The concept of a tourist area cycle of evolution: implications for management of resources.

The concept of a recognizable cycle in the evolution of tourist areas is presented, using a basic s curve to illustrate their waving and waning popularity. Specific stages in the evolutionary sequence are described, along with a range of possible future trends. The implications of using this model in the planning and management oftourist resources are discussed in the light of a continuing decline in the environmental quality and, hence, the attractiveness of many tourist areas. Le concept principal de cette communication est que les endroits touristiques ont leur propre cycle d’evolution. Le concept se traduit en modele theorique, qui utilise une courbe s pour demontrer I’accroissement et la diminution subsequente de la popularite d’endroits touristiques. La communication se concentre sur certains stages, les plus importants, de I’evolution, et vise a etablir une gamme de directions eventuelle qui pourront itre suivies par ces endroits. On examine les implications de I’utilisation de se modele dans I’amenagement de resources touristiques, surtout dans I’optique des problemes causes par la diminution de la qualite de I’environnement et, par suite, de I’attraction de beaucoup d’endroits touristiques. There can be little doubt that tourist areas are dynamic, that they evolve and change over time. This evolution is brought about by a variety of factors including changes in the preferences and needs of visitors, the gradual deterioration and possible replacement of physical plant and facilities, and the change (or even disappearance) of the original natural and cultural attractions which were responsible for the initial popularity of the area. In some cases, while these attractions remain, they may be utilized for different purposes or come to be regarded as less significant in comparison with imported attractions. ’ The idea of a consistent process through which tourist areas evolve has been vividly described by Christaller: The typical course of development has the following pattern. Painters search out untouched and unusual places to paint. Step by step the place develops as aso-calledartist colony. Soon a cluster of poets follows, kindred to the painters: then cinema people, gourmets, and the jeunesse dorde. The place becomes fashionable and the entrepreneur takes note. The fisherman’s cottage, the shelter-huts become converted into boarding houses and hotels come on the scene. Meanwhile the painters have fled and sought out another periphery periphery as related to space, and metaphorically, as ‘forgotten’ places and landscapes. Only the painters with a commercial inclination who like to do well in business remain; they capitalize on the good name of this former painter’s corner and on the gullibility of tourists. More and more townsmen choose this place, now en vogue and advertised in the newspapers. Subsequently the gourmets, and all those who seek real recreation, stay away. At last the tourist agencies come with their package rate travelling parties; now, the indulged public avoids such places. At the same time, in other places the same cycle occurs again; more and more places come into fashion, change their type, turn into everybody’s tourist haunt.2 While this description has most relevance to the European and, particularly, to the Mediterranean setting, others have expressed the same general idea. Stansfield, 5