7.1 Introduction
Meagan A. McGuire
What Is A Visitor Attraction?
The definition of a visitor or tourist attraction may seem straightforward, and most people may feel they can intrinsically identify one without a definition. Yet, there has been much debate academically on what constitutes a tourist or visitor attraction. Is a shopping center considered the attraction, or are individual stores considered attractions? Individual stores may not be the draw for the visitor, but collectively they become a place of attraction. If that shopping center was built to meet the needs of local residents, does not market to tourists, and is simply a functional place to purchase goods, can it fall into the category of a tourist or visitor attraction even if tourists do visit? If a place is not managed by an organization or company, like a scenic view for example, can that be considered an attraction? It would be attractive to visit, but how would it fit into the conversation around the tourist economy? Is the identification of attractions dependent on how the attraction is managed, on whether the attraction draws visitors to a destination, or on some other attribute?
This textbook uses the term in its broadest sense to denote any site that attracts and is visited by tourists. Therefore, the term visitor attraction designates a broad array of places, including historic sites, buildings with remarkable architecture, hiking trails, botanical gardens, theme parks, wildlife zoos, museums, art galleries, shopping centers, unique parks, picturesque lakes, and waterfalls among others.
Because this chapter uses the term attraction in the broadest sense of the word, it also intentionally uses the term “visitor attraction” instead of “tourist attraction.” It does so because the term “visitor” denotes both tourists and residents who are not tourists. Many local residents enjoy visiting the same places that tourists enjoy visiting. Residents who visit attractions but do not stay overnight in accommodations in the destination are often labeled “day-trippers”, “same-day visitors”, or “excursionists” (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2010).
A visitor attraction can be a festival like Burning Man—a large-scale arts event held annually in the desert in northwestern Nevada. It can be human-made, such as Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, which boasts massive carved depictions of U.S. presidents on its cliff face. An attraction can also be natural, such as the Arches National Park in Utah, which features over 2,000 natural stone arches. Nature in its pristine form, such as remote parts of the Amazon or northern Canadian tundras, can also be visitor attractions. City centers, such as Paris or London, or active cultural centers, such as the pueblo villages of the Hopi that sit atop three towering mesas in Arizona, can be visitor attractions. Sites where popular movies were filmed can be visitor attractions, such as Skellig Michael, the island off the coast of