Thinking against "Empty Shells" in Tourism Development Projects

Abstract

Tourism is a sophisticated creation of capitalist practices and a development vehicle both in less developed and in industrialised countries. This article, written in the style of an academic essay, contributes to the field by identifying two main tourism development strategies used to cope with globalisation and modernisation, and it presents an analytical model through which to frame them. Most tourism projects rely on an increasing number of tourists and think towards the outside; to satisfy tourists, local offerings must adapt constantly to their shifting needs and desires. This tourism development strategy breaches continuities in the cultural production of meanings within local communities. However, there are some examples of touristic developments which think against this strategy and look towards the inside, as described in this article.

The instrumental time of memory: local politics and urban aesthetics in a tourism context

“…A type of tourism management that reveals an approach to memory not as a receptacle of collective identity rooted in the past, but rather as an instrument at the service of the idea Development, its present order of “words and things” and its projection onto the future. In some recent work, we have maintained that this process produces a new chronotope that smashes the collective conscience because it fractures the expressive-symbolic continuity that links the past, present and future (Nogués-Pedregal, 2012b; Nogués-Pedregal et al , 2017). This dissolution of the expressive-symbolic dimension on instrumental rationality results in what Max Weber quite rightly called “disenchantment of the world” (Die Entzauberung der Welt ).…”

The instrumental time of memory: local politics and urban aesthetics in a tourism context

“…Development, its present order of "words and things" and its projection onto the future. In some recent work, we have maintained that this process produces a new chronotope that smashes the collective conscience because it fractures the expressive-symbolic continuity that links the past, present and future (Nogués-Pedregal, 2012b;Nogués-Pedregal et al, 2017). This dissolution of the expressive-symbolic dimension on instrumental rationality results in what Max Weber quite rightly called "disenchantment of the world" (Die Entzauberung der Welt).…”

Riesgos, vulnerabilidad y paradojas del turismo

“…Estos excesos derivados de una notable falta de previsión y planificación de los flujos por parte de la industria y las instituciones públicas del ramo (in)competente han dado como resultado la eclosión de un proceso de turistificación, en principio urbano (Venecia, Barcelona, Madrid, Ámsterdam, Brujas, Lisboa, etc…) pero extensible a múltiples destinos de todo tipo (Benidorm, Ibiza, Dubrovnik, Santorini, Florencia, Mykonos, Malta, Islandia, Stonehenge, El Vaticano, etc.). Esta afluencia desmesurada de turistas ha provocado efectos muy negativos para los pobladores habituales de esos destinos, entre otros el desarrollo de la gentrificación con el consiguiente aumento del precio de la vivienda y la consecuente redistribución, obligada, de gran parte de la población residente en barrios periféricos más asequibles (Nogués-Pedregal, Travé-Molero & Carmona-Zubiri, 2017). Sin duda, con la perturbación de la cotidianeidad y el desplazamiento obligado del anfitrión dentro de su propio entorno, debido a la presencia excesiva y la acción desordenada y constante, del turista visitante se evidencia una nueva paradoja connatural al modelo de turismo actual.…”