Tourism Routes and Trails: Theory and Practice

TOURISM ROUTES AND TRAILS

Theory and Practice

TOURISM ROUTES AND TRAILS

Theory and Practice

David Ward-Perkins

Christina Beckmann

and

Jackie Ellis

CABI is a trading name of CAB International

© David Ward-Perkins, C. Beckmann and Jackie Ellis 2020. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronically, mechanically, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library, London, UK.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ward-Perkins, David, author. | Beckmann, Christina, author. | Ellis, Jackie, author.

Title: Tourism routes and trails : theory and practice /David Ward-Perkins, Christina Beckmann, Jackie Ellis.

Description: Boston : CABI, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: Tourism Routes and Trails plunges into the world of ‘extended’ tourism, offering an exploration of the ‘routes’ phenomenon whereby tourism is no longer for a given destination, but extends over multiple sites, a territory or landscape. Covering how such routes are created, often as ways of clustering experiences, it also reviews their effects on tourism businesses, local populations and other stakeholders. Emphasising the critical role of local communities, volunteers and small businesses, as well as those who provide strategic direction and funding, the book: - Is based in tourism theory, but focuses on the models and practice of route formation; - Includes a rich selection of contemporary examples and cases, showing the reader best practice as well as illustrating challenges and risks; - Covers both strategic issues of concern to nations, regions and local authorities, and the complex dynamics occurring on the ground, such as the role of grass-roots organisations and local communities. Routes allow destinations to diversify their offer and spread the economic and social benefits of tourism. With tourist behaviour increasingly shifting to thematic experiences, this book shows how to create these in a way that is both meaningful for visitors and beneficial for the destination. Suitable for tourism policy makers, economic development agencies and local stakeholders, it is also a vital resource for the next generation; students of tourism, sociology, local politics and economic development-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019026067 | ISBN 9781786394767 (hardback) | ISBN 9781786394774 (paperback) | ISBN 9781786394781 (ebook) | ISBN 9781786394798 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Tourism--Management. | Tourism--Planning. | Culture and tourism.

Classification: LCC G155.A1 W358 2019 | DDC 910.68--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026067

ISBN-13: 9781786394767     (hardback)

9781786394774     (paperback)

9781786394781     (ePDF)

9781786394798     (ePub)

Commissioning Editor: Claire Parffit

Editorial Assistant: Lauren Davies

Production Editor: Kate Hill

Typeset by Exeter Premedia Services Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed and bound in the UK by Severn, Gloucester

Contents

Chapter 1 Tourism Routes and their Identity

Case Study 1.1: Developing Themed Routes in Latin America: the Camino Real

Chapter 2 Routes, Culture and Human Experience

Case Study 2.1: Blue Ridge Music Trails

Chapter 3 The Three Stages of Tourism

Case Study 3.1: Arctic Coast Way

Chapter 4 Trends

Case Study 4.1: The Brazilian Long-distance Trails Network

Chapter 5 The Meaning of Routes

Case Study 5.1: Lake Abbé and the Djibouti-Ethiopia LALA Transboundary Hiking Trail

Chapter 6 The Family of Tourism Routes

Case Study 6.1: Modern Pilgrimage Trails in Europe

Chapter 7 Strategies of Nations, Regions and Local Bodies

Case Study 7.1: ‘La Route des Vins’: an Engine for Tourism in Alsace

Case Study 7.2: The Jordan Trail

Chapter 8 Routes and the Tourism Industry

Case Study 8.1: Qhapaq Ñan

Chapter 9 A Roadmap for Route Development

Case Study 9.1: The Olive Oil Greenway

Chapter 10 The Impacts and Benefits of Routes and Trails

Bibliography

Index

Contributors

David Ward Perkins, principal author and managing editor

David Ward-Perkins, coordinator of the project and principal author of nine of the chapters, has 15 years’ experience as a senior consultant working in cultural and nature-based tourism, and is a Senior Associate of TEAM Tourism Consulting.

An important focus of his work has, for some years, been the design and management of themed routes as instruments for tourism development. He is notably the principal author of the Handbook on the Marketing of Transnational Themes and Routes published in 2018 by the European Travel Commission (ETC) and the UN World Tourism Organization, and has acted as advisor to the managers of numerous long-distance trails.

David has managed consultancy projects throughout Europe and the Mediterranean basin, and also in the Gulf Region, East Africa and Russia; many of them involving the development of tourism routes. In addition, David has delivered strategic plans for mountain, coastal and rural areas, and for major heritage sites. Important components of all these projects have been the consideration of environmental balance and the evaluation of the short- and long-term economic impacts of tourism development.

Since 2009, he has taught at the Centre for Tourism Management of SKEMA Business School (Sophia Antipolis, France). He is a regular speaker at industry events, including for VisitFinland, VisitBritain, TTRA Europe, the Best’En Think Tank, the European Institute of Cultural Routes (Baku, 2014), the UNWTO (Valencia and Santiago, 2018) and the Belmont Forum (Helsinki, 2019).

Christina Beckmann, author and contributor

Christina has contributed large portions of the book, including cases on Qhapaq Ñan and the Jordan Trail, as well as sections and chapters relating to adventure tourism and walking trail development. In addition, she involved and briefed many of the secondary contributors in these fields.

In her position as Senior Director of Strategy and Impact at the Adventure Travel Trade Association, Christina provides guidance research to support the use of tourism as a tool for environmental conservation and economic development. She has 20 years’ consulting and research experience working at the intersection of tourism, environment, economic development and entrepreneurship.

Prior to joining the ATTA, Christina consulted with government tourism ministries to develop adventure tourism market growth plans. A frequent collaborator and speaker, Christina’s writing can be found in numerous industry trade and general publications, including the National Geographic and publications by Sagamore: Adventure Programming and Travel for the 21st Century. More of her background and writing can be found at www.christinabeckmann.com.

Jackie Ellis, author and editor

Jackie Ellis has been involved in the book from its earliest planning phases, providing much of the background research and several essential cases, including the Arctic Coast Trail, the Blue Ridge Music Trail and the Olive Oil Route.

Her background covers both private and public sector experience, including 17 years in UK destination management. She became a consultant in 2006 and has used her industry knowledge to assist NGOs, destinations and attractions across the UK, Europe, South America and the Middle East. Her recent work includes project management for the development of a new long-distance touring route in the UK – The Explorer’s Road – which launched commercially in 2019 and which has brought mainly rural locations, SMEs and the travel trade together for the first time.

In the course of her career, Jackie has designed themed tourism routes for driving and walking in National Parks and rural destinations, and worked with tour operators to bring them to market. An early project involved the creation of the St Cuthbert’s Way long-distance footpath, between Melrose in the Scottish Borders and Lindisfarne in Northumberland. Jackie has written numerous reports and case studies, including for VisitEngland and VisitBritain, and edited the Handbook on Transnational Tourism Themes and Routes for the ETC and UNWTO.

Issa Torres – Developing Themed Routes through Latin America: Camino Real

Issa Torres is a sustainable tourism consultant, project manager and researcher with more than 12 years’ experience in projects in over 15 countries. She lived in Panama for almost four years, working as Ecotourism Specialist for an IDB-funded project in Panama’s protected areas. In that position, she explored the Camino Real in depth, crossing the Panama’s isthmus over a three-day trek where she was in close contact with local communities. Issa has done significant research on cultural routes and was an important contributor to the ETC-UNWTO Handbook on Marketing Transnational Tourism Themes and Routes.

Pedro Menezes – Brazilian Long-distance Trails Network

Pedro da Cunha e Menezes is a member of IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. During his career he has held several positions in the Brazilian National Parks Service (ICMBio), such as Manager of Tijuca National Park, National Coordinator for Public Visitation in Protected Areas and National Director for Parks Management, as well as Brazil’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Environmental Programme in Nairobi. Pedro is a passionate outdoor sportsman with a preference for hiking, mountain biking, camping and diving.

Dominique Verdugo – Lake Abbé (with Kevan Zunckel)

Dominique Verdugo is an independent sustainable tourism consultant, working mainly in north and sub-Saharan Africa. She was involved in Protected Area management for many years in Morocco, where she founded the magazine Découverte et Montagne du Maroc (Discovery and Mountains of Morocco). She has undertaken field work in many other countries, notably drafting the proposal for the Congo Nile Trail ST-EP project, along Lake Kivu in the Western Province of Rwanda. She holds an MPhil degree from the University of Edinburgh (UK), and is a member of the IUCN WCPA Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group (TAPAS) and of the Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group.

Kevan Zunckel

Kevan Zunckel is a member of a number of IUCN Commissions and Specialist Groups, and chairs the Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group. He is senior author of the IUCN WCPA Protected Area Guideline No. 23, Transboundary Conservation: a Systematic and Integrated Approach (Vasilijević et al., 2015). He has planned and implemented hiking trails in southern Africa; he was the Managing Editor of The Maloti Drakensberg Experience, which highlighted the bioregion shared by South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho, including its hiking trails; and contributed to Africa’s Finest, which assessed and profiled 50 of the top safari destinations in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of sustainability. Kevan holds an MSc Environmental Science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr Martín Gómez-Ullate – Modern Pilgrimage Trails in Europe

Martin is a senior researcher at the University of Extremadura, Spain. He was coordinator of Cultour+, an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership researching cultural pilgrimage and religious routes as a means of enhancing and empowering local entrepreneurs. In the framework of Cultour+ project, he has undertaken ethnographic research on pilgrimage routes to Santiago, the Via de la Plata and the Camino Interior de Santiago. He is author and co-author of a number of publications in these fields, including Pilgrimage Tourism and Cultural Route Team Ethnographies in the Iberian Peninsula: a Collaborative Study (Routledge, 2018); Rethinking Safety Issues within the Context of Pilgrimage Routes (CABI, 2018); Cultour+: Building Professional Skills on Religious and Thermal Tourism (Springer, 2017).

Lucile Braun, Jessica Mou, Emeline Surget and Giulio Vianello

This book could not have been completed without the input of four young and talented researchers and writers – once MSc students of David Ward-Perkins, now launched into their own careers. Where possible, in cases they specifically drafted, we have been able to acknowledge their contribution, in particular Modern Pilgrimage Trails in Europe and La Route des Vins: an Engine for Tourism in Alsace; but many other chapters and cases were made possible by the research and ideas they contributed. Special thanks are also due to Jessica, junior consultant and David’s research assistant, for her detailed fact-checking in the last critical weeks before production.

Preface: the Nature and Ambitions of this Book

Routes and trails lie at the heart of tourism. They represent tourism on the move, and tourism is all about movement. They are one of the most common ways for tourist authorities to present and structure tourism assets and experiences. They make sense to travellers, and they are used by tour operators as ways of defining the circuits and itineraries they sell.

This book primarily addresses readers interested in tourism, whether as professionals or as economists, sociologists or students of any other discipline. It presents an overview of tourism routes and trails and attempts to make sense of this complex universe: why they exist, how they were created and what role they play in the development and management of tourism.

While preparing the material for this book, we came to realise how powerful routes or trails can be. We saw how the perception of a territory that is crossed by a strongly branded driving or cycling route can be radically changed by it, as can that of a landscape traversed by a walking trail. We saw examples of routes and trails that have transformed whole regions and whole communities. We came across walking, cycling and driving routes of myriad shapes and styles; some that are niche products, some that carry tens if not hundreds of thousands of users. We were struck by the fascination that certain itineraries exert on the public imagination – for example the Silk Road, the Camino de Santiago, Route 66 and the Appalachian Trail.

As we did our research, we found many studies of implementation, in particular for walking trails, and publications on cultural routes, but little work on why and how routes and trails operate as vectors for tourism. We realised there was a need for a book that got to the root of these issues in terms that are meaningful to those concerned by tourism; not just academics and students, but also professionals working on the front lines – those tasked to design the routes – to package them as tourism products and to follow and enhance how they are used on the ground.

The book is presented in three parts: Chapters 1 to 5 discuss and analyse the nature of routes and trails. These chapters ask what tourism routes, trails and itineraries represent in society and human experience. They consider the link between tourism routes and culture. They go back in history, to understand their origins. They then look at current trends in tourism and the ways that tourism routes express those trends.

Chapters 6 and 7 explore the world of tourism routes and trails. We provide an overview of the vast variety of itineraries and routes, from driving routes to cycling tours to high adventure walking trails in the remotest areas of the planet. We identify the principles and factors that underlie successful route projects, and the effects they have on the environments and communities they cross. The chapters consider these issues firstly from the point of view of the public sector – the national and regional agencies that develop tourism strategies – then from that of the travel trade, the professional developers of itineraries.

Chapters 8 and 9 cover the design, creation, development and management of routes and trails: how a trail or itinerary is defined and structured; how project partners are brought together; how routes and itineraries are branded and promoted; how they are governed, managed and funded. On the basis of example and analysis, we propose a set of guidelines for route development and management and, last but not least, propose ways to evaluate and measure the work, so that cases can be compared, and reports made on the success of the development.

Throughout the book, key points are supported by example. Nearly 150 routes and trails are mentioned, many with just a line or two of commentary, others covering a page or more of description and analysis. At the end of each chapter, we have inserted longer case studies, most of them written by professionals who have been intimately involved in the development of the route or trail.

This book is not comprehensive. Ultimately, its purpose is not so much to draw conclusions, but to open up a rich field of study and professional opportunity. Despite the many examples and cases, we feel we are at the beginning of this journey. Reading this introduction, we hope that others will join us in taking it forward.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to the many professionals who gave up their time to support this book and contribute to it. In particular, for the Blue Ridge Music trails case, to Angie Chandler, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, and to Laura Boosinger, Executive Director of the Madison County Arts Council. For the Arctic Coast Way case, to Project Manager Christiane Stadler.

For input and advice on the creation of hiking products, to Patrick Scaglia of Allibert trekking. To Dr Paige Viren, for sharing her research results on adventure travel. To Shai Yagel, a ‘trail adventurer’, who has designed and developed over 1000 km of trail around the world, who provided material for several key examples.

To Ryan Branciforte, co-founder of Trailhead Labs, builder of innovative trail-enabling technologies for public agencies and nonprofits, who contributed valuable material on the use of technology in trail management. To Jeremy Wimpey, for his ideas on trail management frameworks. And to many others, too numerous to mention.

1Tourism Routes and their Identity

This first chapter introduces the fundamental nature of tourism routes.

1.1. The Taking and Following of Routes and Trails. A route is an itinerary that is known and determined. It can be planned and followed. It generally has a practical purpose, to guide people to a destination; but a route has other values.

1.2. Tourism on the Move. Routes are about travel and movement. They are ways of describing and defining the movement of travellers, for the convenience of the traveller and the benefit of local stakeholders.

1.3. Routes and Trails Providing Structure. Routes are ways of structuring tourism, of bringing together sites and tourism assets under a single brand and presenting them as a single experience.

1.4. Routes, Trails and Adventure. Routes enable connections between travellers and host communities, the environment and with themselves.

1.5. Routes and Identity. In all cases, routes have an identity and personality, more or less powerful, just as tourism destinations do.

1.1 The Taking and Following of Routes and Trails

This chapter asks some basic questions and starts with a first principle: that a route is a means of getting to a defined destination.

‘Route’ is a highly generic term. The ‘route to work’ may represent a walk to the end of the road we live on, followed by a bus ride along streets travelled every day. At the other end of the spectrum, in earlier centuries, the great explorers and traders of China and Europe opened up sea routes from one continent to another. What do these two examples have in common?

Routes are ‘discovered’ and trails are ‘followed’. It is as if they existed before there was anyone to travel them. The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama ‘discovered’ the route to the Indies via the Cape of Good Hope. It implies that the journey is not some random wandering, but something that has been determined. A route is ‘looked up’ or ‘checked out’ on a map or on the Internet. A trail is ‘mapped’ or ‘planned’.

In many cases, routes and trails are attributed a value. Once, travellers might have wished to see holy sites along the way, or great cities, or markets where they could trade. In modern times, we might take the ‘scenic route’ or plot a route that allows us to stop off and see tourism sites, to eat in good restaurants, to visit friends. Our motivations, priorities and interests therefore accord some routes and trails greater value than others.

If we take as an example the route from Paris to The Hague, this same route is travelled by:

•People on business, motivated by work with the priority to get from A to B as quickly as possible.

•Families motivated to visit friends with the priority to break up the journey with functional stops.

•Leisure travellers motivated to drive between two cities with the priority to spend time in places of interest along the way.

The three journeys of this example provide different levels of route use and personal reward.

That there is a value in the journey itself isn’t a new idea. The Canterbury Tales by William Chaucer, written in Middle English in the 14th century, tells the story of a group of pilgrims riding from London to Canterbury, entertaining each other with stories as they rode. More than six centuries later, it will strike a chord with anyone who has taken a holiday with friends, or who has struck up friendships while on a cruise or tour.¹

1.2 Tourism on the Move

Despite occasional inconvenience and discomfort, travelling is largely seen as a positive experience. We complain about crowded airports, delayed trains and cramped seats on planes, but – with the exception of jaded business travellers – leisure travel remains a pleasure and an adventure, even a relaxation. It may be a distant memory of a time