Landscape, Heritage, Tourism. A Critical perspective

ZUSMAN, P.

Processes of Heritage Making in Geographical Space

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

Lugar: Santiago de Compostela ; Año: 2010; p. 75 - 94

At present, landscape is a major tourist attraction, one of the elements people expect to see, experience, and photograph while they travel (Terkeleni, 2005). The declaration of some landscapes as heritage and the consideration of tourism as a practice favoring economic growth without negatively affecting landscape preservation have enlarged tourist infrastructure and increased the number of visitors at destinations which develop around and are based on landscapes (Almirón, Bertoncello, Troncoso, 2006, Esposito, Cavelzani, 2006). Most studies on tourism focusing on both heritage and non-heritage landscape have taken landscape as a piece of evidence; therefore their interest lies on its identification, appreciation as a resource, and the definition of operating strategies for suitable landscape management (Zuluaga Cadavid, 2006, Sabaté Bel 2005). On the contrary, from our perspective, landscape is not a piece of data. It is a construction resulting from social practices which may encompass from a trip, going through the production of scientific or literary discourse, to the development of a pictorial or photographic gender. All these discourses do contribute to the creation of representations and values which, thanks to different strategies and devices, appeal to reason and emotion to entail a resignification of landscape for tourist practice purposes. The chapter will be divided into four parts: the first one will analyze the close link which exists between traveling and the cultivation of landscape as a way to conceptualize reality and as an aesthetic approach to visited places. The second part of this chapter will identify the different visualization strategies developed by tourism in order to render these places attractive. The third section will delve into the resignification of aesthetic values associated to pictorial landscapes (the beautiful, the sublime, the picturesque) based on the idea that these are feelings expected to be experienced while performing some activities. Finally, the fourth section of this chapter will focus on the construction of cultural landscapes as mediators between heritage and tourism and as a strategy guaranteeing tourism marketing.