Master Interdisciplinaire en études du Tourisme (MIT) Tourist places as territorial forms for tourism: sites, resorts, cities

Transcription

1 Tourist places as territorial forms for tourism: sites, resorts, cities Prof. Mathis Stock

2 Introduction q Tourist places as specific territorial forms q Question 1: how to classify the different and highly diverse forms of tourist places in a coherent way? q Question 2: To which extent can tourist places be qualified as «urban places», and thus treated within the Urban Studies or urban geography?

3 1. Defining the problem q What is a «tourist place»? Which are its distinctive features from a non-tourist place? q What is a «destination»? q How to distinguish different sorts of tourist places? q How to make sense of the great variety of tourist places?

4 2. The quality of tourist places q «elsewhereland», «heterotopica», «concrete utopia» (Raymond, 1960), «staged», «invented», «liminal space» (Shields, 1991) q Quality of space: an attribution allowing for a synthetic framing of an ensemble of characteristics in order to classify places. q Quality: the proper elements according to a usage, intentionality, strategy

5 3. Towards a typology of tourist places q Critique of classical taxonomies q Development of a more adequate classification

6 3.1. Classical distinctions q Seaside, Rural, Urban, Mountain q Problem 1: overlappings are possible q Problem 2: tourist places may share similarities despite the different geographical milieu q Problem 3: the genuine urban character of tourist places is not recognized

7 3.2. Towards a typology of tourist places 1 Accomodation capacities (overnight stays for tourists possible or not) Local population (inhabited place or not?) Diverse urban functions (place only for tourists or for different inhabitants?) Tourist site Tourist post Tourist resort Tourist city + + +

8 3.3. The problem of touristification q It is a difference for the territorial form of tourist place if emerged as a ex-nihilo or an already existent urban node q Definition of touristification: transformation of a non-touristic place into a tourist place, with an «important» activity (dominant or not) q 3 modalities: a) Invention, b) Investment, c) Creation

9 Processes of touristification of place Situation touristique actuelle Places dominated by tourism Type de mise en tourisme 1) Invented places: existing places in mountain, seaside, beach accomodated for a new usage, for a new «tourist gaze» Processus de la mise en tourisme Invention: a new tourist gaze transforms the value of the place Type de lieux Tourist site Exemples 2) Created places 2a) Created places as places where there were nothing before tourism (ex-nihilo) Creation ex nihilo: creation of something entirely new Tourist post 2b) Created places as places with a small settlement node Creation ex nihilo Tourist resort 3) Tourism-Invested and tourism-subverted places 3a) Village 3b) Town Reversing an established order Tourism is the essential urban function, monofunctional place Touristified village Touristifed town Places non-dominated by tourism Invested and diverted places by tourism Insertion of tourist functions within local space; touristic territorialisation of certain areas of the city. 1) City with touristic functions 2) Tourist city

10 3.4. Types tourist places II q Hybrid forms of tourist places complexify the pattern: Metropolis Tourist conurbation Tourist district City-resort Recreational community etc

11 4. Are tourist places urban places? q Through transfer of urbanness, tourist places become urban places: urban architecture, services, lifestyles, amenities, practices, urbanites

12 5.2. The urban/tourism nexus q Towards a classification of tourist places according to their urbanness, the urban degree q Example: Resorts as different from cities because of mono-functional structure, smaller scale, less density and diversity, centrality

13 Conclusion q Those elements are tools in order to analyse specific cases q 1) Classical definitions and their limits q 2) Elementary classification and its limits q 3) Taking into account of the modality of touristification q 4) The urbanness of tourist places q What lacks now? The transformation of tourist places.