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  The integration of the local setting in tourist products : what is the importance of architecture ?

Prof. Dr. Klaus WEIERMAIR - Director of the Institute of Service Economy and Tourism of the University of Innsbruck, Austria

 

Slideshow

 

I - Introduction

The overarching theme of this congress involves questions regarding the sustainability of both local culture and local tourism. A few observations on sustainable cultures at the outset are therefore in order.

A culture which is alive and vital (and only such a culture construct has meaning as opposed to the construct of a museum or dead culture) can be threatened even to the point of extinction through a variety of socio-economic and/or military forces. The most obvious case in point in history has been economic or military warfare leading to changing civilisation and cultures from Babylon to Rome, from the Babylonians to the Romans. Many a civilisation and/or culture has died from within through decadence and decay. Cases in point are the Maya in the Americas or the Romans in Europe. Today´s armoury for cultural conquest and dominance are frequently no longer tanks or warplans but rather internationally sought-after products and life styles won through “Cola” or “Burger” Wars.

According to many traditional tourism critics tourism, particularly mass tourism, is said to have played a similarly threatening role to the survival of true, authentic local cultures thus endangering both cultural sustainability and sustainable tourism.

In accusing tourism as the sole or major culprit in the destruction of local culture and cultural values through its commercial exploitation which turns culture into consumable commodities (Thomas Morus Akademie 1998) orthodox critics have neither understood the endemic dynamic nature of cultural values nor have they been able to decipher the relative influence and importance of tourism as a force of cultural change. By entirely ignoring socio-economic determinants of cultural change, by focusing on the negative aspects and impacts only by concentrating only on the culture of the tourism receiving regions and by treating culture in the receiving region as static and uniform in nature a politically spirited but analytically void defense league for alpine identity and/or values has propagated a normative or opinionated sustainability concept which in the end on account of real world changes proved itself as non-sustainable. It is therefore necessary to briefly define as to what can be meant by sustainable culture and by sustainable tourism.

Sustainable development in general or sustainable tourism developments in particular essentially entertains the notion of resource conservation in order for succeeding generations not to suffer income and welfare losses associated with the destruction, decay or overuse of non-renewable natural, social and cultural resources. Tourism which is built on and competes with these resources, cannot survive in the long run, if it destroys its own source of competitiveness. Hence in order to sustain long-run competitiveness destinations are forced to conserve those resources which are key factors in their long-term success. Economic sustainability or sustainability of competitiveness therefore encompasses all other forms of sustainability such as ecological, social or cultural sustainability.

What then is a sustainable culture or a sustainable system of cultural values ? A culture or a system of cultural values is sustainable if succeeding generations have the availability and free choice to decide for those cultural values, for which they as a people show the greatest affinity and which offers them greatest attainable identity. This definition of sustainable culture does include the possibility of changing cultural values as does the previous definition of sustainable tourism contain the possibility of changing resource use. There are essentially two touristic domains which create cross-cultural encounters with the possibility of causes, cultural clashes and/or negative effects on cultural sustainability. The first entails the everyday life culture of the host destination which is linked through the service culture to the tourism and leisure culture of specific touristic activities and finally to the culture of the sending region as follows (see slide 4).

A second important arena for cultural interaction is the perception and valuation of and satisfaction with cultural goods and services such as museums, galleries, festivals, events, etc. The cultural encounter with cultural goods, services and events similarly takes place across different cultural value systems which can be depicted as follows (see slide 5).

Having staked out the causal relationship between cultural value systems in the sending and receiving region we can now concentrate on the cultural encounter in the center both in terms of everyday culture and the production and consumption of specific cultural goods, services and events, which will be done next in section II.

 

II - Relative importance of cultural aspects in the tourism encounter : How much scope is there for culture shocks or cultural sustainability ?

A first idea as to how much culture matters in tourism can be obtained by observing tourism trends related to cultural goods services and/or events (explicit cultural preferences)

Judging by results from different European and North-American travel surveys of the three segments of

• purely culturally motivated,
• culturally generally interested and
• culture as substitute activity tourist(e.g. bad weather alternative)

the first segment of tourists travelling for cultural motives only represents a very small market share not larger than 5-8 % whilst the other two segments of general cultural tourists and the not primarily interested in culture tourist provide the two other important segments each accounting for approx. 45-47 %. (Richards 1997)

This suggests at the outset that the cultural encounter in the destination between tourists of varying cultural setting involves in the main everyday life culture plus explicit and cultural goods, services and/or events employed more as a stage, as back-drop to serve other primary tourism activities.

Even though tourists apparently use cultural sites for general vacation purposes only this does not mean that cultural sites, heritage centers and/or events have not seen a steady increase in popularity as can be witnessed by the overcrowding of cultural focal points, such as the Alhambra in Granada, Venice’s Piazza San Marco or the Acropolis in Athens. WTO has calculated in the 90ies for cultural tourism an average growth rate of 10-15 % against a 4-5 % for the tourist industry as a whole (WTO 1996). What the data seem to suggest is that cultural goods, services and/or events have seen an ever increasing popularity through the way in which they can enrich the tourism experience. Cultural goods and services as parts of a tourism or larger cultural cluster must however play a different role than culture or cultural goods as the sole motivator and/or prime decision parameter or prime satisfier in the destination choice and destination evaluation process. This also points at a change in the paradigm concerning the role and importance of culture in tourism or the tourism of culture. On the demand side the change has been long in coming and includes the following shifts in consumer behaviour embracing (both local destination residents and the tourists) :

• Acceptance and consumption of other cultures leading to changes in everyday life cultures and also to a blending of cultural traits and/or dimensions in the form of acculturation to new forms of every day life
• Acceptance of new information and communication technologies in many spheres of our lives, including the presentation and interpretation of culture in its various forms of expression.
• Worldwide movement away from solidarity-based behaviour towards individualism and individualistic behaviour with individuals wanting to exert much more control will respect to decisions concerning them. This includes being in charge with regard to all travel related decisions included in the destination value chain.
• The combination of the twin forces of accumulated travel experience from the past plus aging implies that today’s travelling public has become much more quality conscientious and “travel smart” wanting at the same time to have the options and/or combinations of old and new, traditional and modern, active and passive, authentic and derived goods and services including cultural goods and/or cultural encounters.
• More often, more frequent and more diverse break-aways from everyday life seem to characterize travel trends among the Germans, one of Europe’s largest sending regions (F.U.R. 2000). Shorter average stay of visitors implies that the travel intensity has to increase, culture sites have to be visited faster and/or more efficiently.
• At the same time often even with the same visitor there exists the contrasting preference for time intensive consumption or slower experiences frequently associated with health-related activities (“wellness”).
• The combined forces of increased individualism, heightened accumulated national and international travel and vacation experiences and cultural saturation lead – for a vast majority of today’s travellers - to the desire for having vacation and/or travel experiences which are personalized and personally perceived as “authentic”.

As regards the stylized motivation and behaviour pattern of today’s alpine tourists particular as regards the question of cultural encounter, acculturation and/or cultural tolerance versus the potential of cultural clashes we postulate the following :

An increasingly older, more experienced and quality-conscientious travelling public seeks unique personalized travel experiences which they want to perceive as authentic and which at the same time offer the habituated comfort, convenience and choice of everyday life to which people have become accustomed.

Those of younger age differ only with respect to the mix of active versus passive activities, modern versus traditional culture and value and the seeking of novel experience versus pursuing old habits. They also differ with respect to the ease with which they use and want modern information technologies in the various phases of the process of tourism consumption from the internet booking to the multimedia presentation and interpretation of heritage sites to the electronic after sales service consumption.

As regards the touristic demand for and tourists´perception of the destinations´ built environment (architecture and heritage site) destined for every life consumption and/or for mainly tourism purposes we notice the following phenomena :

Based on the well known principle of cognitive dissonance (Festiger 1978) both residents and tourists alike seek for an order or coherence between the aesthetic and functional properties of local architecture and design and major touristic and non-touristic activities pursued :

• Thus most nature lovers (ecotourists of varying age) probably value highly the harmonious integration between architecture and landscape
• Culturally motivated and/or interested travellers will probably seek for a coherence between present day architecture and past architecture wanting to understand history in an animated form. Interpretation and animation of heritage sites and/or guidance through a destination architectural landscape involves and/or calls for the employment of new and “experience” enhancing techniques. (Pine & Gilmore 1999)
• Fun and pleasure seeking young travellers with a strong leaning to “partying” will want to establish similarly coherence between the pursuit of certain touristic activities such as snowboarding, disco, a particular style of clothing, convenience food and new forms and styles of architecture and design to create a holistic “snowboarding” subculture.
• Spa or wellness travellers are likely to achieve a holistic (coherent) experience in an architectural or design context, which through the choice of proper materials, colours, light, smell and sounds offers the right environment for “wellness”.
• Coherence in quality for the tourist, who spends a large time shopping (window shopping) involves the functional and aesthetic design properties of an optimally laid out environment in terms of flow, proper signage and animation usually termed “infotainment”.

Architecture and design (together with nature and landscape) are tangibles in an otherwise intangible world of (tourism) services or experiences which crucially help in the reduction of quality uncertainly and in providing coherence to the experience of tourists (Weiermair 2000) there, where tourism activities largely involve local resources and know-how the aesthetically coherent architectural framework will likely imply the employment of traditional materials, forms and structures. In those places and activities where a more global culture prevail the more fitting architecture likely will be modern.

Finally any architectural restructuring in line with cultural change causes initially cognitive dissonance leading in the extreme to outward rejection of new architectural structures and design. Unusual but innovative pieces of architecture can over time however become accepted as man’s senses become accustomed (become gradually coherent) with new forms of architecture, space solution and the like.

Cultural clashes in a globalized world are therefore much less between host and guest cultures but more between different generations and hence the distinction between local resident and tourist has become less meaningful.

From the above it appears that sustainable tourism and sustainable culture pertain to dynamically changing cultures throughout time with life style and esprit du temps of regions and destinations (including its tourists) yielding and amalgam of global reach and regional authenticity. (Weiermair 1999)
In the next step we will show how architecture and design can be reengineered to conserve the past while at the same time making the present and future more relevant hence more authentic.

III - Creating Tourism Experiences : The Role of Architecture and Design

In order to turn the touristic consumption of ordinary cultural goods and services into “an experience” it is necessary to use the proper “psychological triggers” which help heighten the experiential character of consumer activities. Using subconscious existing patterns of associations, memories and emotions the designer of experiences can bring these out and use them in the proper place and time (Mikunda 1997) in order to properly stage-manage “experiences” we need to use psychological knowledge with respect to such phenomena as :

• Brain scripts
• Inferential beliefs
• Cognitive maps
• Time Line
• Anticipation
• Sentence framing and
• Media Literacy

to evoke the fore mentioned , associations, emotions or memories.

E.g. brain scripts are histories, myths or learned patterns of behaviour which are dormant in the human mind and which can be evoked through proper signals. Using the symbolism of underdog or David and Goliath the TV series “Columbo” e.g. evokes such an association with the modest, simple but cunning Columbo who fights the mighty, rich and evil criminal.

Inferential beliefs are opinions based on images, prejudices and/or stereotypes which can be influenced. A typical case in point are shark tanks or tiger shows at the reception of certain Las Vegas Hotels which create a bundle of attributes highlighting danger and adventure and providing the hotel with an “image personality“. More and more leisure and tourism enterprises attempt to create such an image personality through an architectural corporate identity (Luxor Hotel Pyramid). Cognitive maps have the purpose to bring consumers with great ease to those locations where they can satisfy their needs. Cognitive maps use focal prints and easy to understand lay outs to heighten the experience. Focal prints are cross roads where different axes (e.g. themes, histories, memories, etc.) run together and which usually have psychological significance like the worship of heroes (similar to such city focal prints as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris or Nelson´s Column at Trafalgar Square). Time lining involves the proper allocation of experiential time into many small controllable and enjoyable units to make the overall experience more entertaining.

Anticipation similarly uses techniques from the world of entertainment by building or evoking expectations and by creating excitement which is subsequently stage managed and released through the employment of teasers, tension creation and the use of “cliff hangers”.

Sentence framing provides the guiding rod or principle for the performance. It is the skeleton which gives the product its inner shape and form. It provides the user (consumer) with a sense of security and familiarly. Often this too can be translated architecturally (e.g. Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas).

Finally media literacy involves a play with human perception. The spectator wants to be tricked perceptionally as is the case with magicians. We let ourselves be immersed in illusions, which again can be created by particular materials, lighting or architectural design (example Swarovsky´s cristal world in Austria).

As can be seen from the discussion above architecture and design play a crucial role in evoking associations, perceptions and emotions and which in turn constitute an integral part of the visitor experience as well as the cultural identity of local residents.

For both tourism and culture to remain sustainable over time there has to be coherence between the built environment and the socio-cultural environment. Clearly when the socio-cultural environment changes it becomes necessary to also adjust the built environment. This is what the blending of tradition and modernity is all about. Such change is also necessary to render architecture again “authentic” in terms of actual practiced every day live culture.

Blending tradition with modernity can be achieved through autochthone architecture (Kuz 1992) or by blending traditional forms or structures with new material and design (example using Palladio Style in modern houses). We can achieve coherence or harmony by using regional resources (specific types of stone, wood, etc.) in a new and modern design (architecture). We can transform old buildings through the use of new materials and techniques. (lighting, colours, sounds, etc.). Finally we can build entirely new structure with varying capability of coherence with the natural and socio-cultural environment.

The following examples (pictures) help us to illustrate the above mentioned real world implementations and applications :

• Design Hotel Madlein
• Romantic Hotel Liebes Rot-Flüh
• Ötzi Village
• Swarovsky Kristallwelten
• Architecture
  • Coherent Architecture
    • Hafelekar
    • Seegrube
    • Gellner
    • Wright
  • Conversion
    • Bergisel, vieux et neuf
    • Zumthor, Safiental
    • Gazomètre
    • Reunion Roche, Unterwald
  • Unique Monumentlike
    • Le Corbusier, Ronchamp
    • Lackner, Hatting
    • Schuller Passion, Erl
  • Bad Examples
    • Gnaiger, Warth
    • Einfamilienhaus Lochau

IV - Conclusions and Outlook

Architecture and design are playing an ever increasing role through their aesthetic and practical functions both for local residents and tourists. Evolutionary forces towards individualism and towards an experience and entertainment economy (Pine & Gilmore 1999, Wolf 1999) combined with the development of global leisure and tourism products through globalization have greatly reduced cultural distance and possible cultural clashes between hosts and guests in destinations but heightened them between younger and older generations. When deciding on principles as to what and how much of the past should be preserved and/or transformed in its original form into modern structures or even scrapped it is necessary to revoke the question of cultural sustainability. This however does not imply an orthodox freezing in time of anything which is old, but should rather involve a careful evaluation of long term costumer (user) costs and benefits. Traditional curators and or managers of heritage sites often take a very orthodox and cultural elitist view of old architecture or the existing built environment, which in many cases than becomes economically sustainable only with large government subsidies. Cases abound where those in charge with the protection of heritage have declared everything which is old as a heritage site and have made modernization in an aesthetically appealing and up to date fashion impossible. In the end the problem appears to be one of “tastefulness” and quality, which however cannot be regulated or guided by simple environmental regulations and/or by laws.

 

Literature 

M. Bense (1971), Zeichen und Design. Semiotische Ästhetik, Agis, Baden-Baden

E. Cohen (1988), Authenticity and Commoditization in Tourism, in: Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 15, pp. 371-386

K. Festiger (1978), A theory of cognitive dissonance, Stanford

Ch. Goulding (2000a), The commodification of the past, postmodern pastiche, and the search for authentic experiences at contemporary heritage attractions, in : European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 34, No. 7, pp. 835-853

Z. Kuz, W.M. Chramosta, K. Frampton, Autochthone Architketur in Tirol, New York

C. Mikunda (1997), Der verbotene Ort oder die inszenierte Verführung, Düsseldorf

G.M. Moscardo, Ph. L. Pearce (1986), Historic Theme Parks, An Australian Experience in Authenticity, in : Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 13, pp. 467-479

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J.II Pine, J.H. Gilmore (1999), The Experience Economy, Harvard Business School Press, Harvard

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K. Weiermair (1998), The effect of environmental context and management on the performance cha­racteristics of cultural events: the case of the 700 Year Tyrol Exhibition in Stams and Meran, Conference « Talk at the top : The Impact of Mega Events », Mid Sweden University, Östersund, July 1997, in : Festival Management and Event Tourism, Vol.5, No ½, pp. 85-91

K. Weiermair (1999), Touristische Attraktionen im Spannungsfeld zwischen globalem Anspruch und regionale Authenzität, Vortrag St. Gallen, to be published shortly

K. Weiermair (2000), Tourists' Perceptions towards and Satisfaction with Service Quality in the Cross Cultural Service Encounter: Implications for Hospitality and Tourism Management, in: Managing Service Quality, Vol. 10, No 6, pp. 397-409

K. Weiermair, M. Fuchs (2000), The Impact of Cultural Distance on Perceived Service Quality Gaps : The Case of the Alpine Tourism, in: Journal of Quality Assurance in Tourism & Hospitality, Vol. 1, No 2, pp.59-75

K. Weiermair, H. Pechlaner (2001), Management von Kulturtourismus im Spannungsfeld von Markt-und Ressourceorientierung, in : Th. Bieger, H. Pechlaner, A. Steinecke (Hrsg.) : Erfolgskonzepte im Tourismus: Marken-Kultur-Neue Geschäftsmodelle, Linde-Verlag, pp. 91-123

M.J. Wolf (1999), The Entertainment Economy, Times books, New York

 

Slideshow