Back to the speakers'list
Back to the program

  New trends in demand
Are new tourist attractions an alternative to natural and cultural environments ?

Dr Heinz Rico SCHERRIEB - Economist, Würzburg, Germany - Manager, THEMATA leisure and adventure parks, Consultancy, Innsbruck, Austria

 

 

The significance of adventure parks in today's tourist market

The significance of leisure parks, theme parks and adventure parks as tourist destinations or for day excursions is growing worldwide. European leisure parks alone have registered 180 million visitors, 5 % of whom stay the night in accommodation integrated or associated with the park and located nearby.

Even adventure swimming pools increasingly act as a substitute for holidays in exotic locations: they simulate the pleasures of bathing in the Caribbean, in the South Seas, in Italy or Mexico and because of their central role in resorts or tourist centres, they are usually the place where guests spend most of their time. The high concentration of such facilities in a tourist destination leads to a behaviour normally found only in winter sports holidays.

The tourist office of Central Florida estimates an expenditure of $3,500 per head per week for US citizens who visit the Orlando area for tourism. Disneyland Paris already has more visitors than any other tourist site in France.

Are the old cultural landscapes and nature reserves out of fashion ?

Based on these numbers of visitors and turnover as well as the behaviour of the holiday-makers, the question must be asked whether man-made adventure parks are gradually pushing the traditional cultural and natural landscapes into oblivion. To analyse possible causes of this phenomenon, above all the particular behaviour of today's holiday-makers must be questioned :

1. Is it the wide range of electronic media, the content of films in the cinema and on television, or the overabundance of stimuli in large towns that alienate tourists from natural and cultural landscapes ?

2. Does nature become untouchable as a result of the increasing number of "reserves" where access is forbidden and through nature and animal documentaries in which humans are depicted as criminals responsible for all negative changes ?

3. Are nature and culture, as they appear or are presented to us, simply too uninteresting or too tedious for present-day visitors ?

There is a widespread and increasing acceptance of leisure and adventure parks even among those with a higher educational level. The measurable positive influence exerted by such artificial facilities on the decision to book a holiday is a clear indication that these new facilities represent an alternative to the developed tourist attractions involving cultural and natural landscapes. Whether an increasing and more extensive substitution occurs depends on many factors that should be examined more carefully.

Pure nature or staged nature ?

Because of the different composition and technology of the particular offers, there will always be a gulf between "pure nature" on one side and Disney parks on the other. However, is there a possibility of bringing together these contrasts ?

The media and travel behaviour of the new generation of visitors indicate that fundamental changes have occurred in their perception and sensation. These changes help to modify the criteria by which tourist destinations are appreciated.

The quantity of stimuli that the customer has to deal with in the presentday media-age has taught people to be able to experience a multitude of feelings, to be very capable and available. Today's visitor therefore seeks a multiplicity of stimulations that are simultaneously available, in the form of a package of stimuli concentrated in a single place. The multiprocess consumer wants diversified activities that blend into an integral experience of a combination of elements that appeal to the emotions and senses and involve physical activities.

The current offers - this is especially valid for the cultural tourist destinations - are rich in information, however rarely in an entertaining form, because the "guardians of culture" do not want to apply the methods of the entertainment industry. The piece of information is usually purely factual. Where, however, only the mind is addressed, there is no place for dreams, emotions and pleasure.

Viewing figures produced from cultural events, animal and nature documentaries and historical topics show that there is, in principle, interest in nature or cultural subjects. However, tourists no longer understand the language used in the messages they receive from culture historians, monument or landscape trustees, or perhaps the message lacks impact because it is conveyed inappropriately.

Should culture and nature therefore be communicated in the form of a leisure theme park ?

As the concept of Puy du Fou at least partially shows, a theme park can be appropriate for the presentation of "closed and complex" historical events or cultural subjects. The leisure technology offers a range of possibilities for the transmission of the desired message in a form expected and accepted by the visitors.

Even if the instrument is suitable, it should not be forgotten that in the end the visitor is seeking enjoyment and not learning. Hence, the concept of parks that requires implication of people (for example, an environment park) is never successful, because historians or conservationists in their missionary eagerness usually disregard the principle of an entertainment that is instructional as a secondary aim. This forgetfulness usually occurs because of lack of willingness to reduce information content to the essential and to shape the production emotionally and positively and to omit cautionary appeals.

Despite the different attempts to present historical or biological topics in parks in the pattern of traditional leisure and adventure parks, there is still a wide spectrum of offers involving nature and culture that are not suitable for this form of presentation and use. How, however, can their attractiveness be maintained or increased by treating them differently in view of a different sensual perception by the tourist ?

The production

In principle, it is essential to motivate the visitors to devote time mentally and sometimes physically to the presented nature or cultural content on offer, even if they have no special knowledge and no particular interest, but are only following their thirst for entertainment and their curiosity, which is often not especially developed. Hence, in this context, production is primarily called the "management of feelings" where emotions are awakened through symbols and signals that come from our cultural heritage. To awaken and to steer this emotion, we have instruments from the film and entertainment industry, whose aim is to cause a complex process in the visitor that gathers together simple leading activities and emotional elements. The tourists should also have the possibility of involving their own imaginations, their experience, their dreams and ideas, and even their prejudices, and from time to time to bring in their own additional stories or embellishments. This emotional experience becomes stimulated and is steered through "feeling maps" (brainscripts), taking into consideration their emotional experiences (emotional literacy) and the surroundings generated by the production (theming).

However, tourist experience management is condemned to fail if a method of representation is chosen that is admittedly scientifically correct, but too constricting to allow the visitor room to experience sensations. The visitor has often little previous historical knowledge and is much less fond of details than historians and art experts - above all where cultural sights are concerned. In the chambers of Versailles, they are readily able to identify themselves with the piquant love games and the intrigues of court life and have little interest in which unknown artist created the ceiling paintings or on which incomprehensible allegories they are based. Therefore, the real content of the message is crucial to the success of the show and not only the dramatics, i.e. the preparation of the message.

Technology is not an end or attraction in itself but a method of production

The enthusiasm over technical possibilities, especially cinematic and virtual effects, increasingly leads the organisers to use these technologies as an alibi and often as end in themselves without integrating them into a wider production. Certainly, an IMAX film can demonstrate historic processes more transparently and more excitingly than an accumulation of objects, charts and costumes, and the possibilities offered by interactive virtual presentations today are fascinating. However, no improvement is achieved by using these media if the visitor is not stimulated to dream but - as with a virtual museum tour - has merely the possibility of focussing on individual details connected with explanations concerning art history and chronological events. This technical achievement only becomes part of a successful production, accepted by the public, if the details tell stories and the pictures stimulate the visitor to reverie.

Comics instead of epics

However, not only have the technical possibilities changed, but so have the language and thought-patterns of the visitors.

Books are increasingly ousted by a multiplicity of magazines and readers prefer shorter articles to long treatises. Increasingly, entertainment literature uses comics as a synthesis of pictures and language. The art expert and historians may reject this form of expression but only if they use this language, can they reach the public. The Disney theme parks are three-dimensional comic stories and this is perhaps part of the reason for their success.

Synopsis instead of regional stories

The overestimation of tourists' knowledge in the areas of geography, history and art history was always something of a problem. With increasing internationalisation, the problems of an effective transmission of the message increase greatly. In addition to ever-shorter texts, visitors must now ideally be offered comprehensible features to relate to. This happens through chronological comparisons between the tourist site or the cultural or historical events concerned and events from the society of the tourist's country of origin. The production of one single local referential picture no longer suffices: the visitor requires synopses, i.e. films running parallel in their heads. This parallelism cannot be generated without the use of technology and production experience from the entertainment industry.

Dreams, without waking up

Admittedly, nowadays tourists are in a position to process many contrasts simultaneously because of their multi-sensory perceptions. However, they can only experience a dream if they do not wake up. For the supplier, this means a universal, high-quality production adapted to the psychological and physiological needs of the spectator, which provides not only satisfaction but also joy over an exceptional event.

Small is beautiful

This joyful feeling resulting from an emotional experience can be evoked everywhere, by any event and above all by tourist offers dealing with nature, art or history. No big theme park, no cinema cathedral and no star architect is necessary for this. Even small attractions have consequently the possibility of acting as the technical and dramatic instruments of the big theme parks. For the traditional natural and cultural landscapes they must adopt a new language, a new way of "showing" themselves that correspond to present and future thought, experience and behaviour patterns of the tourist.

All tourist centres and destinations that do not understand this will become reserves for a few intellectuals and experts and will survive as secondary "cultural" arenas, while big, economically viable tourism will continue to thrive and seek out goals that fulfil their promise and which the tourist seeks: a pleasurable feeling produced by a travel experience.

Only adapting to the visitors and their expectations can protect nature and cultural environments and their monuments from substitution by purely artificial adventure parks.

 

Slideshow