5.5. Tourist information road sign on the Loire by bike
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1. The Great Elephant on the esplanade of the former shipyards from Nan…
Figure 6.2. Signage for the ecomuseum in the vineyard of Cognac (France)
Figure 6.3. Plaque of the “UNESCO” label at the entrance of the Château de Villa…
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1. Train itineraries proposed by the Guide Joanne “Les châteaux de la L…
Figure 7.2. Itineraries by car proposed by the Michelin Green Guide “Les château…
Figure 7.3. Mont-Saint-Michel (France)
Figure 7.4. Chinese tourists taking pictures of the Pudong district from the Bun…
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1. Graphs made from tourist movements interviewed in Montreux (Switzerl…
Figure 8.2. Schematic map of point processes with gaps according to the intervie…
Figure 8.3. Schematic map of point processes with gaps according to the intervie…
Figure 8.4. Schematic map of directed graphs according to mobilities in terms of…
Figure 8.5. Schematic map of directed graphs according to the continuous mobilit…
Figure 8.6. Models of multi-level regional networks of tourist places [PIR 12]
Figure 8.7. Main regional hubs within the Lake Geneva region [PIR 12]
Figure 8.8. Regional multi-hub of Lake Geneva regional multi-hub [PIR 12]
Figure 8.9. Lake Geneva regional agglomerate [PIR 12]
Figure 8.10. French-Swiss Alps regional continuum [PIR 12]
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1. Medieval village of Yvoire (France) (source: J. Piriou, July 2012). …
Figure 9.2. Entrance to Chillon Castle (Switzerland)
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1. Member sites of the “Léman sans frontière” association (source: Lém…
Figure 10.2. Concentration of tourists and inhabitants on the ramparts of the in…
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1. Tourist welcome guide and suggestions for itineraries on the square…
Figure 11.2. Village center of Gruyères (Switzerland)
Conclusion
Figure C.1. Model of the co-construction of the tourist region
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Tourism and Mobility Systems Set
coordinated by Philippe Violier
Volume 1
The Tourist Region
A Co-Construction of Tourism Stakeholders
Jérôme Piriou
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27-37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2019
The rights of Jérôme Piriou to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933966
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-416-2
Foreword
In the first book published by the MIT “Mobilités itinéraires territoires” team, a group of researchers, we proposed a typology of tourist places based on the distinction between those created (complexes and tourist resorts) by tourism and those invested in (cities and sites) [EQU 02]. From this first reflection, it appeared to us that research should be continued in order to consider the question of the extent, i.e. to address the regional scale. Jérôme Piriou set about this task in his thesis defended on November 30, 2012.
He has taken up his analysis again to offer us this book. After a scientific review on the question of the region in geography, from which he deduced that this area is made up of a network of interconnected places, he showed that in the scientific approach to tourism, these networks are co-constructed by the actors who interact to build these links. Tourists, through their second mobility (the first to connect places of residence to destinations), initiate or confirm these links, while public actors (legitimate and technical) try to impose their territories and professional actors develop their own strategies to mobilize the qualities of the space for their benefit. The author thus demonstrates that geographical science provides tools and analyses relevant to the professional world.
Geographers will be challenged by the expression tourist region because, even though mentioning natural, agricultural or industrial regions has never been a problem, the concept of tourist region must prove its worth. For how could such a futile social practice contribute to the organization of space? However, the analysis shows that there are regions whose dynamics are mainly based on tourism, others to which activity contributes strongly and others for which the effects are marginal or even non-existent, reversing the discourse of those who see tourism everywhere.
Philippe VIOLIER
Professor of Geography at the University of Angers (France)
Preface
This book is the revised version of a doctoral thesis in geography defended at the University of Angers, in France, on November 30, 2012. This doctoral work consisted of better understanding the concept of a tourist region by questioning the spatial practices of tourism stakeholders, particularly tourists. This subject has been developed through academic and professional experiences in tourism institutions confronted with questions relating to the territories of action and competence. On the scientific level, the quotation by Rémy Knafou, taken from the symposium of the Geography, Tourism, and Leisure Commission of the French National Geography Committee on Diffuse Tourism held in Clermont-Ferrand in 1994, was particularly interesting:
“Rural cottages, vacation villages, a sausage festival and a Penitents Museum – all honorable initiatives – are not enough to make a given region a tourist region, any more than three factories and four workshops make an industrial region” [KNA 95, p. 15].
These comments have contributed to making our research more difficult. Indeed, the presence of facilities or elements that could suggest that there would be a given place, a tourist region, is not enough. However, we know that tourism is the subject of a system of actors involving tourism professionals, elected officials, investors, developers, etc., as well as tourists! Under these conditions, what does the tourist region mean for all these actors in their practices?
To answer this question, during these five years of doctoral studies, field work was carried out in three study areas: the Côte d’Émeraude in Brittany, the Loire Valley with its towns, castles and gardens, and finally the “Lake Geneva region” of the Lemanic Arc, comprising both the French and Swiss shores. These lands were chosen for several reasons. First of all, these three areas are highly popular with tourists. For example, there are popular tourist areas that receive approximately one million visitors per year, such as the intramural city of Saint-Malo, the castle of Chenonceau in the Loire Valley and the castle of Chillon located near Montreux on the upper part of Lake Geneva. Each of them receives international tourists. These three laboratory spaces benefit from diversified tourist areas: sites, villages, cities. In addition to a sometimes-overriding theme, for example castles, these regions do not operate via a single activity. Finally, these three laboratory areas are difficult to define. There is no tourist border; there are only administrative borders between departments, regions and nations. The flows are continuous and blur the contours of these spaces. Between 2007 and 2009, we collected data (archives, documentation, interviews with tourists, etc.). Field practice, by observation, allowed us to realize tourist situations that would have been difficult to understand at a distance. For example, only the tourists interviewed within a tourist place could report to us on a trip involving multiple visited places throughout Europe.
In this book, we have chosen to mainly present the results of tourist interviews from the Lake Geneva region. Indeed, after analysis, this laboratory area gathers the main observed facts related to the organization of the actors, as well as to their spatial practices.
I would like to thank Professor Philippe Violier, thesis director, as well as the members of the jury, Professors Cécile Clergeau, Jean-Christophe Gay, Christian Pihet, Laurent Tissot and Jean Varlet, for their support and encouragement, without forgetting my family members, including Laurent, for their patience and presence.
Jérôme PIRIOU
February 2019
Introduction
The research theme addressed in this book is tourism. It is studied from the angle of human and social geography, which leads us to question the scale of the phenomenon’s localization: the tourist region. By using the term “region” (a controversial and obscure subject of geography), we seek to understand the meaning of the tourism phenomenon beyond the elementary places, i.e. characterized by a distance. In light of the scientific literature, since the 1970s, many geographers, particularly French, who have taken an interest in tourism have adopted the institutional definition of the World Tourism Organization without questioning it1. Indeed, it seduces researchers with its ease of use. We can recall two specific points about our subject. First, in the overall definition of tourism, this institution classifies individuals according to their travel time away from home and according to the one and only sine qua non condition of an economic nature, which is “unpaid” in another place of temporary residence. Then, depending on the distance of perception and the scale adopted, the World Tourism Organization divides the world into large regions to statistically analyze the flows between sending households and receiving basins. However, concerning our subject on the tourist region, a question emerges: how can we understand what motivates the tourist to make a daily excursion during their vacation?
According to the World Tourism Organization, a tourist cannot be an excursionist2 since they are already a tourist. So, can we say that they would be a “tourist-excursionist” or an “excursionist-tourist”? In addition, what criteria defines the area that the tourists are looking for (according to the World Tourism Organization)? These same geographers argue that the regional approach to tourism must be approached by generalization according to a principle of homogeneity. According to them, a homogeneous space is observed either by an environment integrating places or by places that by their similarity or proximity create a whole. Other questions also arise: would the tourist region be a set of places, the homogeneity of which would define the perimeter? Would proximity and juxtaposition be criteria for homogenization?
Since the 2000s, a new geographical approach to tourism has emerged on the basis of pioneering work in anthropology and sociology [JAF 88, ELI 94], which has focused on individuals and their choices for recreation through tourism that broke with everyday routines3. This approach has guided the subsequent research around two fundamental elements, namely the construction of individuals’ identities and their societal functioning, as well as their movement and residence. On this principle, they observe the spatial role of tourism through the creation or subversion of places. Tourists travel to places that are adapted to their expectations. Two spatial forms emerge from this work: the elementary place and the complex place4. But this approach poses a twofold problem. First, tourists would be exposed to two forms of stay depending on their type of mobility: sedentary and nomadic. However, these studies show that the elementary place with sufficient accommodation capacity would encourage tourists to remain sedentary, while the complex place with heterogeneous accommodation capacity would justify nomadism via roaming. But we can wonder: what if all tourist places did not receive tourists with differentiated mobility? Second, it is questionable whether, once mobility is engaged, the form of the tourist’s stay is immutable throughout the time spent outside his or her home. Don’t tourists use several types of mobility during their tourist stays? Don’t they sequence their stays through multiple trips?
I.1. The place as a starting point
The place is a spatial unit that reflects the ecumene, i.e. the terrestrial spaces inhabited by humankind and in a particularly visible way. The place is “where something is and/or is happening” [BER 03, p. 555]. But if the phenomenon is there, it means that it is not elsewhere. According to Denise Pumain and Thérèse Saint-Julien, “the place is a continuous portion of the earth’s surface, defined by geographical coordinates and its extent” [PUM 97, p. 156]. In addition, the characteristic of the place is specific because there is something going on and/or something is happening. The Greek topos defined by Aristotle reflects an intrinsic relationship between geographical position and what happens and/or is found there: “on the one hand, the thing and the place are inseparable: If the thing moves, its place becomes another place; on the other hand, the being or identity of the thing does not go beyond its place: If it exceeded this limit, it would be another thing, because it would have another form, the form gives the being to the thing” [BER 03, p. 559]. The concept of place is used in geography to mean a spatial approach in the sense that it is not a population or community that is targeted, but a specific geographical referent [STO 17a]. This approach is inherited from a Vidalian geography developed at the beginning of the 20th Century that strives to take into account places, “geography is a science of places, not of men” [VID 13, p. 298]. Yet, humankind is appropriating places, to make them their territories. This territory is built; it is a “contiguous portion of the land surface appropriate by a group” [PUM 97, p. 156]. The ecumene shows an impregnation between the place and the people, the things that have a common history; it is the concretus [BER 00]. Establishing a relationship of intimacy is the result of living in a place [HEI 58].
The individual is at the center of geographical reality, of the world around them; they are an actor in its construction as well as in its realization and meaning. For example, before the 18th Century, the coastal environment crystallized fears, a repulsion based on representations, imagination and beliefs, and it was coveted from the middle of the 18th Century onwards for climatic and therapeutic purposes and would finally become the most anthropized environment in the world [COR 88, DUH 09]. Individuals perceive an interest in living in the places, since they bring resources and attribute an identity and values to them [URR 05]. Naming a place by a toponym gives us a geographical referent on a spatial unit. The toponym shows how to fix and naturalize a reality that has not always existed and that is changing [RET 03]. Also, the place becomes a concrete and appropriate space, “places are distinguished from the most abstract space, by their personalization generally identified by a name” [GEO 06, p. 247]. It is understood here that this spatial unit cannot cover a significant portion of the ecumene; the site is “the smallest complex spatial unit”. This complexity is explained because it is a space in which the concept of distance is not relevant [LEV 94]. The definition of distance shows us that the place concerns only one and the same reality and therefore cannot be the subject of a distance “attribute of the relationship between two or more realities, characterizing their degree of separation, by difference with the state of contact” [LEV 03a, p. 267]. However, there is the question of living in/out of the place. This is difficult to explain in Vidalian geography since it seeks to identify portions of homogeneous areas without taking into account the articulation between the units [GAY 95]. The discontinuities allow a better understanding of the distinction between places. They reflect “a more or less sudden change in the characteristics of the places” [CIA 07, p. 23]. The threshold is an idea that makes it possible to express a change of state, thus juxtaposing two spaces with different social, political and economic systems [DIM 02]. This is materialized by the boundary, i.e. “which makes it possible to circumscribe a given spatial unit” [REN 02, p. 40]. The living space, i.e. the places frequented on a daily basis, would be built according to a dialectic of “continuity/discontinuity”; this being verified by spatial practices: “it is the area of spatial practices, a space frequented and traversed by everyone with a minimum of regularity” [DIM 98, p. 30]. The space used is therefore composed of places, not only as a place to live but also as a place of leisure. What distinctions can we make between these places? Do they all engage in the same activities? Moreover, what scale are we talking about?
I.2. Tourism practices and choice of destination
To see the presence of tourism within a place, it is necessary to define what is meant by tourism. From a statistical point of view, this would require knowing the number of individuals present for tourism purposes in relation to the annual resident population, which is the location quotient [STO 17a]. Again, we must be in agreement with what we call individuals present for tourism purposes. The World Tourism Organization provides us with little insight by generalizing these individuals to visitors with multiple activities. The World Tourism Organization considers tourism to be:
“A notion of activity [that] embraces everything that visitors do for or during a trip. It is not restricted to activities considered to be characteristic tourist activities, such as sunbathing and visits, including sites, etc. Travel for business, education and training, etc., can also be part of tourism, once the conditions established to define tourism have been met” [OMT 10, p. 11].
Tourism therefore generates a movement from one place to another, but the reason for the movement is particularly unclear. This confusion is reflected in the work of many scientists who consider any travel as tourism, including business, health, religion, etc. [MIC 83, BRU 93], and rely on the use of so-called tourist facilities and infrastructures [HOE 08, BOT 13]. But can we fully trust a reading of the use of facilities and infrastructures to understand how individuals live in a place for tourism purposes? If we look at the measurement of the tourist function rate of the places, we base ourselves on the number of tourist beds per inhabitant. However, can we consider a place without tourist accommodation as weakly tourist? There are many examples of places where tourists visit without in situ accommodation (beaches, mountain peaks, monuments, etc.). It is therefore necessary to understand the reason for moving to some places rather than others. In France, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies defines tourism as:
“Activities carried out by persons during their journeys and stays in places outside their usual environment for a consecutive period not exceeding one year, for leisure, business and other purposes, not related to the exercise of a remunerated activity in a place visited”5.
The duration would certainly contribute to characterize this traveler. Nevertheless, not every traveler is a tourist. Moreover, tourism is not always the same. The word tourist appeared in English in 1800, then in French in 1803 and in German in 1875. It refers to a person who travels for pleasure, away from work, business or any other reason that restricts their freedom of action [STO 17a]. The tourist is therefore not just any traveler. Their journey is different from that made by obligation, as some writers have done. For example, as historian Marc Boyer points out, “Madame de Sévigné’s correspondence is exemplary of the behavior of the greats of the 17th Century; when they travel, it is more by obligation than by pleasure and think above all of what they lack […]” [BOY 05, p. 34]. Then, relying on infrastructure and equipment statistics (e.g. accommodation, catering, site) amounts to considering any individual who travels as a tourist. Moreover, the World Tourism Organization encourages this approach to the reading of a tourist mobility. It defines two main categories of travel: personal travel for those who are on business and professional grounds [OMT 10]. Personal trips include visits to relatives and friends, medical treatment, religion and pilgrimage. However, medical treatment is indeed a constraint, since it is only possible on medical prescription. As for parental relationships, they are part of a limited and often routine field of possibilities [DUH 13]. Also, can we consider that an individual who goes to and stays in a city for a funeral lives there for tourist purposes? To answer favorably would ask us to accept an attitude of opportunism, which could challenge morality in a context of mourning. To answer negatively would show us that any night occasioned cannot be considered as the work of an individual who travels for tourism purposes. But the answer cannot be so obvious. And for good reason, an individual can go and stay in a place in a professional context, therefore paid for business activities, and take advantage of the time available for leisure activities. In this case, we will speak of tourist “moments” that are part of a business trip, such as extending a stay with a vacation [COE 10]. Finally, seeking to understand an individual’s reasons for staying in a place for tourism purposes is like questioning the spatial practices of individuals. By practice, we mean “human actions that are part of a constituted environment, in particular other practices, and thus transform it, they are contextualized, in a situation” [RUB 03, p. 740]. Thus, according to a geographical code of practices, tourists’ spatial practices are identifiable since they are a chosen mobility towards one or more places of the off-day world. Some places are therefore conducive to the practices of individuals seeking recreation. But tourism itself also creates places. Tourist places are located and localized for several reasons such as their geographical location, physical and landscape setting, infrastructure, and inherent activities. We can wonder what justifies the investigation of the places by tourists and why these chosen places are concentrated in the same space. But what can we observe at the regional level? Are regional tourist areas easily identifiable? And what exactly does the concept of “region” correspond to?
I.3. From the practice of tourist places to the practice of a tourist region
Tourists invest in a recreational area. They differentiate and categorize places according to their interest and experience. This space of places would constitute a region. It appears that defining the notion of “region” is complex and ambiguous despite several studies conducted by geographers over the past three centuries. Thus, although geography is a discipline that enables the understanding and representation of spatial patterns of phenomena, whether natural, physical, biological or human factors [LAC 86], the region remains among geographers as a word, which, although much studied, discussed and contested, is still far from being circumscribed. In this sense, the region would be the “most obscure and controversial word in geography” [BRU 90, p. 166]. As such, the region can be defined in a rather vague way, but it can also have a very specific acceptance [BEA 71]. Taking up such a subject may seem ambitious; however, far from the idea of redefining the word “region”, we seek, above all and modestly, to enlighten ourselves, through a geographical approach to tourism, on the meaning to be given and to take into account the “region” applied to the tourism phenomenon. What is the region? How to approach it? How to define it? Should natural physical factors be taken into account? What place should be given to human activities in the definition of the region? It is questionable whether the tourist region should have a specific boundary. In addition, among the stakeholders involved, who decides on the perimeter of the tourist region?
We will see that determining what a “region” is would depend on the field of analysis in which it would be tested. We will also see that beyond a delimitation by naturalistic criteria, regional analysis requires considering the environment, as well as the intention of human actions, which delimits or “regionalizes” the space. The other fields of application in geography also demonstrate that the appropriation of the term “region” now also requires a systemic approach. It is in this sense that we wish to contribute our reflection in a geographical approach to tourism. We will present the interest of considering the tourist region as a network of places according to the spatial practices of actors. We will apply the graph and matrix models of the networks to tourist mobility. We will see that there can be several meanings depending on the object of analysis, whether it is organizational relationships, flows of individuals or the location of elementary places. Finally, in this research, we have employed a scientific geography project that is based on questions posed in various ways, whose space is constituted and mobilized by human societies. We adopt the post-structuralist posture defended by Mathis Stock on how to understand geography, proposing a background of questioning and understanding rather than a simple descriptive and argued reading [STO 06]. Also, to answer the question: “what is a tourist region?” This book, which is organized into three parts, will shed light on this topic.
In the first part, we will describe the known spatial approaches to tourism. Work on the elementary places of tourism is a first key to spatial analysis of the phenomenon. But we will also be interested in proposals for analyzing the regional scale of tourism. We will also present the areas considered as tourist areas in order to discern what could be qualified as a tourist region. In the second part, we will present the logic of the actors identified in the practices of a tourist destination with a regional dimension. For tourism, the destination constitutes both a promoted and a perceived territory, whose implementation through tourist mobility makes it possible to determine a elementary place or a tourist region. However, we will see that this transformation from a tourist destination to a tourist place or region requires the intervention of multiple actors. In our opinion, this is a territorial co-construction. Finally, our third and last part deals with the analysis of multi-level regional networks of tourists places built according to tourist mobility. But we will see that the various actors are taking action to ensure that tourists places are integrated into these networks.
1
We can, for example, refer to the work of Georges Cazes [CAZ 73], Jean-Michel Dewailly [DEW 84] and Jean-Pierre Lozato-Giotart [LOZ 85].
2
An individual who travels from his or her usual place of residence within 24 hours is called an “excursionist” and beyond one day is a “tourist”.
3
We can refer to the work of Rémy Knafou et al. [KNA 97b] and Mathis Stock [STO 01] and then the
Mobilités itinéraires territoires
(MIT) research team [EQU 02, EQU 05, EQU 11].
4
According to the MIT team, the elementary places are the site, the community, the tourist resort, the resort complex, the city or the village, and the complex places are the district and the tourist conurbation and the tourist metropolis [EQU 02].
5
Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques
[The French Institution of Statistic and Economics Analysis], “tourism” definition, INSEE.fr, available at:
https://insee.fr/fr/metadonnees/definition/c1094
, accessed on June 1, 2018.
PART 1The Region, a Complex Concept Applied to Tourism
Introduction to Part 1
To understand the region, it is useful to use the modes of reading geography. This science, which has as its object space in order to analyze society, has several concepts with imprecise outlines. The word “region” is one of the essential concepts of geography, but it remains polysemic and even vague. This is explained by its Latin etymology regio, which means country, region, zone, territory, extending around a city or place [DIM 03]. Also, two meanings are attributed to it, regionis (direction, line, limit) and regere (to govern, to direct), conferring on it a role of power, control and management. However, geographers do not resign themselves to abandoning the term and attribute multiple epithets: agricultural, industrial and tourist regions. However, according to our research, the latter has not been the subject of an in-depth study on the notion of “region” applied to tourism.
This first part reports on regional employment in the analysis of the tourism phenomenon. Also, to understand what the “tourist region” is, we must start from the foundation of these spaces, i.e. the presence of places inhabited by individuals. The presence of suitable places for tourism has been the subject of multiple analyses since the 1970s using multiple criteria (economy, physical environment, etc.), but we will keep for our purposes the practices of the individuals who operate there as well as the spatial dimension of elementary places of tourism. We will see that a regional scale clearly appears in a typology of elementary places of tourism, but this remains little exploited (see Chapter 1). Then, the word “region” connotes a specific meaning to a space which, by appropriation, delimits a territory. But we will see that the ambiguity of the notion of region disturbs the geographical analysis of tourism, perhaps referred to as a region, a part of the world, a continent, a nation or a sub-national region. In addition, actors acting in a country can invent and build a region from the creation of ex nihilo places. However, several observations can be highlighted for the purpose of understanding the tourism phenomenon. We will answer the following questions: how can we define a “region” characterized by tourism? Where are the tourist places that would organize a tourist region located? How should this organization, which would constitute a tourist region, be interpreted (see Chapter 2)? Finally, we will deepen the analytical frameworks of the tourist region proposed by different geographical approaches. From pioneering work based on a classical geography, using naturalistic criteria, to a functional reading based on economic models, the definition and particularly the attempts to explain the functioning of the tourist region have undergone a correlative evolution to that of geography in general. The cumulative proposals over time were the subject of numerous discussions, including breakdowns, modeling and perception, on the scientific method used to explain a concept that some authors have transformed into a concept (see Chapter 3).
1Tourist Places, with their Foundations in the Tourist Region
The place in geography excludes any distance; therefore, it constitutes the finest spatial unit, with the sub-place (districts, streets, neighborhoods), to study societal phenomena. Living in the area is an “art of doing” according to Michel de Certeau’s formula [CER 80], which reveals the ability of individuals to mobilize their resources and skills. Living in it is in this sense the typical spatiality of the actors [LÉV 03c]. Temporarily living in the area is a choice of individuals whose tourism is a reason for it. Tourism transforms places, and this change is observed by individuals’ practices within these tourist places. We will see that this results in differentiations in the ways in which tourism appropriates space and whose tourism is observed and analyzed on a local and regional scale.
1.1. The tourist place, a locality chosen in spatial tourism practices
A place used for tourism purposes is a place that is subject to specific mobility. Mobility means that the individual exercises physical movements in temporal data and is a “form of movement that is expressed by changing position” [BRU 93, p. 333]. Tourism mobility is one of the main ways in which mobility is accepted to describe movements in geographical space: among residential mobility, daily mobility and migration mobility [CRE 04]. But mobility is much more than a movement; it is a social relationship with the change of place [LÉV 00] and contributes to the construction of oneself independently of society [CÉR 08]. The change of place, the change of living in tourism, is to temporarily leave one’s place of life for one or more places located outside the sphere of one’s daily life [KNA 97b]. According to Mathis Stock, the temporary tourist inhabitation of places must be understood by the otherness, familiarity and strangeness of the geographical places practiced [STO 01]. A break with a place of daily life is necessary in tourist mobilities, when leisure in this same place of daily life is no longer effective enough. Leisure time is part of free time, a time of one’s own, in which “a person finalizes themself in themself, by the meaning they must give to a time that begins to belong to themself alone” [VIA 00, p. 47]. Joffre Dumazedier defines leisure as the compensation of the demands of society that must make it possible to free oneself from boredom, fatigue due to institutions, stereotypes of work organization and family life, leading to surpassing oneself [DUM 72]. Leisure is finally a release that allows you to free yourself from a certain self-control of emotions, allowing you to experience pleasure. The notion of recreation makes it possible to distinguish moments of “relaxation of constraints” beyond the sphere of work and the sphere of everyday life, which are characterized by routine activities [ELI 76, ELI 94]. The temporary distance from a place of daily life by moving to one or more places where one stays, in a quest for recreation, explains the use of a place by an individual for tourism purposes. It is an essential geographical dimension to explain the practice of certain geographical places through travel, particularly through tourist mobilities [STO 17a]. Also, places are invented by tourism, insofar as the social phenomenon of tourism has transformed the uses and representations of these places [KNA 92]. For Denis Retaillé, tourism is a powerful operator of topogenesis, i.e. the social construction of a geographical place [RET 03]. Tourism, being a practice dedicated to the intentionality of recreation, generates the use of one or more premises, for a “way of living” oriented towards leisure that takes many forms (discovery, rest, play, sociability and/or shopping) [STO 17a]. The tourist situation of a place indicates that the tourist practice is informed at the same time as it informs the context of the action by and in which it takes place [COË 10]. If tourism is happening or is happening in one place, it does not necessarily happen elsewhere, at least not in the same way. The tourist place is a social construction in the sense that tourist places are mythical places, i.e. “made up of a set of mental representations born of texts, iconographies, photographs, flying words,[…] an aggregate of messages composing an entire communication system” [CHA 88, p. 18]. Thus, geographical sites attract the curiosity of walkers. The Pointe du Raz, located in the far west of Brittany, is for walkers a part of the world because of its geographical characteristics, a rocky promontory that fascinates onlookers and experienced walkers, whose increased popularity at the end of the 19th Century is the subject of a picturesque enhancement by writers and local transport or promotional operators [VOU 99] (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1.The Pointe du Raz tourist site (France) (source: J. Piriou, March 2015). For a color version of the figures in this chapter, see www.iste.co.uk/piriou/tourism.zip
COMMENT ON FIGURE 1.1.– A picturesque place praised by writers since the 19th Century, then a place of excursion promoted by the French western railway company and the Finistère Tourism Committee, the reputation of the Pointe du Raz has increased over the past century [CHA 50, GIN 72], and tourist flows have become regular and intense [BAR 96]. Despite a classification of the natural site in 1958 on a surface of 72 hectares, the human degradation linked to the frequent passage of people and vehicles, as well as wild camping contributes to the reduction of the site’s vegetation cover. Operations were envisaged as early as 1976 to limit these degradations. The end of the 1980s also marked the desire of players to enhance and preserve the Pointe du Raz site. By escaping the realization of a nuclear power plant project, the Pointe du Raz was developed for its physical and natural characteristics. A major site operation was carried out in 1993. The aim was to demolish car parks and existing buildings near the tip and relocate these facilities. In addition, before reopening to the public in 1996, experiments were also carried out to study the capacity of the natural environment to regenerate itself [LEF 13, PIR 17].
Mediatization through artistic and literary dissemination also contributes to this mythical construction. For example, as early as the 18th Century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, author of La Nouvelle Héloïse, associated the mountains on the Valais side of Switzerland as a social allegory that suggested a natural character of the site that permeated the mentalities and lifestyles of the populations [DEB 95]. This construction leads, by exaggeration, to the creation of stereotypes, aimed at facilitating the interpretation of the context that is unfamiliar to the tourist, “by speaking of ‘stereotyped spaces’, we hypothesize that the tourist space taken in its material or immaterial acceptance represents the projection in space and time of the ideals, myths of the global society” [CHA 88, p. 19]. Exoticism translates this quest for otherness constructed as a distraction, an amusement or an enchantment that presents itself “as a point of view, a discourse, a set of values and representations about something, somewhere, or someone” [STA 08, p. 9]. Nanjing, the former capital of China, located between Beijing and Shanghai, is a tourist destination mainly for Chinese people with a very limited international presence (see
