A Positive Role

The argument about re-evaluating tourism depends on two important points.

The first is that tourism’s educational value does not refer to some special ’niche’ activity, some form of tourism which is separate from all others. Labelling it as ‘special interest tourism’ under this guise misses the point. All tourism has some kind of educational value, because however people discover new places and people, and experience new events, contributes to their personal store of knowledge.

The second point is that in order to ensure tourism makes a positive contribution to the quality of life, tourism managers must understand how communication processes work within the broad field of tourism activity. Tourists use all their senses - sight, sound, touch, smell and taste – when they visit a destination. They perceive the landscapes, voices, music and everyday sounds; the different textures of the beach, the sea, the built environment; the scents and odours, the food and drink of the location.

This is not just important to those managers who happen to be socially and environmentally concerned. An effective operator selling Spanish beach holidays to twenty-somethings knows all about the importance of the smell of the paella and the taste of the beer. A successful dealer in siestas for the over-sixties is well aware that the scent of the gardens is all part of the product.

Nor is it just something that destination managers have to think about. Teachers already want to know what guide books are on hand at educational attractions, and what the quality and communication levels of the displays are. They know how the cultural and scientific influences at work in theme parks they take their school children to relate those aspects in their classroom work.

In turn, this should put good attractions and school visits high on the agenda for local government officers and councillors. Civil servants and members of parliament ought to take a similar interest. Good tourism is about much more than the tea-shop economy: it’s about the whole of life in many cities and areas of the countryside. It helps create the images of these places in a way which affects their manufacturing and service capabilities as well. In its very particular way tourism is the way of confirming to visitors what places are like.

Lowell, Massachusetts, an ex-industrial town which shares characteristics with many north of England former textile communities, applied the mantra: “Where people visit, other people want to live; where people live, other people set up businesses”. Tourism is, properly managed, a part of regeneration processes. Coalbrookdale in eighteenth-century England helped create an industrial revolution by welcoming visitors to see its pioneering production and use of iron. The Great Exhibition showcased to the world how Britain had become an industrial nation. This kind of tourism informs and educates as well as entertains.

This kind of tourism communicates effective messages. Many are implied rather than explicit. The messages are conveyed in a multitude of ways, from promotional work through the environmental management of destinations to the provision of guide books, exhibitions and information panels. The nature of tourist staff in attractions and services in those places creates judgements in the minds of visitors through appearance, attitude and their quality of customer service. The ways in which the media report on places affects outcomes – and so media relations work is an essential to the good manager. All of these channels of communication are capable of being used to persuade their audiences by their managers, but that is also a reminder of the importance of public understanding of how they are being influenced at different levels.

The argument being put forward in these pages is that tourism is a means of discovery which feeds our need to know and understand about our world. It can enrich the quality of life for everyone – or it can destroy it.

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Above, clockwise from top left: The soldier who came home - a display in the Cincinnati Museum Centre depicting the part played by black citizens: A Forest Ranger taking to students in the Denby Forest, North Yorkshire: Piedras Blancas sea elephant sanctuary, California, with interpretive panels: The former Cardiff Bay Visitor Centre about the future of the Bay (rather than its past).