A similar approach is adopted by Munsters who classifies a wide range of cultural tourism attractions in the Netherlands and Belgium in the following way: 1 Attractions a Monuments b Museums c Routes d Theme parks 2 Events a Cultural-historic events b Art events c Events and Attractions Munster's typology is unusual for including 'theme parks' as cultural attractions, the example he gives being 'Mini Europe' in Brussels, which he argues can be seen as an architectural park.
Although this may seem only vaguely 'cultural', the inclusion of an increasing number of cultural elements in modern theme parks tends to blur the boundaries between theme parks and heritage attractions, increasing the problems of creating a product-based definition of cultural tourism. Product based definitions are also common among tourist boards and cultural organisations. The Scottish Tourist Board and Scottish Arts Council offered: "Realising the tourism potential of Scotland's performing, visual and literary arts traditional and contemporary , language, museums, heritage, crafts, architecture, design, film and broadcasting".
The Wales Tourist Board, which is currently working on a cultural tourism strategy of its own, has drawn heavily on this description, while adding "historic landscapes and gardens" and stressing professional and amateur arts. A similar approach is adopted in the Toerdata report on Noord Nederland, Consumentenonderzoek Toerisme One of the problems with these types of definition is that the categories of 'cultural attractions' are not fixed and are becoming increasingly difficult to define as purely 'cultural' or 'entertainment' based, for example.
Richards has therefore suggested that cultural attractions might better be viewed as a dynamic field of attractions rather than static categories. In figure 2, the field of cultural attractions is divided into four quadrants by the two dimensions of 'cultural content' ranging from culture as product to culture as process, as outlined above and 'cultural purpose', ranging from educational uses of culture to culture as the basis of entertainment.
Quadrant 2 features more contemporary types of attractions based on cultural processes, such as language courses and art exhibitions. On the right hand side of the diagram are 'entertainment' based attractions orientated more towards the needs of the cultural audience than preserving cultural resources.
In the top left quadrant are grouped attractions related to entertainment — arts festivals and performances. Theme parks arguably fall across the boundary between quadrant 3 and quadrant 4, because they not only present contemporary entertainment but also exploit historical resources, such as historical themes and attractions.
Quadrant 4 contains a number of attraction types, including heritage centres and folklore festivals, which mix educational and entertainment elements based on historical resources. The dynamic nature of the cultural field outlined in figure 2 suggests that it is increasingly difficult to base definitions of cultural tourism purely on types of attraction.
What is today widely accepted as a museum may tomorrow re-invent itself as a 'theme park', or vice versa. This postmodern fluidity of definition is a problem discussed in more detail at the end of this article. Tourist based Tourist based definitions also generally start with the product or resource, but they concentrate on the purpose of visit of the tourists themselves. The definitions adopted by most tourist boards are of this type, usually defining cultural tourists by purpose of visit rather than by motivation.
So for example in New England cultural tourists are those visitors whose primary purpose for being in New England is to visit a cultural event or attraction. The rationale for this type of definition is that cultural tourists can then be identified easily by reference to the trip data collected by most tourist boards.
However, it should be recognised that 'purpose of visit' is usually identified with reference to fairly general categories such as leisure, business or visiting friends and family and that travelling to visit a cultural attraction does not always mean that the visitor is culturally motivated. Most consider their cultural consumption to be one part of a general trip for other purposes, such as a 'city trip'.
The definition of arts tourism is where the main purpose of a trip is to attend a performing arts event including the cinema or to visit a museum, gallery or heritage attraction.
In broad terms, definitions either seek to be fairly broad and inclusive, covering all possible forms of cultural tourism, or they seek to narrow the definition in order to identify the 'essence' of cultural tourism. Cultural Tourist Typologies It is clear from the preceding discussion of cultural tourism definitions that it is extremely difficult to find one single definition that will cover all aspects of cultural tourism.
Other studies have tried to avoid the problem of definition in a different way, by constructing typologies that attempt to describe the different types of cultural tourists. Although a typology does not provide a definition per se, it can help to visualise the scope of the phenomenon. For example, an early typology was produced in the Irish Tourist Board Study mentioned above, which split tourists into 'specific' and 'general' cultural tourists.
Research has also indicated that the number of specific cultural tourists has tended to remain fairly constant over the years, while most of the growth in the cultural tourism market is coming from general cultural tourists. Other typologies have tried to produce more detailed distinctions.
For example, Bywater distinguished between visitors who were culturally interested, culturally motivated and culturally inspired. Culturally interested tourists are those who have a fairly general interest in culture and will consume cultural attractions casually as part of a holiday rather than consciously planning to do so. Culturally motivated tourists are those who consume culture as a major part of their holiday experience, but who are not choosing their destination on the basis of specific cultural experiences.
Culturally inspired tourists are those who see culture as the main goal of their holiday and who will travel long distances to collect cultural experiences. A more complex typology was proposed by McKercher and Du Cros, who argued that not only the importance of culture in the decision to travel should be taken into account in constructing a typology, but that the 'depth of experience' being sought by the tourist was also important.
Based on this idea they produced a two-dimensional typology which divides cultural tourists into five groups figure 3 : 1 The purposeful cultural tourist - cultural tourism is the primary motive for visiting a destination and the tourist has a very deep cultural experience.
Field research in Hong Kong indicated that most tourists have cultural motivations for travel, but are not usually looking for 'deep' cultural experiences figure 4. Growing problems of definition The wide variety of definitions of cultural tourism points to the problem of attempting to capture the meaning of cultural tourism in a single phrase.
The truth is that not only has cultural tourism expanded as an activity, but the concept of culture itself has also grown. In the past, culture was considered to mean 'high' culture, such as museums and concert halls, but increasingly the cultural tourism product is also seen as encompassing 'popular' culture as well. In this context the division between high and popular culture begins to lose its meaning. Consider for a moment the museums run by football clubs such as FC Barcelona and Ajax.
These are called museums, but they focus heavily on football as popular culture, and they are successful in attracting tourists. Should these be considered 'cultural' attractions, and therefore their visitors be seen as 'cultural tourists'?
In my opinion the term 'cultural tourism' is beginning to lose its meaning as a definition of a clearly identifiable activity or group of consumers. The expansion of the concept of culture makes a simple conflation of 'tourism' and 'culture' an unwieldy concept. A big concept however attracts much attention, and there is a growth of intervention in cultural tourism not just by tourist boards but also cultural institutions, heritage organisations, local authorities, motoring organisations, the media, theme parks, hotels, etc.
A plethora of plans, projects, platforms product developments, discussion groups, networks and policies are being developed around cultural tourism. A major problem is that all of the organisations that concern themselves with cultural tourism seem to be convinced that it is a new, growing market.
In fact, cultural tourism has been around for a very long time, and the core market of 'culturally inspired' tourists is not growing as fast as the number of projects developed for them. This leads to an increase in competition between cultural attractions chasing the same cultural tourists.
The inidications are that the search for distinction and more fulfilling experiences on the part of the cultural consumer means that cultural tourism growth is more likely to be found in specific 'niche' markets rather than the general cultural tourism market, which seems to be fairly mature and highly competitive see figure 5. There seems to be a strange divergence taking place between policy and practice in cultural tourism. One the one hand, policy is becoming more integrated, with tourist boards bringing organisations together from different cultural and tourism sectors to form a 'cultural tourism product'.
On the other hand the consumer seems increasingly less likely to identify with the general label 'cultural tourist', and increasingly more likely to look for specialised cultural experiences which can meet very specific cultural wants and needs. This trend away from general to more individualised patterns of cultural consumption is evident in post modern leisure market. People undertake an increasing diversity of leisure activities in an increasingly short amount of leisure time.
The development of the 'zap' culture has stimulated the emergence of the 'cultural omnivore', who consumes both high culture and popular culture with equal ease, shifting between theme parks and museums as if they were interchangeable modules of leisure time. Arguably what lies at the base of all these developments is the basic experience hunger that characterises post modern societies de Cauter The lack of connection between experience and nature, the family, spirituality or the development of the self is a lack that is keenly felt and is translated into a constant hunger for new experiences which promise to provide those connections.
Through these new patterns of consumption, people have been separated from a cumulative form of experience erfahrung and are increasingly reliant on individual experiences erlebnis for development of the life course de Cauter This makes it increasingly necessary for individuals to piece these discrete fragments of experience together into a coherent story which contributes to their identity.
In the past it was enough to know that someone had a specific trade, and had undergone a training for that trade to understand the cumulative experience they had.
The need to piece together a coherent life history partly explains the postmodern concern with narrative. Narratives are important because of the uncertainty and fragmentation of postmodern life. Narratives provide the means to link together disparate experiences into a coherent whole — and perhaps more importantly, a distinct, individualised whole.
We all have our own individual narratives, which are arguably of equal worth in the postmodern world. Of course, in this situation the power relationship between the supplier of cultural experiences and the consumer also begins to change.
In the past we were used to the museum being the 'factory of meaning', whose authority to produce cultural narratives was unchallenged by the visitor. These days, the visitor is more likely to be seeking part of their own story when they visit a museum - a piece of the puzzle which constructs their identity. The visitor will increasingly decide which parts of the cultural offer they want to consume and which are irrelevant for them.
Suppliers of leisure experiences have reacted to the development of this Erlebniskultur by combining different types of cultural experiences into their products. These new leisure products provide more apparent choice for the consumer, in the hope that at least one of the elements will appeal to all potential visitors.
The problem is that as these products diversify, they in fact become more alike - the museum becomes less distinguishable from the theme park and both become more like IKEA. Distinguishing cultural attractions through their products is no longer as simple as it used to be. This is one reason why cultural attractions are turning to narrative and theming to add power to the basic product.
As Gottdiener has suggested, the desire for meaning on the part of the consumer is met increasingly by the creation of themed environments. Such theming is designed to appeal to an extremely wide audience, containing sufficient 'cultural cues' so that every visitor can recognise something that links with their own cultural needs.
The basis of competition between commercial suppliers, and implicitly between cultural organisations as well, has therefore become symbolic differentiation and thematic distinction. In this new competitive environment, the narrative provides a link between the culture being presented and the culture of the visitor. The consumer takes selected pieces of the experiences created for them and constructs their own narrative on which they can base their identity.
This idea is not just being taken up by commercial suppliers such as Disney, but is also increasingly being used to valorize 'high' cultural or heritage experiences. The IDZO is not a traditional museum where 'authorised' versions of culture are produced. The system is flexible thanks to new technology.
The visitor can scan through the biographies in the way that fits their own vision of the world, and therefore create their own interpretation, or story, based on local culture. By allowing tourists to work creatively with cultural biographies and to accumulate their own views of local culture, the perceived authenticity of the tourism product can be increased.
Tourists who can choose to construct their own versions of local identity become themselves involved in the staging process, which therefore slips into the background. One advantage of using such biographies is that they overlap in time and space, giving discrete attractions the chance to link together in new ways.
For example, the biography gives attractions the potential to link together a storyline that may contain a wide variety of different types of objects or attractions. This contrasts with the traditional classificatory strategy of grouping objects of similar types e.
Such an approach seems more attune to the modern zap culture than the staid classificatory approaches taken by many cultural institutions at present. Conclusion Modern cultural tourism is an apparent paradox. It is a form of tourism that has become so popular that everybody seems familiar with it and many people are keen to develop it. But our understanding of the concept has not kept pace with its growth.
The concept of cultural tourism is still fairly vague, and many different definitions of term are in circulation. Part of the problem lies in the fact that culture is itself so difficult to define, but the different approaches to cultural tourism have tended to add to the confusion. Different definitions have been developed for different purposes, whether to understand, measure or identify cultural tourism.
The difficulty of designing one simple definition which cover the whole concept is underlined by the fact that some organisations have opted for multiple definitions, while many academics have developed typologies which describe the different types of cultural tourists instead of a clear definition. In the increasingly complicated postmodern consumer landscape, definition will become even more difficult, because fixed categories such as 'museum', 'monument' or 'theme park' will become increasingly untenable.
It is little wonder that many practitioners question the wisdom of having a definition at all. In my view, however, it remains important to adopt a definition of cultural tourism.
Without a consistent definition it is difficult to communicate to others what is meant by cultural tourism, and making policy or management plans becomes far more difficult. Without a definition, marketing cultural tourism becomes impossible. The most practical approach, therefore, seems to be to choose the definition that is most suited to the task at hand.
If understanding cultural tourism is the main aim, a conceptual definition would seem most appropriate. If counting cultural tourists is most important then a measurement approach should be adopted. It remains curious, however, that the one viewpoint that is obviously missing from current definitions of cultural tourism is that of culture. Rather than taking culture for granted in the process of definition, perhaps culture should be placed at the centre of the picture.
In this way, the current friction between the demands of the culture of tourism and the needs of the cultural object of tourism could be avoided. References Alzula et al Cultural and Heritage Tourism: identifying niches for international travelers. Journal of Tourism Studies 9, Bywater, M. Travel and Tourism Analyst no. Cauter, L. Van Halewijck, Leuven.
Culture Concepts, Berlijn. European Commission Europeans and their holidays. EC, Brussels. Gottdiener, M. Westview Press, Boulder Co.
Haan, J. SCP, Rijswijk. Hjalager, A-M. Routledge, London. European Commission, Brussels. Littrell, M. In: Robinson, M. Centre for Travel and Tourism, University of Northumbria, pp. McIntosh, R. Wiley and Sons. McKercher, B. Haworth Press, New York. Munsters, W. In Richards, G. CABI, Wallingford. Richards, G. CAB International, Wallingford. Rooijakkers, G. In Dodd, D. Boekman Foundation, Amsterdam. Cultural tourism, because of its supposed connections with a search for authenticity and meaning, is also usually seen as a more serious form of tourism.
For example, Meethan argues: Rather than the simple aimless pleasures of mass tourism, the cultural tourists are those who go about their leisure in a more serious frame of mind.
To be a cultural tourist is to attempt, I would suggest, to go beyond idle leisure and to return enriched with knowledge of other places and other people even if this in- volves gazing at, or collecting in some way, the commodified essences of otherness. Package tourists in beach destinations often see themselves as seekers of authenticity as well.
The concept of authen- ticity may well differ between tourists, but it is a widely sought-after experience Lengkeek, The problem seems to have become the growing realization among many tourists that authenticity is in the eye of the beholder.
Brekhus, This also seems to be a strategy that is gaining ground with tourists. The townships, the cruel physical manifestations of the policy of apartheid, have now become tourist attractions as tourists visiting the new South Africa seek a glimpse of what everyday life is like for people marginalized by the system.
The attraction of the everyday is also to be found out- lined in travel guides, as the Lonely Planet for Singapore shows: In the crowded streets of Chinatown, fortune tellers, calligra- phers, and temple worshippers are still a part of everyday life. In Little India, you can buy the best sari material, freshly ground spices, or a picture of your favourite Hindu god.
In the small shops of Arab St, the cry of the imam can be heard from the nearby Sultan Mosque. Places increas- ingly situate themselves as windows onto everyday life, from Nor- way to New Zealand: Lillesand pop. Daily life is vibrant, and bars compete for space with a fabulous mix of shops and entertainment venues. The processing of information during the learning process is essentially a process of creating redundancy in information.
As we develop skills, certain actions become automatic, and we cease to process large amounts of information that are taken for granted. Such redundancy is also necessary if we are not to be overwhelmed with the rising tide of data generated by the information society.
Redun- dancy is what enables us to move on and learn new things, which is arguably the basis of cultural consumption in general, and cultural tourism in particular Richards, The learning process, therefore, consists in making new things vis- ible, while at the same time making invisible what we have already learned and can take for granted. It is not just a discovery of the new, but a rediscovery of the quo- tidian, which is revealed by our newfound perspective.
It is this aspect of travel that has come to be used as a new attraction and a new form of exoticism in tourism. The tendency for globalization to produce similar landscapes and spaces in different parts of the world has been a concern for a long time. Some authors have also posed the question of whether it will make sense to travel in the future, if everywhere begins to look the same.
This line of argument is essen- tially one that Alain de Botton makes much more prosaically in The Art of Travel. He examines the way in which we tend to ignore everyday details that can make our home environments just as excit- ing, engaging, and exotic as distant destinations. The idea that we can find just as much cultural diversion at home as by going on holiday is not as far removed from the current practice of cultural tourism as it may seem.
For example, Thrane found that the cultural consumption of cultural tourists is actually very like their consumption at home. Cultural tourism, he concludes, is not so much a process of reversal, but is in fact an extension of everyday life. Those who work in museums, for example, are also particularly likely to visit museums on holiday.
People with a high level of cultural consumption at home are also those most likely to visit cultural attractions on holiday Richards, The consumption of the familiar is made interesting not by the content, but by the context.
Cultural tourists are increasingly finding information about cultural attractions over the Internet, particularly before they leave home.
Not surprisingly, dedicated sites are now springing up to meet the needs of this growing market for information. What many of these sites have in common is that they allow travelers to construct their own cultural tourism products by combining travel, accommodation, and attraction products into tailor-made packages or part-packages.
In the past, this would have been a function of specialist cultural tour- ism tour operators Richards et al. Information in the destination is also being revolutionized, so that tourists now have more access to information about arts perfor- mances and festivals, and can book tickets from the comfort of their armchairs.
On arrival they can be guided around major sites using port- able information systems, or view reconstructions of archaeological sites in virtual reality. These technological developments are also creating new modes of tourism consumption.
Cultural sites that at one time were experi- enced collectively as part of a crowd of authenticity seekers Mac- Cannell, are now experienced individually through the ear- piece of an audio guide or the viewfinder of a camcorder. These aids effectively remove the need to discuss cultural artifacts with fellow travelers, creating as they do a surrogate personalization of space, in which each tourist creates and consumes his or her own museum. New technology and the ability to consume intangible culture in the form of images and sounds almost anywhere also pose problems for the cultural and creative production systems of specific locations.
While specific pro- ductions, such as musicals or TV programs, can be protected by copy- right, much of the intellectual property embodied in creative products is highly mobile and difficult to protect. There is therefore a growing need to invent new forms of delivery to embody such intellectual property and tie it to a specific location. In Barcelona, for example, music festivals such as Sonar and Prima- vera Sound have become very successful cultural tourism products, attracting visitors from across Europe and beyond.
These festivals have received support from the City of Barcelona, which now wants to capitalize on its investment by exporting the formula to other coun- tries. This has begun to create awareness of different regional styles of cultural tourism, which relate not only to the culture being consumed, but also to the organization and management of that consumption. The classic image of cultural tourism still seems strongly tied to the European model of passive consumption of historic sites and mu- seums.
But in other areas of the world, particularly those in which built heritage is more sparse, different models are evident. In Africa, for example, the recent review undertaken by ATLAS Africa Akama and Sterry, has underlined the current concentration of the product on traditional village life and natural attractions, particularly wildlife.
As Briedenhann and Wickens show in Chapter 4 of this volume, this is beginning to change in the case of South Africa, where the increasing urban focus of cultural life is beginning to produce a wide range of new cultural products for tourism consumption. In Australia and New Zealand the search for distinctiveness and identity in a globalizing world has led to an emphasis on creativity.
Creative New Zealand, However, the development of tourism with indigenous peoples in Australasia has raised many issues about the interpretation of their culture, as McIntosh discusses. Maori culture is not usually seen as a primary motive for visiting New Zealand, for example, but is usually just one of many experiences that the visitor will try to cram into a rel- atively short trip.
As a result, visitor knowledge of the culture tends to remain superficial and stereotypical. Creativity is also being used as the basis for new tourism products. For example, Creative Tourism New Zealand now provides a wide range of creative tourism courses in the Nelson area, which has long been famous as a region rich in artistic talent. Cultural tourism has always been important in North America, but until recently has not been recognized as a distinct market segment.
A growing number of communities are now recognizing cultural tour- ism as a means of supporting culture and generating income. Almost million person-trips were taken in , and these cultural tourists spent more and stayed longer at the desti- nation than other visitors. Destinations which have traditionally relied on other forms of tourism, such as leisure travel or conventions, are now trying to add cultural tourism to their portfolio, often for economic reasons. Cultural tourists spent more than other tour- ists because they stayed for a longer period of time.
In order to capture these high-spending visitors, many destinations are now developing specific marketing programs, or developing new cultural attractions.
In Latin America, cultural tourism is already crucial to the devel- opment of international tourism. A recent study by the World Tour- ism Organization , for example, indicated that Peru classifies 93 percent of its visitors as cultural tourists.
Many Latin American countries have developed cultural routes, often linking cultural and archaeological features with rural and natural environments, such as the Inca Trail in Peru, or the Mayan Route, which links Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras Evans, There is also emerg- ing interest in gastronomic tourism, centering on the wealth of indig- enous food products and the fusion of local and imported cooking techniques CONACULTA, In many Latin American countries, the domestic cultural tourism market is also emerging as an important source of development.
As de Camargo shows in Chapter 12 of this volume, cultural tourism has become an important means of learning about history and local iden- tity. This has led to a revalorization of cultural heritage in many cities, and increased attention for the preservation of historic city centers and archaeological and architectural heritage. In the Middle East and the Arab nations of North Africa, the devel- opment of tourism was strongly affected by the events of September 11, , although the decline in European visitors has been compen- sated to some extent by a resurgence of intraregional travel.
Berriane illustrates that there are three groups of countries in the region with respect to cultural tourism. In countries such as Syria, Jordan, and Yemen there is a low intensity of international tourism and the product is largely based on cultural tours.
In Tunisia, the development of beach tourism has followed a pattern much more like that of the Spanish costas, with the development of large resorts with a low cul- tural content. Finally, in countries such as Morocco and Egypt there is a mixture of cultural tours and fixed point resorts including inland destinations based on culture, such as Luxor and Aswan. In Asia, culture has long been at the forefront of the tourism prod- uct in many countries.
In the face of globalization and modernization, however, many of the major cities in Asia are being rapidly trans- formed by economic development. Cities like Singapore have there- fore belatedly begun to preserve or even re-create their historic cen- ters as tourism attractions.
In other countries, cultural attractions may be the primary generator of tourism. In Cambodia, for example, the World Heritage Site of Angkor Wat serves as a major tourist draw and as a national icon.
Recent research indicates that for 28 percent of tourists visiting Angkor Wat this was their only reason to visit the country Ravinder and Phuong, Introduction: Global Trends in Cultural Tourism 13 As in Latin America, the emergence of domestic or regional cul- tural tourism markets in Asia means that national identity functions of cultural heritage are being supplemented by popular culture attrac- tions as well. These unofficial guides are often in conflict with their official counterparts at major tourist sites and with govern- ment agencies attempting to police access to the guiding profession.
The unofficial guides create narratives about local culture that the tourists are unlikely to hear from official sources. They also contrib- ute directly to global flows of culture, sometimes following their guests back to the home country, or persuading them to stay and finance a joint business in the destination. In Europe cultural tourism is one of the oldest and most well- entrenched forms of tourism in most countries Richards, Even here there are sig- nificant regional differences, which are currently particularly evident in the newly emerging nations of Central and Southeastern Europe.
Whereas the established destinations in Western Europe are keen to promote cultural diversity as a source of cultural tourism development, in the newly emerging nation-states there is much more emphasis on developing cultural heritage as a source of national identity. As Hughes and Allen show, cultural tourism is seen as a particularly im- portant market in these countries, which also tend to have a relatively uncritical view of the relationship between tourism and culture.
With 22, tourists visiting the Antarctic every summer, tourism has now become the main human activity in the region Guardian, Many of the Antarctic tours are sold on the idea that visitors can retrace the footsteps of explorers such as Shackleton and Scott.
Their expedition huts have now be- come cultural attractions alongside the natural wonders of the conti- nent. Lack of connection with global systems may impede the devel- opment of large-scale cultural tourism. This included visitor surveys at cultural attractions and events around the world. Some fifty institutions from twenty-five countries partici- pated in this project, which examines the relationship between culture and tourism in a range of different contexts around the world. More de- tails of this research program can be found at www.
Only prelimi- nary results were available at the time of writing, but the ATLAS Cultural Tourism Research Group intends to publish more-detailed results in the near future.
The initial results reported on here include the first 6, visitor surveys from twelve countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Who Are the Cultural Tourists? One of the most important points to make about cultural tourism is that not all visitors to cultural sites are tourists. This emphasizes the point that apart from a select few sites or events where the majority of visitors come from abroad, the domestic market is of vital importance for most cul- tural tourism attractions.
In contrast with the traditional view of cultural tourism, younger people are a very important segment of the total audience. The single largest age group is between 20 and 29, and almost 40 percent of visi- tors are under This matches the findings of other research, such as a recent study by the AFIT in France, which indicated that 40 percent of visitors to historic sites were under The youth market is important for cultural tourism not only because people visit cultural attractions when they are young and many use youth discount cards to do so , but also because the cultural experiences they have in their youth may influence their future tourism behavior as well.
One of the reasons that youth travelers, and particularly students, are important for cultural tourism is because of the strong link be- tween cultural consumption and education. Highly educated people tend to consume more culture—not just high culture, but popular cul- ture as well.
One of the major reasons for the growth of cultural tour- ism in recent decades has therefore been increased participation rates in higher education. The visitors in general and the cultural tourists in particular are very highly educated. Over half have had some form of higher education, compared with about one-third of the EU population. Higher education levels tend to lead to better jobs and higher in- comes. It is not surprising, therefore, that cultural tourists tend to have professional 32 percent or managerial occupations 15 percent and have relatively high salaries.
One of the seemingly contradictory aspects of cultural tourism is the fact that people working in jobs connected to the cultural sector tend to engage in cultural tourism more frequently.
Twenty-seven percent of cultural tourists have an occupation connected with cul- ture, compared with about 3 percent of the EU population. Why Do They Come? One of the most important questions from the point of view of cul- tural tourism marketing and management is the motivation of cultural tourists. About half of the visitors surveyed in were on holiday. Other important purposes for visiting were visiting friends and rela- tives 15 percent and cultural events 13 percent.
Asked about more specific aspects of their motives for visiting the location, the most im- portant aspect was experiencing the atmosphere of the place. This un- derlines the importance of the discussions in Chapters 5 and 6 about the nature of place and distinctiveness, as well as the increasing search for experiences on the part of tourists Richards and Wilson, When we look in more detail at the reasons why cultural tourists go to a particular place, it is clear that the main motivation is a combina- tion of atmosphere, local culture, and history.
People want to learn something during their visit, particularly about the unique character of the place they are visiting. The basic motivations for visiting cul- tural sites have changed little over the years.
It seems that cultural tourism is becoming an experiential product, in which the visit is judged in terms of all attrib- utes of the attraction, and not just its cultural value. Where Do They Go? The figures for show museums consistently being most important since and monuments losing share. On the other hand art galleries, perform- ing arts attractions, and festivals have all increased their share of visi- tors in recent years.
Another area of cultural tourist choice we have studied over the course of the survey is the cities that people consider to be most at- tractive as cultural destinations.
In terms of the cities that cultural tourists consider being attractive cultural destinations, there have been few changes in the major destinations in recent years. A fairly consistent group of cities contests the second rung on the ladder, including Athens, Florence, Barcelona, and Vienna.
These cities in fact compete more fiercely with one another than they do with London or Paris. One of the major strategies now being used by cities to position themselves in cultural tourism markets is the staging of major cultural events.
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