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  How should cultural tourist attractions be presented ?

Dr. Heinz Rico SCHERRIEB - Associate professor at the Tourism and Leisure Studies Institute, Vienna University of Economics, Austria - Director of EWC EntertainmentWorlds Consulting

 

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In Central Europe, any attempt to treat a cultural theme in a more amusing or entertaining way is repulsed with the terrified cry “it’s just like Disneyland” ! But aren’t we oversimplifying things ?

Furthermore, it is necessary for us to observe that Disney’s principles—and this is clearly proven by the results in Paris—are not simply to adapt to Europe to obtain success.

We must not forget the fact that in the meantime we have to deal with a generation of tourists who grew up with cartoons, Disney studio films and amusement parks and who are now themselves parents. The world of fantasy products is familiar to them today and—whether its forms are accepted or rejected—they no longer have an interest in all of these museum-style and pedagogically-boring presentations of monuments and cultural themes dating back to our fathers and grandfathers.

Tourism—and everyone who seriously considers tourism as an economic factor is unanimous in this—cannot behave as the habitat of art and artists: art is only manifestly recognized when no one is interested in it any longer. Government grants insure the survival of the artists’ habitat, whether they are publicly successful or not. People working in tourism cannot themselves make use of this source of funds. We must all—in order to obtain success on the economic level—orient ourselves towards the public, its needs and its dreams.

The basic services of tourism (lodging, food service, and transportation) are provided in an exemplary way generally in Switzerland and France. Problems that are clearly more important appear when visitors expect an additional service that, owing to the structure of prices in Switzerland and France, proves to be financially significant. Furthermore, seeing their dreams fulfilled depends on whether or not they have good weather, since only the unrestricted view over the snowy summits, Lake Geneva and the mountains match the description of their dreams. But what happens if weather conditions are not ideal: do we leave the visitors as prey to their disappointment, and do we take the long-term risk that they, because of the lack of a guarantee concerning good weather, will never come to visit these “dear” regions ?

It is precisely in the lack of guarantees concerning weather conditions that amusement parks have proved their worth by offering a substitute for the visitors’ disappointed hopes. In this way you offer an alternative that is exploitable regardless of the weather. It may be true that experiencing nature in ideal weather conditions remains the realisation of the dream in the absolute sense; however, the visitors will not return home disappointed by the region they wanted to visit if they bring back other positive memories of their stay.

Do nature and culture need to be presented as amusement parks ?

The use of modern staging and presentation techniques would clearly augment the lure of many natural and cultural sites. Presentation as an amusement park, moreover, has a decisive advantage: while the presentation of a single object is pleasant but small in scale, presentation in the guise of an amusement park is a theatre to voyage around, whose staging techniques allow the development of complex series (for example, historical facts). As we all know, a certain period of time is always necessary for visitors to identify with the actor figures and to analyse and unravel the threads of the situation portrayed. Decentralised types of presentations have only rarely succeeded in arriving at this total understanding. Even design attempts for decentralised theme parks (with the overall landscape as amusement park) have failed. In this case, the sought-for dramatic effect evaporates due to the distance it is necessary to travel between the different attractions. As an effect, this distance merely lets visitors’ curiosity and tension levels drop to zero, and so they often do not make the full round of offered attractions since it is too inconvenient.

On a delimited site, interest can be created, stimulated and then fall again as the result of a pre-established route.

It is only when one succeeds in creating an atmosphere and in staging a convincing unit of action that one succeeds in adapting content. The visitor must have the impression of participating in historic events or in the development of the action (for example, scaling a rock face).

Using this perspective, the successful examples existing in the world will be elaborated for you in the following presentation.

1. Ritterfestspiele Kaltenberg

In 1973, Prince Max of Bavaria was encouraged to revive the medieval history of his castle Kaltenberg, to the southwest of Munich, once a year. This began as a performance of stuntmen from Great Britain limiting itself to the art of the battle during knights’ tournaments of the Middle Ages. These knights’ tournaments struck such a positive chord with the public that in the meantime this event has developed into a genuine festival of the Middle Ages. Nowadays during this festival, the visitors live as at the Court of long ago, and as during that period, with jugglers, merchants, peasants eager for amusement and drink, shopkeepers, the riffraff and the vagabonds, the procession of nobles rushing up for the tournament as well as all sorts of fans of the games. The spectator wholly makes up part of the spectacle—he or she is, so to speak, one of them.

The ambiance is perfect thanks to the medieval sets, to the meticulous reconstruction of tools and equipment and especially thanks to the sense reigning over the place in general, to which the music contributes significantly.

However, this is only a festival and not a permanent development. It could, though, be imagined as one.

2. Dong Fang Guangzhou, China

Huangzhou is one of the sites of imperial residence in the history of China. In the neighbouring city Guangzhou, the 16th-century A.D. residence had been completely reconstructed in the context of a theme park project.

But what fascinates the visitor much more is life in the residence, the emperor’s arrival on the scene, the ladies of the Court, the soldiers, and the fascinating staging of the events of times of war, when the troops ascended the river and tried to attack and take over the residence.

Again, the number of extras, the accompanying music, and the booming detonations of cannons accompanied by a luxurious pyrotechnical presentation are the key to the unforgettable character of this event. In this way, they doubtlessly make it more impressive than the passive visit to the genuine imperial residence in the nearby town.

3. Puy du Fou

In 1977, people in the Vendée wondered how they could portray a history of the wars and especially of the resistance to the French Revolution, while including in the project historic buildings like the chateau Puy du Fou in the midst of its natural setting.

It was decided to represent the chateau, the countryside and life in the era, while putting special emphasis on the daily life of a long-ago period, and by mixing war and historical events with this. The experiment succeeded. This is especially because, from the very beginning, the best pyrotechnics and lighting effects were used. The project made a name for itself 10 years later, when 1800 people volunteered over more than 20 days to re-enact the history of the massacres in the Vendée. These days, there are 2,700 people from nearby communities who form the troupe of actors giving the performances, but who also, thanks to the more than 25,000 hours of work per year that they provide, allow the Puy du Fou to exist.

The Big Spectacle was, in the intervening period, supplemented by other performances, for example by perfecting the representation of daily life in the Middle Ages around the castle with the reconstruction of an artisans’ village, as well as by the great knights’ celebration with a depiction of medieval tournaments.

However, the night shows, which attract thousands of spectators with more than 300 fireworks and 1500 spotlights, remain the height of this undertaking.

The concept is continuously refined: 1500 water jets lit and controlled by computer, as well as the blockbuster light and sound show with projections on the side of the chateau, including a laser show, complete the programme and encourage the spectator to go to Puy du Fou several times a year.

Puy du Fou has welcomed 6 million spectators in the space of 22 years. The performances given during the season (28 evenings) are in this case a veritable gold mine for the region‘s hotel industry, since the majority of visitors are lodged on site.

The presentation of the history of the Vendée at Puy du Fou has thus become a concrete element of the French tourism programme.

4. Rhine Falls, Schaffhausen

In Switzerland, some very promising beginnings for presenting the landscape are also emerging. The municipality of Neuhausen and the canton of Zurich are confronted each year with the fact that more than 2 million people come to admire the natural wonder that the Rhine Falls displays. But these visitors do not make up a sizeable potential, especially for lodging. Considering the short parking duration in this place (around only one hour), they only constitute a moderate financial contribution limited to gastronomy and to the purchase of souvenirs in the village.

The desire to enhance the economic development of the canton of Schaffhausen in cooperation with the property owners then informs every attempt to elaborate an operating concept for the Rhine Falls as an adventure area. The idea is based on the system of payment for entry, like in theme parks, including access to all the points of interest there are to see (Castle Laufen, Untere Laufenhuser, Castle Wörth), apart from a vantage point in the lower part of the Rhine Falls near Castle Wörth.

The visitor must consequently obtain a real increase in value for this fee. The treatment of the history of industry, like the simulation of the descent of the Rhine Falls, is also planned as part of the offerings. The revival of the painting school at Castle Laufen, the putting into operation of the Rhine Falls thanks to glass passageways and submarine bells as well as other—sometimes even prehistoric—retrospectives present other forms of attraction for this concept.

But unlike France, people in Central Europe always try to prevent things from happening and to block the possibility for development of the most promising things; and so this time as well the populations of Neuhausen and Schaffhausen (or, more specifically the retired people of these communities) made the project fail.

Even attempts to illuminate the Rhine Falls during weekends, as at Puy du Fou, or to organise a large aquatic spectacle were undermined by the fear of scaring the fish.

At the moment, all that remains is the attempt to represent the history of industrialisation in relation to the Rhine Falls in the guise of an industrial leisure park to walk through in the village of Neuhausen, although the representatives of Swiss industry are Alusuisse/Alcan and not the municipality and canton. The canton wants to revive the historical route of Castle Laufen, but all of the entrance fees are overvalued. The increase in value to tourists in this case has only a minimal chance of augmentation.

5. Forum Alpinum Innsbruck

The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, that portrays a river (the Tennessee) from its source to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico within a single building, and that has seen considerable success, was taken as the model for the Forum Alpinum of Innsbruck which was developed in a “House of the Alps” project.

As numerous projects of less scope demonstrate, the museum presentation of mountaineering only attracts a few visitors. This is why in the Forum Alpinum’s case the history of the Alps and of its phenomena is portrayed in a large complex in the framework of a ”trip around the mountain”.

Basically, it is on the order of an aquarium to walk through: visitors can admire a wild mountain landscape upstairs in which here and there several springs are born. They next move around the complex as if they were descending a slope of the mountain and then encounter the animal and vegetable world of the high mountain. They can also experience an avalanche or a mudslide through simulators.

On several occasions, the refined technologies of the aquarium system allow a glimpse of the mountain stream that accompanies the route. Thus the visitors can observe trout gather under a waterfall, or a little further on admire otters and marmots integrated into the landscape. The stream intensifies throughout the visit to transform into a river with its typical flora and fauna, in the end to leave the Alpine region.

High-tech simulators allow the visitor to observe the physical phenomena of the water in all its states of matter (fog, clouds, rain, snow and ice). On the other hand, the integration of animals has the effect of creating emotions in order to exhibit nature, its small inhabitants, and especially their conditions of life as realistically as possible.

Elsewhere, human beings play a major role in the settling of the Alps and the benefit they draw from it in this day and age : historical events are represented by medieval-style galleries and high mountain farms, the current use of the mountains as winter sport resorts by ski and bobsled simulators.

This remains, however, a concept which was approved but which has not yet been implemented. The principal reason for this is that it has not been possible to agree where this project should be realised. Rivalries between municipalities cause them to want this museum project decentralised, which would end in the dissociation of the different ideas planned, and that would be then introduced on different sites under themes such as The Alps and Water, The Alps and Snow, etc.

This desire for fragmentation of the elements—an occurrence familiar to each regional director of tourism in Central Europe—is characteristic of local structures which have as their goal to supplant such projects. In this way, they oblige the visitors to move among several sites. These communities, however, do not take into consideration the fact that for each site to be visited, and thus for each “element of the exhibition”, efforts to motivate and persuade the visitors must be put in place leading them to go to this site. And considering that this fragmented design exercises a clearly lower power of attraction for the potential visitor, it seems somewhat unlikely that it would assemble as many visitors as a complex bringing together all of these elements.

The visitor does not expect dispersed exhibitions, but a total presentation—in other words, the possibility, through a system, of living an adventure.

It is not theme parks, but adventure systems that are wanted

Adventure systems are principally designed to fill the visitors with enthusiasm by putting all their senses on alert, and by taking up each of these senses in a different manner throughout the course of the visit. The time for explanation cards, costume exhibits and display cases is long past. The visitors want to take part fully in what is offered them. This goal can only be reached by precisely arranging the staging of the themes presented with high-performance technical means, so that the visitor has the impression of moving around in the midst of events and being an active subject in the presentation. The staging is then reinforced by odours, sounds, and weather elements. In this way, it is immersive and the texts take on a secondary position in this entirety. Beyond the presentation, the visitors are encouraged to claim the dream for themselves and to pursue the story in its spirit. Without truly realizing it, they play the main role. In a modern adventure system properly designed and carried out, in the end it is a question of creating a feeling of happiness in the visitor due to implementing the knowledge and techniques of staging taken from the leisure industry. This feeling comes from the emotional experience of seeing oneself offered the chance of and taking part in something extraordinary.

Reaching this goal is not an easy thing. The use of techniques is not a sufficient means. Perfecting an adventure system of this kind is as difficult as assembling a Swiss watch. Having all the elements before one does not necessarily imply that one knows how to fit them together. Creating positive emotions is a very delicate procedure if one considers factors among individuals like differences in temperament, life experiences, perception, and the potential to become enthusiastic. Introducing and developing such a presentation must be done as impeccably as its logical culmination.

Amusement parks with their presentation technologies are partial precursors to this undertaking. The presentation of a landscape, whether in a museum or on its original site, is that much more difficult if no cartoon character familiar to the visitor is represented there as they are in a theme park. Moreover, a landscape is clearly larger in space and must be placed in a much more significant presentation spectrum. But if the presentation is truly a success, then nature and culture will be within everyone’s grasp, regardless of weather conditions. And what could be nicer than making visitors happy?

 

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