The characteristics of cultural tourists who visit urban jewish heritage centres: the case study of visitors to the White Stork Synagogue in Wrocław

Abstract

<jats:p>Since the White Stork Synagogue in Wrocław has been restored, opened to visitors and become a part of the so-called District of the Four Faiths promoted by the city council, both the synagogue and its neighbourhood have become tourist attractions which support Wrocław’s image as a multicultural city. Therefore, the aim of the article is to identify the characteristics of tourists visiting the synagogue which could help understand the specific features of those attracted by urban Jewish heritage. As a result of research with the use of surveys, interviews and observation, the highly emotive cognitive approach of tourists has been determined as the dominant feature in this niche market. Moreover, its strongly international character and its specific age and education structure have been pinpointed. These features form the basis for the conclusion that the tourists attracted by urban Jewish heritage form a very specific niche market which can be targeted especially by large cities through the development of themed tourist products.</jats:p>

Wrocław Tourist Lines: The changing nature of its offer and the tourist product life cycle

“…This situation may result from the fact that TMW is the only operator offering guide services which could have potentially attracted the tourist who did not have urban tickets. To a great extent, Wrocław is a destination for sentimental tourists from Germany (Baraniecki, 2001;Duda-Seifert, 2016;Parzych, Gotowski, Karczewska, 2020), which, in turn, could have influenced the greater share of discounted tickets. It is also conditioned by the fact that TMW usually serviced the lines with pre-war trams, which have lower capacity.…”

“…Powyższa sytuacja może wynikać z tego, że TMW jako jedyny przewoźnik oferowało obsługę przewodnicką, mogącą poten cjalnie przyciągać turystów, którzy na ogół nie posiadają biletów miejskich. Wrocław w znacznym stopniu jest destynacją w ramach turystyki sentymentalnej Niemców (Baranowski, 2001;Duda-Seifert, 2016;Parzych, Gotowski, Karczewska, 2020), co z kolei mogło wpłynąć na wyższy udział biletów ulgowych. Nakłada się na to także fakt, że TMW zwykle do obsługi linii wysyłało mniej pojemne przedwojenne tramwaje.…”

Comparative analysis of Jewish heritage tourism research methods

“…Za razliku od metode intervjua, anketiranje je kao metoda nešto manje korištena. Anketirani su posjetitelji židovske baštine (Ari i Mittelberg, Mittelberg , 2008;Mitsche and Strielkowski, 2016;Drotár and Kozma, 2021), most frequently when visiting synagogues (Duda-Seifert, 2016;del Río et al, 2020;Duda-Seifert and Kajdanek, 2021). Unless its sole function is its primary function, synagogues are the most practical (material) Jewish heritage sites for conducting surveys, since memories of Jewish suffering in the Second World War and once large Jewish communities are not as associated with them today.…”

“…This is characteristic for the early phase, as the study focuses on whether a Jewish heritage object is visited, what shape it is in, whether it still fulfils its primary function or it has been repurposed, and whether it has any visitors and what their motivations are. The analysed papers study the following: a synagogue (Sandri, 2013;Duda-Seifert, 2016;Krakover, 2017;Corsale and Vuytsyk, 2018;Corsale, 2021), a Jewish quarter (Corsale and Krakover, 2019;Dulska, 2020;Haba et al, 2020;Martinez-Arino, 2020), a Jewish museum or exhibition (Sandri, 2013;Krakover, 2017), a Jewish graveyard (Krakover, 2017;Corsale and Vuytsyk, 2018;Corsale, 2021), monuments (Sandri, 2013), monuments related to the Holocaust (Sandri, 2013;Krakover, 2017), streets and buildings (Sandri, 2013), cafés and restaurants (Sandri, 2013). The use of elements of Jewish heritage in the observation method is graphically shown in Figure 2.…”

“…To je karakteristično za ranu fazu jer se promatra posjećuje li se neki objekt židovske baštine, u kakvu je ona stanju, ima li primarnu funkciju ili je prenamijenjena te ako ima posjetitelja, kako se oni ponašaju i koja im je motivacija. U analiziranim radovima promatra se: sinagoga (Sandri, 2013;Duda-Seifert, 2016;Krakover, 2017;Corsale i Vuytsyk, 2018;Corsale, 2021), židovska četvrt (Corsale i Krakover, 2019;Dulska, 2020;Haba i dr., 2020;Martinez-Arino, 2020), židovski muzej ili postav (Sandri, 2013;Krakover, 2017), židovsko groblje (Krakover, 2017;Corsale i Vuytsyk, 2018;Corsale, 2021), spomenici (Sandri, 2013), spomenici povezani s Holokaustom (Sandri, 2013;Krakover, 2017), ulice i zgrade (Sandri, 2013), kafići i restorani (Sandri, 2013). Korištenje elemenata židovske baštine u metodi opažanja grafički je prikazano na slici 2.…”