The tourism interaction system: a new approach on the geography of inner city tourism

The invisibility of urban tourism and the near impossibility of demarcating it within an inner city is a major problem for the research discipline. The tourism interaction system is a systematic approach of looking at a tourism location as a material and symbolical spatial entity – nucleus and marker. The tourism place is influenced by forces external to the tourism interaction system, but is also affected by the way several actor groups intervene in the production process of tourist space. Also the tourist modifies the material location by being there and using it, but also by interpreting it as a destination, worthwhile to visit. An inner city is a continuity of sights, streets, squares that can be seen as tourist interaction systems on themselves, but within the urban tourist system those locations do not operate independently. The inner city can be viewed as a potential surface, where the different elements of the tourist interaction system interact. The different element of the tourist interaction system were collected and analyzed in de medium-sized historic City of Ghent, Belgium, with the use of Geographic Information Systems and multivariate data analysis. Not only locational data were needed about the supply elements of the tourism system, but also about the spatial behaviour of tourists and types of activities undertaken. The data were integrated in a georelational database and used as an input for point pattern analysis and cluster analysis. Map interpretation of the results provides an insight in the diversity of the inner city as a material and mental tourism space and offers a useful starting point for decision making and visitor management.no ISBNstatus: publishe

De geografie van het toerisme in de stad : bepaling van toeristiciteits-indicatoren en methodiek voor interactie-analyse

Studying the geography of the tourist city aims at increasing our understanding of the patterns of interaction between spatial aspects of tourism in the inner city. The aim is not only to conceptualize the different ways tourism expresses itself spatially, but also to study the interaction between these different tourism-related aspects. It also aims at developing a methodology to quantify the different spatial aspects of tourism in an indicator set. We investigate whether modelling these different locational aspects and interactions using GIS and multivariate techniques can provide new fundamental insights about the mechanics of the tourist geography within an inner city. We also demonstrate how this insight into the urban tourism system can be applied in urban tourism policy and visitor management. As a basic ordering principle for the different thematic and spatial concepts of inner city tourism, a systems approach is used. This means that spatial reality is deconstructed into its essential elements and their properties. Interaction within the system environment is conceptualized, per element, by reserving a set of exogenous properties, influenced by forces exterior to the system. Also each element has attribute groups that indicate interaction with, or are influenced by, the other elements of the system. However, interaction, element and system can be interpreted both substantially and spatially. To account for this, a distinction is made between the tourism interaction system and the urban tourism system. In geography, place has a physical/material aspect, but also a symbolic and interpretative meaning. Place is produced and consumed by specific groups of actors, who are in their turn influenced by it. This double dyadic approach – place as physical and mental entity and actor as consumer and producer – can also be used to deconstruct the tourist place into its essential elements. The idea is also used, albeit not always in an explicit way, in some very important tourism models. In the “tourism attraction systems” model (Leiper, 1990), an attraction is seen as a strong interaction between nucleus, tourist and marker, which consists of physical locational elements, the tourist as an essential actor, but also symbolic/interpretative elements expressed in the informational marker aspect. What is missing in this model is that groups of actors are also involved in the production of this marker (narratives, interpretation of the place). This idea is present in the “tourism transformation model” (Dietvorst, 1995), where the material and symbolic assemblage of a place for tourism is accounted for, both by consumers and producers. The synthesis of those ideas and conceptualization within the systems approach, results in the tourist interaction system. Thestatus: publishe

Regional Report. Flanders

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Visie over het omgaan met ruimtegebruik en ruimtebeslag voor 2020-2050

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Visie over het omgaan met ruimtegebruik en ruimtebeslag voor 2020-2050: een synthese

In 1997 werd het Ruimtelijk Structuurplan Vlaanderen (RSV1) goedgekeurd. In dit strategisch ruimtelijke beleidsplan werden de gewenste ruimtelijke ontwikkelingen voor een termijn van 10 jaar vastgelegd. Twaalf jaar later is het tijd voor een actualisering. De minister en zijn administratie hebben beslist om het Ruimtelijk Structuurplan Vlaanderen grondig te herzien. Via een korte termijnherziening werden een aantal dringende problemen aangepakt, zodat het plan nog tot 2012 verder kan dienen. Ondertussen gaf de minister het Steunpunt Ruimte en Wonen, dat in Vlaanderen beleidsvoorbereidend onderzoek doet rond ruimtelijke ordening en woonbeleid, de opdracht om samen met zijn administratie een visienota over ruimtegebruik en ruimtebeslag uit te werken om de discussie over de herziening van het Ruimtelijk Structuurplan Vlaanderen te voeden

De poot van de wolf aan de poort van het Steen (deel 2). Radiokoolstofdatering en genetisch onderzoek van een historisch curiosum

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