Tourist attractions form the basis of what the tourism industry refers to as the ‘tourism product’. The tourism product is a part of what is called the ‘supply side’ of tourism. Tourists make up the ‘demand side’. So in this topic and in the following one, we will be focusing on the supply side.

We will explore the rest of the ‘tourism product’ and, in particular, accommodation and transport sectors, in the next topic: Tourism Industries and Organisations.

Let’s start then by asking, ‘what is a tourist attraction’?

I have no doubt that you can think of many, many, tourist attractions. But do any of the places or objects that you can think of actually have the power to inherently ‘attract’ tourists? Do they contain some kind of magnetism that compels tourists to visit them? Of course they don’t – individual tourists – as well as the organisers of itineraries that tourists follow – make decisions about whether or not they wish to go and visit and experience a particular place or object.

It is also important to understand that both the tourism industry and tourism researchers have moved beyond just thinking only about tourist ‘attractions’ and are focused also on the experiences that can be created and enjoyed at such sites. So there is now, in the 21^st century, a much greater recognition of the role of experience in the tourism system. The ‘experience economy’ is the name given to those businesses that provide memorable, emotionally satisfying experiences and so removes tourism from the ‘service economy’. However, both terms are still used and tourism straddles both conceptualisations.

But back to tourist attractions.

Although a ‘common sense’ way of defining what a tourist attraction might be is ‘something that attracts tourists’ we need a more sophisticated way of defining what they are that incorporates the tourist within the definition. (You will note, however, that the textbook tends to accept this more simplistic definition of tourist attraction when you come to read the chapter.)

So, in other words, just as we know that the Whole Tourism System requires at least one tourist for it to come into being, so too does a tourist attraction require the involvement of at least one tourist.

Dean MacCannell, who we met earlier in this unit, devised a theoretical way of defining a tourist attraction. He stated:

I have defined a tourist attraction as an empirical relationship between a tourist, a sight and a marker – a piece of information about a sight.

MacCannell conceptualised a tourist attraction as being a relationship between a tourist, a sight, and, importantly, some information, that he referred to as a ‘marker’ that informed the tourist that the sight was worthy of being looked at or experienced.

Another definition had been proposed, a little earlier than MacCannell’s definition, in 1974, by Professor Clare Gunn, a geographer and planner.

Gunn used a systems approach and defined tourist attraction as:

A tourist attraction system comprises three elements: a tourist or human element, a nucleus or central element, and a marker or informative element. A tourist attraction system comes into existence when the three elements are connected. Tourist attraction systems are open systems, interacting with environments. They are sub-systems in every whole tourism system.

You can see that MacCannell’s definition used the word ‘sight’ as in a focus for sight-seeing, but are all tourists capable of experiencing place through sight? Blind and visually impaired people travel and experience tourist attractions but they do so without the use of sight. Gunn’s definition of tourist attraction is thus inclusive of people who don’t use sight by his use of the concept: nucleus.

So let’s unpack Gunn’s definition of what he refers to as the tourist attraction system.

Tourists

We know that at least one tourist is required for a Whole Tourism System to function – there can be no tourism without the people we call tourists. Consequently, for the tourist attraction system to work, the tourist is also necessary. And we know that tourists are motivated by an array of factors or needs and so there is a relationship between the fulfilment of these needs and visits to tourist attractions.

Nuclei (the plural of nucleus, of course)

What this refers to is ‘any feature or characteristic of any place that a [tourist] visits or contemplates visiting’ (Leiper, 2004, p. 308). Nuclei thus include built or constructed tourist attractions such as theme-parks, zoos, art galleries, museums, golf courses; so-called natural attractions such as climate and weather, beaches, mountains, wilderness, native plants and animals, rivers, lakes etc. They also include events and festivals. The textbook reading does a good job of describing these various categories of tourist attraction. By the way, many, if not most ‘tourist attractions’ also attract locals as visitors, and you could argue that a more correct name would be ‘visitor attraction’. The theme-parks at the Gold Coast, for instance, attract large proportions of their weekly ‘gate’ from people who are day-trippers.

But, as well as these ‘common sense’ types of attractions, we can also include such things as your friends or relatives if you are visiting a destination primarily to spend time with them; it can also include some kind of accommodation which acts as a central reason for you visiting a place. For example, the Hydro Majestic Hotel in the Blue Mountains town of Medlow Bath is an art deco hotel with a very interesting history and tourists will stay at Medlow Bath principally to experience this hotel. So the accommodation can also be the attraction.

Markers

Markers are ‘items of information (oral, written words, pictures and other visuals) received by a tourist about anything that could be the nucleus of an attraction’ (Lepier, 2004, p. 312). Markers act to differentiate something from something else, as worthy of our attention.

So for example, if you are walking through a forest you may simply walk past what could be the largest tree in the whole of Australia or China. But if there is a sign that provides you with information that this tree is the largest tree in the country, then that tree becomes a nucleus, it becomes a tourist attraction, because of that marker. And tourists will stop, they will look at the tree and they will – of course – take photos, including selfies, and post them to Instagram and FaceBook. So without the marker, the tree is just a tree. With the marker, the tree becomes a tourist attraction.

MacCannell recognised two types of markers: off-sight (located away from the object) such as postcards and websites, but they can also be movies and novels, and on-sight such as in the example I gave above, so for example interpretive signs or a human tour guide.

Instagram has become a significant off-site marker. In the days before the Internet, physical objects like postcards acted as markers – they provided some information about places and they signified them as being of interest to visit. With the advent of Instagram, by posting photos – often selfies – of all manner of places and objects in the landscape, tourist demand can be created for such places and objects and destinations, of course. Instagram, and other forms of what is called social marketing, are having profound impacts on tourism.

Take a look at this short National Geographic article for a little more information, How Instagram is Changing Travel.

One more theory: The Tourist Gaze

There’s another important theory that relates to tourist attractions and how tourists experience them which you need to understand, at least at a basic level. This theory was developed by Professor John Urry.

Ths theory is called the ‘tourist gaze’. Urry argued that when we see or experience a place or a specific tourist attraction, we do so in ways that have been socially scripted. In other words, the act of sightseeing is not simply an individual activity made without any social or cultural influence, but is in fact, influenced by the society and culture to which we belong.

When we go to Paris, for example, going to, or at least seeing, the Eiffel Tower is a must for most, if not all, tourists. Why? Because we are so familiar with the Eiffel Tower through the many images that we have seen on television, in books and magazines, etc. So, when we go to Paris, we MUST ‘do’ the Eiffel tower and we MUST take photos of the Eiffel Tower just like the photos we have seen already. The ‘social script’ concerning the Eiffel Tower helps to ‘frame’ our appreciation and understanding of the object as a symbol of Paris and France. The Eiffel Tower in effect becomes a symbol of ‘Paris-ness’ or ‘French-ness’.

When visitors travel to Australia, the ‘social script’ that creates the tourist gaze includes visiting attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, kangaroos and koalas, beaches and the Great Barrier Reef.

Urry identified a number of different gazes: the romantic gaze, the educational gaze, the health gaze, environmental gaze, mediatised gaze, family gaze and the collective gaze. Each of these gazes also frames the way the attractions are understood and experienced by tourists.

The gazes do this by being underpinned by a certain discourse.

So what is discourse? Discourse in this context refers to a system of language which gives shape and meaning to our understanding of particular phenomena. So for example, Urry’s Romantic Gaze is underpinned by a romantic discourse, more commonly called romanticism, which emerged at the end of the 18^th century in Europe. Romanticism is characterised by an emphasis on emotional sensation and what Urry calls ‘poetic mystery rather than intellectual clarity’ (Urry, 1990, p. 20) as well as the glorification of the past and of nature. So the Romantic Gaze provides a certain ‘structure’ that shapes the way tourists appreciate nature, are reverential of nature, and to see deep emotional and spiritual value in nature.

This theory is helpful because it suggests that there are systematic ways of ‘seeing’ what we as tourists look at. This means that different gazes operate at any particular time and different cultures’ sightseeing practices may be underpinned by quite different gazes in different cultures.

Natural sites and cultural sites as tourism attractions

The textbook categorises tourist attractions into ‘Natural sites’ and ‘Cultural sites’ and describes the various kinds within each of the broad categories. This is useful and provides you with an understanding of the broad array of phenomena that can be considered tourist attractions.

Go through and understand the different forms of natural and cultural attractions (both site-based and events:

Natural Tourism Attractions

• Topography
• Climate
• Water
• Wildlife
• Vegetation
• Natural events

Cultural Tourism Attractions

• Prehistorical
• Historical
• Contemporary
• Specialised recreational attractions
• Retail
• Cultural Events (NOTE: the textbook seems to imply that Cultural Events can be categorised under ‘Retail’. This is an error and Cultural Events are a separate category).

But are natural attractions always so ‘natural?

I want to ‘trouble’ or challenge the notion or assumption that it is straightforward to separate out natural attractions from cultural attractions by asking the question, ‘just how ‘natural’ are ‘natural attractions’? What does ‘natural’ mean in this case? One could reasonably expect that natural refers to phenomena that have been made by nature and not by people, and that cultural phenomena are entirely human inventions.

So we might consider that a beach is a natural tourist attraction. But exactly how natural are many beaches? Is Bondi Beach in Sydney an entirely natural phenomenon? To what extent is Bondi Beach a tourist attraction because of the involvement of human activity and interventions?

Take a look at this image of Bondi Beach.

Can you see a number of human interventions that mean the beach is no longer an entirely natural phenomenon? Can you see the concrete footpath that the surfers are walking on; the protective fence; the lawn area that people are sitting on? If you look closely you can also see a carpark towards the top of the photograph. There would also be the ‘red flags’ that the lifesavers have placed out to show people where it is safer to swim.

You might argue that Bondi Beach only consists of the sand and the water, but I would suggest that the sand has been modified in various ways such as being raked and cleaned of litter; at some beaches additional sand is added to beaches to replenish them when sand is removed during strong storm events, while the sea is patrolled (and made a little bit safer) by surf lifesavers. And, at many beaches in Australia, such as at Bondi Beach, ‘shark nets’ or drum lines have been set in an effort to ‘protect’ beach-goers from possible shark interactions. This is not to say you can’t find beaches that are much more ‘natural’ but what I do want you to consider is that many so-called ‘natural’ places are not quite as ‘natural’ as you might have thought.

What I am suggesting is that if we look closely, we can usually find evidence of human intervention or change in even what might be considered the most pristine of landscapes. For instance, we must realise that First Nations people have been living in Australia for as long as 60,000 years and over that time ‘nature’ has been modified and, if you like, made ‘less natural’ by the activities of people.

We also know that climate is no longer as ‘natural’ as it once was – that human-induced climate change is changing climates in various ways and this will have profound and significant changes to global tourism. We will explore climate change in more depth in the final topic: Sustainable Tourism.

And what about when we visit national parks? How ‘natural’ are car parks, walking trails, toilet blocks, protective fences, designated lookouts, and interpretive signage? Indeed, the national park itself is a human invention. Can you see that there are often layers of human interventions in even what might be considered very ‘natural’ places?

I am not suggesting, of course, that ‘wild nature’ doesn’t exist, but rather that the tourism industry relies on our ideas of ‘natural’ when it comes to promote and ‘sell’ places as tourist destinations, and elements of those destinations, as tourist attractions. And that for most tourists, ‘nature’ needs to be modified in some way in order to make it accessible.

Attributes of tourist attractions

The textbook also deals with tourist attraction attributes. What this means is that we can consider tourist attractions not just by the simple (and, as we have seen, somewhat simplistic) distinction between natural and cultural, but also according to a variety of attributes such as:

• ownership
• orientation
• spatial configuration
• authenticity
• scarcity
• status
• carrying capacity
• accessibility
• market
• context.

Make sure that you understand what each of these attributes refers to.

Last Chance Tourism

But let me just take one of those to discuss in a little bit more depth now: scarcity.

Tourist attractions that are scarce or rare create a greater desire for tourists to see and experience them. Major zoos know this of course – that is why some zoos exhibit white tigers because these animals are scarce and look different to a ‘normal’ tiger. A new form of tourism that has emerged as a consequence of human induced changes to the Earth’s ecosystems, often, but not always associated with climate change, is called Last Chance Tourism.

Last Chance Tourism is the term that has been coined for travel to places to see and experience phenomena before they might disappear forever or become extinct. You see we are living through a time when there is significant environmental change and many species and types of landforms such as glaciers and alpine regions are under threat of extinction or disappearance.

Last Chance Tourism includes such things as visiting the Great Barrier Reef while it still contains healthy coral reefs; visiting Alaska to see wild polar bears and to see glaciers before they disappear; visiting the Maldives before these islands may well disappear due to rising sea levels. Visitation to the Maldives has grown almost 70% since 2003, for instance, seemingly, in part, at least, because of this last chance tourism phenomenon.

This desire to see and experience these phenomena before they might disappear is being propelled by tour companies who see an opportunity to increase profits of course, and by individual tourists who want to see and experience things before they disappear forever. But such tourism creates significant problems with trying to manage the impacts that these increased numbers of tourists are having on what are often fragile and vulnerable ecosystems. We will pick up on this topic when we look at sustainable tourism.