Contemporary tourism: From `touristic places` to

Contemporary tourism:
From ‘touristic places’ to ‘discursive spaces’
By Francesc Muñoz
Director of the Observatory of Urbanization and the Master Program on
Landscape and Heritage Intervention and Management
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
The globalisation of economies has also represented the globalisation of places and
their identities. Global tourism is maybe the best platform to observe this complex
process involving new relationships between the local peculiarities characterising
places and the global process of equalization of cultures and experiences that tourism
clearly summarize at the present moment.
This globalisation of tourism has represented the multiplication of the different
typologies of tourist experiences. This process has definitely changed the prior basis of
the modern tourism so the post-modern tourism is characterised by the confirmation of
two main considerations regarding the relationships between tourism and landscape:
Firstly: today, any place in the world can eventually be transformed into a tourist
destination. Secondly: today, any typology of tourism can potentially be developed in
any place in the world.
This process involving the ‘delocalisation’ of the tourist experience is directly affecting
the values of landscape and, at the same time, landscape features and characteristics
can be a fundamental element when developing tourist activities.
Following these preliminary statements, the presentation will explore the relationships
between global tourism and landscapes in three main primary directions:
-
The economic dimension of tourism: dealing with main facts and data to
illustrate the extraordinary diversification of touristic activities and their
capability for being located and developed in a wide range of very different
spaces.
-
The territorial dimension of tourism: regarding how modern tourism used to
locate specific touristic uses of the land in very specific type of territories –the
seaside, the mountains, the countryside, etc –, whereas postmodern tourism
establishes a particular disconnection between touristic uses and places. As
said before, any kind of touristic activity can actually take place in a multiplicity
of places at the present moment. That is why tourism has become global.
-
The cultural dimension of tourism: suggesting the surprising capability of
tourism to shape and change culture in places. From this perspective, tourism is
considered as one of the main drivers when analyzing major changes in the
evolution of cultural forms, particularly considering the case of the urban culture.
In this sense, the presentation will propose some research questions regarding the
process of globalization of places understood as a negotiation between the global and
the local.
From the touristic experience perspective, this process of negotiation represents a very
important challenge for places and cultures that can be formulated as follows:
In a moment of excess and banalization of touristic places and touristic experiences,
the influences that global tourism definitely has reshaping local cultures can be
orientated towards the reinforcement of the discursive content of the touristic
experience in the place.
How to move from the simple consideration of being a ‘touristic place’ to the more
exciting status of a ‘discursive space’ would definitely be one of the key questions
regarding the management of global tourism in local places in the years forthcoming.
References on tourism and landscape
Muñoz, Francesc (2004) “La ville multiplié: metropole des territoriants”. In Chalas,
Yves, L’imaginaire aménageur en mutation (81-100). L’Harmattan, Paris.
Muñoz, Francesc (2007) “Geografie low cost. L’Europa dei paesaggi suburbani”. In
Agnoletto,
Matteo;
Delpiano,
Alessandro;
Guerzoni,
Marco
(eds)
La
civiltàdeisuperluoghi. Notizie dalla metropoliquotidiana (160-165). Damianieditore,
Bologna.
Muñoz, Francesc (2007) “Paisajes aterritoriales, paisajes en huelga”. In Nogué, Joan
(ed.) La construcción social del paisaje (293-325). Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid.
Muñoz, Francesc (2008) Urbanalización. Paisajes comunes, lugares globales. Gustavo
Gili, Barcelona.
Muñoz, Francesc (2010) “Urbanalisation: common landscapes, global places”. In The
Open Urban Studies Journal vol. 3 (78-88). Special issues: Urban trends in the Iberian
Peninsula. Bentham Open.
Muñoz, Francesc (2010) “Los paisajes del transumer. El orden visual del consumo en
tránsito”. In Enrahonar, Quaderns de Filosofia num. 45 (107-121).
Muñoz, Francesc (2011) “Paisaje y patrimonio territorial en un escenario de cambio
global. Nuevos retos y perspectivas”. In Serrano Rodríguez, Antonio; Servet Martín,
Raoul; Fidalgo García, Pablo (eds.) Crisis y territorio. Aportaciones y conclusiones del
VI Congreso Internacional de Ordenación del Territorio (311-328). Asociación
Interprofesional de Ordenación del Territorio, Fundicot, Madrid.
Muñoz, Francesc (2012) “El patrimonio construido como paisaje. El paisaje construido
como patrimonio. Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de Musealización de
Yacimientos y Patrimonio “Arqueología, Patrimonio y Paisajes Históricos para el Siglo
XXI” (p.41-57). Consorcio de Toledo. Toledo.
Cv abstract of Francesc Muñoz
Francesc Muñoz, geographer and professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Phd research awarded as the best work adressing human values to engineering
(Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2004).
Research covers the relationships between urbanism, environment and landscape
including the design of recycling projects for infrastructural and industrial landscapes.
Director of collective researches awarded with national prizes in Spain, such as the
IDEA Program for leading projects on Sustainability, Innovation and Creativity
(Cosmocaixa, Barcelona) in 2011 and 2012.
His most known published work is the book Urbanalization: common landscapes,
global places (2008).
Director of the Observatory of Urbanisation and the Master Program on Landscape and
Heritage Intervention and Management (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona).