Defining TAs

In order to lay the foundations for a new way of understanding attractions, an initial step that needs to be taken is to look at the existing ways that tourist attractions (TAs) are defined and divided into conceptual categories. I will investigate the benefits of dividing attractions into smaller, more manageable categories, but will also scrutinise the philosophical trap of reifications that management theory so often relies on. A range of alternative definitions that are in use in the tourism literature will be investigated here and I will propose a definition for the purpose of this book.

As I mentioned in the Prologue, it is common for research on TAs to mention how little attractions have been studied, and how few authors have problematised the concept of attractions. This is a fact that authors comment on in books about attractions (Fyall et al., 2008), chapters on attractions in textbooks (e.g. Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006; Robinson et al., 2013), as well as in articles (e.g. Lovelock, 2004). Peter and Helen Dewhurst state: 'the size, significance and diverse nature of the visitor attraction sector of the tourism industry make it both a complex and fascinating area of study, but also one where few broad generalisations are appropriate. Indeed, it could well be this latter point that has served to deter commentators from focusing on visitor attractions as a topic for research investigation' (Dewhurst & Dewhurst, 2006: 290). Then again, one could ask why attention should be placed on this element of tourism industries – it is just one element in a bundle of industries ranging from travel agents and transport operators to accommodation, food and beverage outlets, as well as retail businesses, just to mention the most common (Leiper, 1995). Each of the different business components is important for most tourism to take place, and so are the environments that tourism occurs in, be they ecological, economical, geographical, political, social, cultural or virtual. Tourism as a whole is made up of the aforementioned elements, which should be analysed and managed separately; that is why Neil Leiper referred to tourism industries, in the plural (see Hall & Page, 2010): to call it one industry is not helpful when trying to analyse and improve the final outcome – a successful holiday experience for tourists.

As Fyall et al. state: 'attractions represent a complex sector of the tourism industry [sic] and are genuinely not very well understood' (Fyall et al., 2008: xvii). Thus, coming back to the importance of attractions, without them there would be no point in tourism (Ioannides & Timothy, 2010), though without tourism there would be no point in attractions (Lew, 1987). There would be no reason to travel to distant (or near) places, and none of the other industries would survive without the interrelation between tourism and attractions. It is therefore essential that we study and try to understand attractions better. That is, what TAs really are.

Now, I can imagine that some readers would protest at this stage, 'don't overestimate the importance of your topic', or something similar. There are still lots of things that make tourism worthwhile: visiting friends and relatives (VFR), attending events, being a volunteer in a developing country, studying in a foreign country or doing business away from home and having some leisure time on the side, for instance. I agree, each of these is a reason to travel and be a tourist but, –and this is where the importance of defining attractions comes to its fore – what are they really? Are we talking about tourist attractions or tourist attractors? Am I an attraction when my parents travel across the world to see me in Australia? Is the university that I am working at an attraction for the numerous foreign students who decide to do their degrees with us rather than in their home countries? Are the wildlife parks that my colleague travels to in order to work as a volunteer orang-utan carer an attraction? In my opinion, the answer is 'yes' to all of the aforementioned questions – but this is also where it is important to define tourist attractions. If just about anything, anybody and everything can be a TA, then it would be impossible to study it, manage it and improve it – correct, but that depends on how we define attractions, and how we construe them in our minds.

As I mentioned in the Prologue, the word attraction (to designate the attracting entity) is simplistic and thus not without disadvantages (Leiper, 2004). The words for 'tourist attractions' are equally problematic in other languages; the words in many Germanic languages translate literally as 'something worth seeing': Swedish, sevärdighet; German Sehenswürdichke it; Dutch Bezienswaardigheit. All of these words are informative as they literally state two main elements: the attracting entity can be seen and somebody has determined it is worth seeing. In many non-Germanic languages as well, the equivalent term denotes something that can be seen: in Finnish nähtävyys (something to see) and in Mandarin Chinese 'jingdien' (scenic spots) (Nyíri, 2006). But while it is common sense to think of entities that in an almost magnetic fashion attract tourists to them, or to think of entities that are worthy of being seen, these words simultaneously close out alternative attractions that cannot be seen, or that are controversial to different stakeholder groups, and potentially not 'worthy' at all to some. This is acknowledged by Richard Prentice when he states: '"attraction" is meant in no other way than to describe a site, theme or area which attracts visitors. ... It should not be taken to imply that these sites and the like are otherwise thought to be attractive' (Prentice, 1993: 39). I will return to the problem associated with the word 'attraction' towards the end of this chapter, where I discuss the TA system, but firstly let me explain why I refer to TAs rather than visitor attractions, and thereafter introduce how attractions are categorised and defined in the literature.

Tourist Attractions or Visitor Attractions?

I have decided to refer to attractions as tourist attractions (TA) rather than visitor attractions (VA). The reason for this choice is that the term tourist attraction is a global signifier. The term has clear connotations and it is descriptive enough to lead readers to an understanding of what is in question. It is, however, quite common, especially in the UK, to refer to visitor attractions in order to incorporate day-trip visitors who enjoy the attraction as well as travellers from further away (Swarbrooke, 2002). This is congruent with the definition of tourists (McCabe, 2009) proposed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization...