Factors affecting growth of tourism hotspots

Study Guide

Human and physical factors explaining the growth of rural and urban tourism hotspots including the role of primary and secondary touristic resources.

Primary and Secondary Tourism Resources

Primary tourism resources are the key attractions of an area. These attractions or resources will not usually have been created or built for tourists but usually be the main reasons for people to visit. We can divide them into categories including:

Climate eg sunshine for beach style holidays
Natural environment eg surf in Bali, mountains in Switzerland, beaches in California
Built environment eg Eiffel Tower in Paris, Petronas Towers in KL
Historic sites eg Pyramids in Cairo, Borobodur near Yogjakarta, St Paul's Cathedral in London
Religious Centres eg Dome on the Rock in Jerusalem, Mecca, Knock in Ireland
Indigenous Culture eg Toraja funeral ceremonies in Sulawesi, Hill tribes in northern Thailand
Natural ecology eg Coral reefs in Raja Ampat, Rainforests in Brazil, Orangutans in Borneo/Sumatra

Choose one image from the gallery below. Copy it into your own document and annotate it to explain what you think are the key primary tourism resources. Remember that there will be more than one!

Secondary tourism resources are those things which were built or developed specifically to meet the needs of tourists. These will include:

Hotels/guesthouses/homestays
Shopping facilities
Restaurants and Cafes
Transport
Tourist information and guiding services
Adventure activities
Theme parks
Entertainment

Study one of the photographs below and identify the key primary and secondary tourist attractions that you can see. Which will be the most important in attracting tourists to the area? Justify your answer.

Tourism hotspots

What is a tourist hotspot?

A tourist hotspot is a destination which attracts an especially large number of visitors. A hotpot is likely to be fairly localised, eg a particular building (eg Taj Mahal) or historic site (eg The Great Pyramids of Giza), a beach (eg Maya Bay) or mountain path (eg The Inca Trail), an area of a city (The Las Vegas Strip) or a theme park (eg Disney World).

Where are the world's tourist hotspots?

Study the table below which shows the top 15 tourist hotspots in the world. Consider the following:

What proportion of the hotspots are in the USA? What factors will have contributed to this pattern?
What proportion of the attractions are based on human rather than physical attractions?
What proportion are based on primary and secondary attractions?

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-most-popular-tourist-attractions.html

What are the physical and human factors affecting the growth of tourist hotspots?

Many factors will determine the development of tourist hotspots. These will be physical and human and include:
Physical:

Climate - appropriate for specific type of tourism (eg sunny for beaches, snowy for ski resorts etc)
Natural environment (eg beaches, beautiful scenery, mountains, coral reefs)
Ecology (eg wild animals for safari, rich reef life, jungle)

Human:

Accessibility (eg airports, road links)
Population distribution (is it near to large centres of population who might visit?)
Affordability (is it good value for money? Currency issues will influence this)
Media profile
Safety (is it safe to visit?)
Proximity to other tourist sites

Models of tourism development: Butler Model (1980)

The Butler Model examines the stages of touristic development for a destination. Butler suggested that the following stages occur=:

Discovery - an area is first visited by a small number of people exploring the primary tourist attractions. These people share their experiences with others. People in the area experience the benefits of tourism and begin to develop secondary tourist services such as accommodation for visitors.
Growth/development - tourist numbers increase and a tourist season may develop. Visitors may have heard of the place via word of mouth, media or guide books. Tourist attractions will begin to be marketed at a larger audience and more secondary services will develop including improved transport eg roads, airports.
Success - mass tourism replaces the original economy; tourist facilities including transport, guiding, accommodation, restaurants etc are fully developed and used. Local culture may be affected and negative impacts may be seen. Some resentment among local people not benefitting from tourism.
Problem/stagnation - visitor numbers reach their peak with

carrying capacity reached or exceeded. Tourism causing social, economic, environmental and political problems. While the area is still popular, it is no longer fashionable and many tourists are now more interested in new destinations.
5. Rejuvenation or decline - the area either declines as tourists go to other, more fashionable, unspoilt destinations or rebrands woith new, more sustainable approaches to tourist development.

Models of tourism development: Hawkins Model

This model considers changing attitudes to tourism and how they can become more negative over time as tourism grows and carrying capacity is reached.
In the model, on the right, the green inner ring represents the minimum/threshold number of tourists and the edge of the outer, yellow ring represents the maximum carrying capacity. The size of the yellow ring will be affected by safety, perception and cultural factors as shown in the diagram. When these factors are well managed, the carrying capacity will expand but if they are not well managed it will contract - ie the number of tourists that an area can sustainably welcome will vary depending on how these factors are managed.

Factors that will affect the carrying capacity of a tourist destination will be include other factors such as:

Infrastructure - transport capacity, sewage and water supply systems, accommodation
Social - impact of tourism on local culture, costs and benefits to services
Economic - income from tourism, cost of living, prices of tourist services, investment in services and amenities for tourists and residents
Environmental - impacts on flora and fauna, pollution, visual landscape
Political - laws related to tourism/visitors, visa restrictions, government spending of taxes generated by tourism

A rural tourism hotspot: The Dark Hedges, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland

Copy the photo below into a document, give the doc a clear title. Now annotate the photo to show the factors you think have contributed to this area becoming a tourism hotspot. Refer

Is it rural or urban?
What are the primary and secondary tourist attractions that you can see? Colour code these as annotations.
Why do you think this is now one of the most popular tourist hotspots in Northern Ireland?
Google "The Dark Hedge" and add more reasons why tourists visit this location. Add as annotations and colour code as above.

Factors affecting the growth of tourism at The Dark Hedges

Use the resources below to identify and evaluate the relative importance the reasons why The Dark Hedges has become a tourist hotspot. Consider:

Location in Europe
Transport links
Physical environment
Proximity of other tourist destinations

Now examine the photo, below.

Copy and paste the image into a document.
Annotate your photo with the potential impacts of tourism (SEEP, positive and negative)
Use the Hawkins Model to comment on the tourism carrying capacity of the Dark Hedges. Refer to the articles below to support what you say.
Based upon what you now know about The Dark Hedges, where would you place this location on the Butler Model? Justify your answer.

Factors affecting the growth of tourism in Venice

Use the resources below to identify and evaluate the relative importance the reasons why Venice is a tourist hotspot. Consider:

Location in Europe
Transport links
Physical environment
Human environment
Proximity of other tourist destinations

Now examine the resources below.

Identify SEEP impacts of tourism on Venice
Use the Hawkins Model to comment on the tourism carrying capacity in Venice. Refer to the articles below to support what you say.
Based upon what you now know about Venice, where would you place this location on the Butler Model? Justify your answer.

Factors affecting the growth of tourism hotspots