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“Designing” tourist sites : how can local engineering be integrated into the development and promotion of tourist resorts and centres ?

Mr. André-Jean GUERIN - General Director of AFIT (French Agency for Tourism Engineering), France

 

• play with words to make the question clearer
  • a subject which unites some of AFIT’s (French Agency for Tourist Engineering) experiences
• industrial design of major programmes with reference to the physical characteristics of the surroundings
  • risk of trivialisation and search for themes
• return to authenticity
  • risk of folklore
• search for the spirit of the place using a sustainable approach

SHALL WE START BY PLAYING WITH WORDS ?

The word design is never used in France for the concept of promoting tourist sites and areas, resorts and leisure centres.
Rather it is reserved for industrial design as applied to research into new shapes, particularly for furniture and everyday objects.It conjures up fashion, modern and functional stylism.
Other terms grade sites, resorts and tourist centres more explicitly:  promotion, contrived production, upgrading, décor, theming.

The French word “génie” (in English engineering and genius)

In France this word is used in two different ways :in one sense, as engineering, to designate technical know-how:agriculture engineering, defence engineering, maritime engineering.
Thus, tourist engineering offers territories or companies external know-how, capable of coordinating all the experts.
In another sense, genius is also, without qualification, the innate spirit, the natural arrangements, the remarkable ability to produce wondrous inventions, in short it is originality.
It takes its meaning entirely from a human community at different times of its history.
This reflects the local identity and the spirit of the place, beyond the know-how of local players and traditions.

If we rephrase the question :

What does it mean to fulfil tourists’ dreams whilst maintaining the identity of the location ?
Is it matching contrivance against authenticity ?
Is it confronting a contrived production with an identity ?
Or is it an essential encounter between exogenous engineering and traditional genius ?

Is not the issue to bring the two worlds together : firstly the tourists and their dreams of a change of scenery, more or less stereotyped, indoctrinated by town planners and secondly, the sometime-failing traditional society, with a engineered structure in need of a breath of new life ?

Contrast and reconciliation - they have been subjected to so many changes, debates and interpretations over the last 30 years, a balancing act between trends and counter-trends.

How can we anchor a contrived production to the local identity ?

The identity of a site is not an objective reality but an interpretation resting on identifiable bases. But like all interpretation it uses a specific language, with words and phrases in the midst of a semantic and cultural field. It interprets elements which will be viewed as significant, rich with meaning for visitors who are preparing to discover this place.
Interpreting a site is almost always linked to the project. Several interpretations and therefore several proposals are possible depending on where you place the emphasis: trends or promising suggestions, both fostering a promotional approach as well as one based on development.
The art of building up site identity is renewed under the current climate, it marries and sometimes pre-empts group perception and visitor expectations.
Understanding the changes and providing keys for interpreting tourist developments is above all trying to capture the collective imagination (of tourists and local players), to connect it to elements of identity, landscape and culture.

The following comments are taken from work led by AFIT with the Ministry of Ecology, particularly on sustainable tourism and the major sites.They also refer to comments from designers of leisure centres and housing developments in France.

REMINDER ABOUT AFIT

• Public Interest Grouping under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism
• 300 members (Ministries of Equipment, Agriculture and Ecology, public establishments such as national parks, regional and departmental tourist boards, major tourism professional federations, tourist offices, hotel industry, rural gîtes, hiking and sporting activities, etc.)
• Purpose : Adapt, improve and make tourism more competitive
  • Make sure it is accessible to everyone
  • Make sure that development projects include a sustainable approach
• Main actions :analyses of what is on offer through studies, market studies, quality approaches and project assistance.

LET US RETURN TO THE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN OF MAJOR TOURIST PROGRAMMES

The history of tourism shows that a willingness to take local engineering into account in town planning, architecture and landscapes based on current criteria already existed in the 1960s.

• verticality, mimicry with the wall, the cliffs, being face to face with the glacier (Flaine, La Daille at Val d’Isère, etc.)
• wood, rediscovered by the great architects assisted by inspired woodworkers, manipulated thanks to new techniques which allow far-fetched structures, free of its traditional adjuncts. (mountain resorts such as Les Arcs, Avoriaz)
• the design and décor of common areas in apartment buildings, openings wide over the countryside, the combination of interior spaces, the illusion of the surface areas, calling for highly-qualified local craftsmen.
• coastal vessels (Baie des Anges Marina, etc.)

The creation of these tourist landscapes is based on the physical characteristics of the surroundings transposed into a contrived production for leisure activities.
At the same time they referred to productions of imagination of the time for places still barely developed and therefore almost legendary.

The creations constitute so many constructed testimonials, architectural in a strong, sometimes brutal, relationship with the natural surrounding elements.Criticised today, tomorrow they may well be appreciated by someone else.For tourists’ tastes change with the years, according to their origins and their cultural context.
An equation must therefore be solved:associate the aspirations of city dwellers, which means increasing demand for dreamed-of natural landscapes, with the requirements of economic balance in tourist programmes which are no longer manageable for the community.
(Examples are ski resorts, marinas, holiday villages and the building programmes in Languedoc Roussillon and on the Aquitaine Coast)

The relationship with the natural environment was a fundamental part of the original design, with a desire to open up towards other spatialities and other user-friendly aspects expected by city dwellers.

For example the Centre Park in Sologne
the forest intended to distract the town dweller with its chains of lakes. The area is organised to make it seem richer, more extensive with a landscape made up of isolated fragments without danger, in the intimacy of the cottages.

Example of Pierre and Vacances at Pont-Royal
There is a clear willingness to unite ecology and tourism due to the protection of the surrounding natural spaces and the quality of the landscape development. The built-up part is focused so as to release a vast “natural” domain for development. The idea is to create the image of a Provencal village with its hamlets lost in the undergrowth, the whole thing remodelled for the pleasure of the visitors.

But today no one dares cite these achievements as proof of a willingness to integrate local engineering.
With the massive growth in tourist programmes, the risk of trivialisation was inevitable and we have seen sensitivity towards the host territory disappearing progressively in the 70s and 80s.

• trivialisation of urban furniture : the same lamps in Versailles as in a village in Corsica (the interior décor and furniture of many activity halls in the mountains or on the coast are identical to those found in several congress centres lacking originality.)

A design which is industrial in essence and economical by necessity cannot afford to seek to understand the gaps. Time is needed to widen the dialogue between social activity, territorial logic and locally-sourced products of group imagination.

This then is when the search for themes comes to the aid of trivialisation :
Theming, which could no longer be ignored in the 80s with the creation of leisure parks, restaurant and hotel chains, tried to compensate for this architecture and these “go-everywhere” decors to respond to the visitor’s imagination, which was never satisfied.
The theme serves to create value in sterile spaces devoid of interest, gloomy areas with little to commend them like the suburbs and industrial waste lands. It holds out the promise of a journey out of time and ordinary space as an easy escape.
The customer enters a new universe, forgets that it is clearly unreal and allows himself to become hooked.

Should themes be created off-land or not, should we create a pastiche or not ?
Some people believe that it is futile to want to anchor the theme in the local identity and criticise the very-French reticence towards off-land cultures.
To them it is important to view the theme from all points of view: decors, buildings, services, activities. It needs the most complete consistency possible entering into all the details if it is to succeed.

These creations out of nothing, these fictions staged in parallel with the host territory are confronted with a previously-unrecognised environment. Theme parks, extreme sports sites and some hotel chains therefore offer alternative ways of living in the environment in total harmony with the land.
The choice of activity and ambience takes precedence over the environment.

This “off-land” tourism does not need a territorial identity to exist; other forms of spatial organisations reflect other social echoes.

But it is inevitable that using a background disregarding any cultural exchange with the people who live there can only give rise to criticism ; detractors are numerous and virulent.
Inevitably diametrically-opposed patterns have developed.

RETURN TO AUTHENTICITY

The increased numbers of all these artificial themes faced with urban and country deterioration and amplified by fears of globalisation have finally strengthened the feelings of identity.All this has contributed to a strong affirmation for a regional or local style expressed by the local populations as much as by the tourists.
The search for authenticity, the real thing, as opposed to mass tourism, has been taken up very quickly by many designers and above all by the elected representatives in rural areas.
“The tourist wants a change of scenery, to be surrounded by local character, to be reminded of the geographical and cultural differences wherever he looks - he wants to appreciate how the place is engineered” is how one of the architects of Pierre and Vacances puts it.
It is easy to be ironic today over how villages are recreated, almost like a theatre set:Brittany villages with little stone and slate houses, Basque villages trimmed with false half-timbering painted in the so-distinctive red.
But this re-creation allows intelligent differentiation to be made between accommodation types, creates a standard.At the same time it guarantees the product (level of comfort and services) and meets the tourists’ need for a change of scenery (spend their holidays in an identified place).

To avoid being trapped by folklore and nostalgia, architects dream up new possibilities which attempt to marry tradition and contemporary lines in keeping with the environment.

We have the comments from Jean-Loup Pivin, theme park designer and Pierre Diener, architect of Pierre and Vacances

It nevertheless involves a voluntary image with which we wish to inspire the visitor and the risk is that of a stereotype inflicted by the territory.
And finally, some say “tourism invented the junk identity, advertising, which makes the town dwellers dream”.
“What can we do when tourists seeking authenticity become legion: can we trap a whole region in its history and prevent it from being part of its time?” (Jean-Loup Pivin)
It is not by chance that the “most beautiful villages” have become uninhabited museum pieces, devoid of life, other than for second-home residents who alone are still seeking a nostalgic past (this is even more true for the Diaspora in Corsica, the Queyras, etc.)

Others talk of new decorative intentions citing chalet-hotels, guest houses, scenic inns, full of exposed beams, sculptured edelweiss, check tablecloths, antiques with patina and products of the land !

The style of all these “character accommodations” is clearly a contrived production of “regionality”: a décor which does not necessarily have a connection with a specific place, but which is likely and always in a rustic and chic spirit. The value of use comes after the value of ambience, promoted by the media. With this fashionable trend, it is less a question of a precise location, but more of a general myth, that of a welcoming mountain or a radiant Mediterranean.
The interpretation of this décor, with details borrowed from other places viewed as more rewarding, outdoes a daily, and probably duller, truth in drabber and less well-known territories.
(the carved balconies and painted furniture in the Tyrol spread throughout the Alps, the white and blue harmony of the Cyclades, the jars punctuating the alleys : a rule for other Mediterranean villages)

These soft, pleasant atmospheres far from so many realities bring as much value to the inhabitants as to the tourists. Everyone wants some and success is genuine.

SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

Working on an identity always involves telling a story.

There is no fixed dynamic notion of how to relate the territories or the countries. It can become a local development tool thanks to networking of services and ideas without necessarily caricaturing them.
By telling this story we get a sense of a journey through a space, which the tourists can read and which offers the chance of strategic consistency. It therefore weaves a web around paths, events, visits and productions.

Paris-Plage is an example
“Paris revives its history.
The river has always been a major element in the city’s urban landscape. The atmosphere on the banks of the Seine is well-known, sung about and sought since first created for a variety of uses: strikes, unloading wharves, fishing, romantic strolls.
The banks were developed (with palm trees, ephemeral beaches, parasols, fishing stands, climbing walls, bike and rollerblade tracks) in the space of a year, replacing the “expressway” which for 20 years had been exclusively for cars.
These newly-indoctrinated landscape values wreak havoc with customs. The banks have regained their poetic traits in line with new sensitivities.
Success is immediate, the crowds break all records.”
See Catherine Marette, landscape architecture working for AFIT

It is frequently essential to stage a production to seduce the visitor, to supply him with the guide wire and the keys to understanding.
In country spaces the link between agricultural, craft and tourist productions has to be found.

Take the example of the discovery trails created in Provence : trail of lavender, olive trees, painters, vineyards etc. Each trail takes you to the heart of many areas of expertise : gastronomy, arts and crafts, maintenance of the countryside.
In the Baronnies (Provencal Drôme) the project is based on winning back the olive groves and producing a recognised-quality olive oil at the same time as regrading accommodation with the residents. Eco-museums provide showcases for various agriculture expertise, oil mills, lavender distilleries, wine cellars, etc.
Success in this context depends on how the heritage is articulated through its accommodation, points of interest and paths through the countryside.

In this way, “the sensible approach to the countryside” can become a tool which moulds local identities and encourages the diversity of places by allowing for the territory’s geographical and cultural realities. The cultural approach to a landscape provides other keys to understanding exchanges between man and his environments. This approach consists in identifying the values which evolve as suitabilities and technological advances dictate. Changes in destination are linked to successive mechanisms associating the opinions of residents and tourists.

This requires dialogue between designers and residents, without underestimating the time for diagnosis, listening and allowing for divergences of reasoning and players.

The principles of sustainable development leading to long-term projects are applied, without losing sight of visitor behaviour and capable of defining communication lines to limit the differences between people living there and the others.
Giving priority to the most useful projects for local development in both the short and long term involves defining how the residents can participate individually and as a group.

The entire social dimension of sustainable development comes from integrating local engineering
For many years studies have been highlighting the importance of controlling development locally both by and for the residents. This means in principle excluding all contrived productions and artificial or exogenous settings. Discretely promoting heritage and local know-how pre-supposes taking on a new culture and above all new group practices.

What is the resident’s role and how can he assert himself if only by reacting against too large an invasion and a contrived production which is forced upon him ?
It is not easy to find a balance in increasingly complex, multi-disciplinary projects in which the voice of national experts or academics must not be allowed to stifle the locals’ voices and where the locals must also leave room for outsiders to voice their opinion.

CONCLUSION

I am wary of drawing a conclusion following these few stages, but I simply wish to give a certain depth to the subject a fortiori addressed in Chamonix by opening it to a study of already dated tourist resorts and in particular the “integrated resorts”. Thanks to their size and state of development, and the migrating and economic flows over the decades, they have seriously influenced the “spirit of the place”, the local engineering.

It is nevertheless obvious that design was at the heart of the evolution path towards this first type of destination.

Today, to meet the new expectations of the customers, should the question of a design to upgrade some of these resorts be considered in terms of continuity ?