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Annals ofikrrrm fixarch. Vol 14., pp 553-575, 1987 0160.7383157 $3 00 + 00 Prin

Annals ofikrrrm fixarch. Vol 14., pp 553-575, 1987 0160.7383157 $3 00 + 00 Printed m the USA All nghts reserved CopyrIght @ 1987 Perxamon Journals Inc and J. Jalan A FRAMEWORK OF TOURIST ATTRACTION RESEARCH Alan A. Lew Northern Arizona University, USA Abstract: Although tourist attractions are fundamental to the very exist- ence of tourism, there have been few attempts to come to terms with the breadth of approaches that have been employed in their study. An exami- nation of research methods used in the study of tourist attractions and the tourist attractiveness of places reveals that most studies can be classified into one or more of three general perspectives: the ideographic listing, the organization, and the tourist cognition of attractions. Each of these per- spectives shares a distinct set of questions concerning the nature of the attractions, as expressed through the typologies used in their evaluation. At the same time, all three perspectives make comparisons based on the historical, locational, and various valuational aspects of attractions. This framework can be applied in the comparison and evaluation of tourist attraction related research. Keywords: tourist attraction, research meth- ods, research evaluation. R&umC: Un cadre pour la recherche sur les attractions touristiques. Bien que les attractions touristiques soient fondamentales g l’existence mCme du tourisme, on n’a pas souvent consid&& les differentes facons d’iborder ce sujet. Une investigation des mCthodes de recherche que I’on peut em- ployer pour etudier les attractions touristiques aussi bien que le degrt d’inttrCt touristique d’un endroit don& rCvtle que la plupart des Ctudes peuvent &tre classtes dans au moins une des trois catkgories suivantes: le listage ideographique, l’organisation et la connaissance touristique des attractions. Chacune de ces catCgories comprend une sCrie distincte de questions au sujet de la nature des attractions, tel que cette nature s’expri- me 2 travers les typologies qui sont employCes dans I’tvaluation des attrac- tions. Tout en &ant distinctes l’une de l’autre, chaque cattgorie se base sur des comparaisons semblables de l’histoire, de l’emplacement et d’autres aspects tvaluables des attractions. On peut utiliser ce cadre pour com- parer et Cvaluer les travaux de recherche relatifs aux attractions touristi- ques. Mots clef: attraction touristique, methodes de recherche, tvalua- tion de recherches. Alan Lew is Assistant Professor of geography and public planning (Department of Geograph!! Box 15016, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff AZ 86011, USA). He received his doctorate from the University of Oregon. His research interests include tourism and urban development, with particular emphasis on the western US and Asia. 553 34 TOC’RIST ATTRACTION RESEARCH THE TOURIST ATTRACTION Without tourist attractions there would be no tourism (Gunn 1972:24). Without tourism there would be no tourist attractions. Al- though a tautology, such an argument still points to the fundamental importance of tourist attractions and the attractiveness of places to tourism. Efforts at specificity often reduce the simple concept of “tour- ist attraction” to exploitable “resources” (Ferrario 1976:4), marketable “products” (Wahab et al 1976:38) and “images” (WTO 1980a, 1980b). or simply place “attributes” (Witter 1985: 16) or “features” (Polacek and Aroch 1984: 17). Most researchers, however, agree that attractions are the basic elements on which tourism is developed (Gunn 1979:48-73, 1980a; Lundberg 1980:33-40; Pearce 1981:30-Z). In essence, tourist attractions consist of all those elements of a “non- home” place that draw discretionary travelers away from their homes. They usually include landscapes to observe, activities to participate in, and experiences to remember. Yet it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between attractions and non-attractions. Transportation (e.g., cruise liners), accommodations (e.g., resorts), and other services (e.g., restaurants) can themselves take on the attributes of an attrac- tion, further comp1icatin.g the distinction between various segments of the tourism industry. At times, tourists themselves can even become attractions (MacCannell 1976:130-l). MacCannell (1976:109) proposes that a phenomenon must have three components to be considered an attraction: a tourist, a site to be viewed, and a marker or image which makes the site significant. These criteria could enable virtually anything to become a tourist attraction. Thus, “attraction” in its widest context would include not only the historic sites, amusement parks, and spectacular scenery, which are normally associated with the word, but also the services and facilities which cater to the everyday needs of tourists. Also included would be the social institutions which form the basis for the very existence of human habitation. Non-entertainment oriented attractions have been variously referred to as “comfort attractions” (Lew 1986a: 2 15), “condi- tional elements” (Hansen-Verbeke 1986:86), or have been categorized into “services and accommodations” (McIntosh and Goeldner 1984: 11) or the nebulous “other” (Gunn 1979:58; Polacek and Aroch 1984: 17). Although the importance of tourist attractions is readily recognized, tourism researchers and theorists have yet to fully come to terms with the nature of attractions as phenomena both in the environment and in the mind (Gunn 1980a). An examination of some of the research related to tourist attractions reveals a consistent pattern of research questions and designs. The following discussion summarizes the range of approaches employed in the categorization of attractions, as revealed in recent tour- ism literature. The typologies, in part, reflect the nature of the various disciplines involved. However, in the least the review provides an initial step toward focusing on and understanding tourist attractions. A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK Research on tourist attractions have been undertaken from one or more of three broad perspectives: the ideographic definition and de- ALANLEW 555 scription of attraction types, the organization and development of at- tractions, and the cognitive perception and experience of tourist attrac- tions by different groups. Each perspective addresses a shared concern for a particular feature of tourist attractions. The essence of a compre- hensive framework for tourist attraction typologies and research is based on these three perspectives. It is appropriate to consider each as one aspect of a single body of knowledge. By comparing the different typologies employed by researchers, it is also possible to identify general continua against which attraction char- acteristics have been measured. In the examples below the identifica- tion of attractions as being natural or social, reflecting separation or connectivity, or offering security or risk are the principal continua basic to the three perspectives. Further refinements of such measures are, of course, necessary for use in research. For example, the nature-social continuum includes a range of attraction types from wilderness to parks and zoos to cities. Together, the three research perspectives and their accompanying continua of attraction categories comprise a comprehen- sive framework for understanding the diversity of typologies used in research on tourist attractions. The examples provided for each of these perspectives will clarify their differences. The Idiographic Perspective Attraction typologies which focus on the ideographic perspective describe the concrete uniqueness of a site, rather than an abstract universal characteristic. At the most concrete level are those typologies in which specific attractions are individually identified by name (Nef- fler 1975:38; Pitts and Woodside 1986:21; Woodside et al 1986:ll). The listing of specific attractions by name is most often used in studies of small areas, such as cities, although exceptions exist (Machlis et al 1984:81). A list of places or countries as attractions is a variation of this approach (Goeldner et al 1975:95; Perdue and Gutske 1985:171; White 1985:534). Inasmuch as these can be further placed into general types, named attractions are not further distinguished as a separate type of ideographic approach to this review. By far, the most common attraction typologies are general ideo- graphic descriptions of similar attraction types (Archer 197 7 : 104; Christaller 1955; Goodrich 1978:4; Graburn 1977:27; Gunn, 1980:265; Lew 1986a:16; Matley 1976:5; Peters 1969:148-g; Smith 1977:2-3; Wahab et al 1976:38-g). The use of Standard Industrial Codes (SIC) is an example of this approach (Frechtling 1976:69-71), although variations are significant. Attraction typologies for use in determining monetary flows normally use an ideographic approach, classifying attractions into different “expenditure types” (Archer 1977: 104; Kreck 1985:28). Tourist guide books usually classify attrac- tions under a combination of both specific and general categories (e.g., Liounis 1985). Not all typologies are intended to cover the entire spectrum of attrac- tions. Stores (Keown et al 1984:27), restaurants (Smith 1985:588), accommodations (Price 1980:26), inner-city areas (Hansen-Verbeke 1986:86), spectator sports (Ritchie and Aitken 1985:30), participant 556 TOURIST ATTRACTION RESE.iRCH sports (Fesenmaier 1985:19), outdoor recreation (Bryant and Morrison 1980:4), and cruiseship activities (Field et al 1985:4) are examples of subcategories of ideographic attraction types. When combined with data on location, preference, perception, or participation, ideographic attraction typologies have been further gen- eralized through the use of multidimensional analysis, such as factor analysis (Bryant and Morrison 1980:4; Eitzel and Swensen 1981:30; Goodrich 1977b:8; Pizam et al 1978:319; Witter 1985:18) and multidi- mensional scaling (Goodrich 1977a:12; 1978:4-6; Haahti 1986:21-i; Pearce 1982:107-11; Perry 1975:119-24). Among the more detailed and comprehensive examples of ideo- graphic attraction listings are those developed by Ferrario (1976:ll l- 14), Gearing et al (1976:93), Ritchie and Zinns (1978:256-7), the World Tourism Organization ( 1980a: 6- 17), and Shih ( 1986: 8). Using Ritchie and Zinns as an example, at the most general level this classifi- uploads/Finance/ a-framework-of-tourist-attraction-research.pdf