International Seminar
European Regional Perspectives on Tourism Geographies –
Contrasting Research Approaches and Linguistic Traditions
Rovira i Virgili University, Catalonia – 14th October 2010
German Perspectives on
Tourism Geography
Dr Nicolai Scherle
Geography Department
Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany
Contents
1. Defining epochs in the development of German tourism geography
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
in
f)
Hans Poser’s Fremdenverkehrsgeographie
Walter Christaller’s Central Place Theory
The Munich School and the Geographie des Freizeitverhaltens
Excursus: Tourism geography in the GDR
Sustainable tourism and the diversification of supply and demand structures
tourism
Diversification or fragmentation of tourism geography
2. The central structures of and background information on research and
teaching in tourism geography
3. Current challenges for German tourism geography
a) The transformation of the German educational system under the influence
of
the Bologna process
b) The transnationalisation of research landscapes after the Anglo-American
model
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1) Defining epochs in the development of German tourism geography
a) Hans Poser’s Fremdenverkehrsgeographie (1940s)
♦ is the first major commentary to contemplate how tourism and geography
are connected
♦ highlights the importance of tourism and leisure in reading the landscape
(Landschaft) and its development
♦ argues – by attempting to develop dialectic factors (“push” and “pull”) – that
tourism takes place within geographical space to create its own particular
type of cultural landscape
♦ argues that tourism and leisure represent important land uses in the region
and to exclude them would be to develop only a partial understanding of the
organization and development of the environment.
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b) Walter Christaller’s Central Place Theory (1950s)
♦ argues that zones more distant from urban and industrial
agglomerations offer more favourable conditions for tourism
development
♦ ‘periphery hypothesis’ suggests a central-peripheral nexus in which
the polarisation between the source area in the centre and the
tourism area in the periphery is crucial
♦ argues that tourism and leisure represent important land uses in the
region and to exclude them would be to develop only a partial
understanding of the organization and development of the
environment.
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c) The Munich School and the Geographie des Freizeitverhaltens
(1960s-1970s)
♦ focuses on the consumption of time and space by human groups and
societies in their ‘free’ time.
♦ the main thrust is ‘leisure’, which is considered one of the basic
functions of existence within the so-called ‘process-field landscape’.
♦ gradually replaces traditional work on the ‘geography of tourism’ with its
Poserian link to cultural landscapes.
Recreational behaviour and activities dominate the debate
Criticism: “Geographical tourism studies are first and foremost geography
and therefore spatial science and not behavioural science”
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Utthoff (1988: 10)
d) Excursus: Tourism geography in the GDR (1949-1990)
♦ Tourism, the leisure industry and tourism geography were under the
mistrustful control of the state.
♦ Initially both Poser’s and Christaller’s legacies were evident in the
GDR; particularly Poser’s dictum that geography of leisure was
primarily a geography of tourism destinations.
♦ Gradually tourism was extricated from its relationships with physical
and cultural landscapes. This approach was replaced by the
conceptualisation of tourism as a component in economic landscapes
and in the state-regulated system of production and consumption.
Main task of tourism geographies in the GDR: study of tourism as a
factor of territorial production complexes
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e) Sustainable tourism and the diversification of supply and
demand structures in tourism (1980s-1990s)
♦ Increasing – holistic – criticism of the ecological, economic and sociocultural implications of mass tourism
♦ The idea was to encourage university-based geographical research
to engage more with specific, practical challenges by turning to applied
research to contribute towards solving major problems
♦ Planning to the foreground! Sustainable tourism becomes
synonymous with
strategic resource management and quality
management (“using rather than
abusing landscape potentials”)
♦ Often involves strongly normative concepts, which have entered the
development discourse via the issue of exotic tourism
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e) Sustainable tourism and the diversification of supply and
demand structures in tourism (1980s-1990s)
♦ Transformation from Fordist to post-Fordist tourism structures
generates gradual differentiation of supply and demand
♦ Increasing integration of sociological approaches (e.g. risk society
and fun-loving society) and greater attention to new leisure and
tourism phenomena (e.g. Brand Lands; Urban Entertainment
Centres)
♦ Growing influence of the cultural turn on both ontology and
epistemology
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f) Diversification and Fragmentation of Tourism Geography (2000present)
► Growing interest in cultural topics in the context of the implications
of the cultural turn and an increasing conceptualisation of space:
a) Spaces are charged with symbols and meanings
b) Authenticity of spaces in the context of tourism “stage-setting” and
commodification
c) Intercultural aspects in the context of a globalised tourism economy and
the dialectic of “own” and “other”
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f) Diversification and Fragmentation of Tourism Geography (2000present)
► Tourism and the implications of climatic change
a) effects of climatic change on the supply of resources and on demand
for LTR
b) Growing reflection on sustainable tourism and the development of
destination-specific positioning strategies
c) Exploitation of new techniques such as GIS for the processing and
analysis of spatial data
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f) Diversification and Fragmentation of Tourism Geography (2000present)
► Tourism and new media (e.g. Web 2.0, Twitter etc.)
a) Use of new media on the supply side with regard to
- Marketing and customer retention strategies
- The synergetic exploitation of supply portfolios
b) Use of new media by the demand side in respect of
- Communication structures
- Travel behaviour and travel information
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“On the demand side it can be observed that the medium of the internet has
opened up new forms of travel: For an internet surfer at the beginning of the
third millennium, travel is largely free and de-bordered in the physical-spatial
sense, while remaining embedded in “global villages”. New – virtual – spaces
for travel are available which are not “either-or” alternatives to conventional
travel but enrich the previously existing supply spectrum.
In this complex and fragmented world of cyberspace, one central problem
emerges for the tourist, namely a growing complexity whereby the critical
user is permanently confronted with the following questions:
What should be read, heard or seen first?
What is important and what is less important, or what choice best suits my
needs?”
Scherle & Hopfinger (2007: 369)
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2. The central structures of and background information on research
and teaching in tourism geography
Low level of institutional organisation of tourism geography scientific
community:
•
•
•
2 tourism geography chairs
1 tourism research group of the German Society for Geography
1 tourism journal, but lacking a direct geographical slant
The strongest concentration of tourism teaching and research is at
Universities of Applied Sciences, geographical approaches are
underrepresented
For strategic reasons to do with publishing conditions and external funding,
tourism geography research mainly takes place under the aegis of cultural
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and economic geography (“avoid the t-word!”)
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3. Current challenges for German tourism geography
a) The transformation of the German educational system under
the influence of the Bologna process
♦ standardization and neo-liberalisation of universities, sacrificing
Humboldt’s educational ideals in favor of McKinsey Stalinism
♦ abandonment of the unity of research and teaching
♦ increasing economization of university education endangers minor
subjects, which find it increasingly difficult to justify their existence
♦ lowering of quality, which is ultimately detrimental to both graduates
and the economy
♦ increased consumerism, intensified by the introduction of tuition fees
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“They say ‘Bachelor’ and set into motion the McDonaldization of the German
university. The professional standards and fields of discourse that emerged
over the course of decades are being dismantled. In the end the chronically
understaffed social sciences and humanities can no longer offer their own
professional degrees. The last representative of his subject turns out the
lights. (…)
The state is abandoning its responsibilities. To make sure order prevails, it is
developing a new type of private sector nomenklatura – a kind of McKinsey
Stalinism: networks of accreditors, evaluators, planners and informers in a
privately planned educational system.“
Beck (2005: 97)20
3. Current challenges for German tourism geography
b) Transnationalisation of research landscapes after the AngloAmerican model
♦ Creation of excellence clusters primarily favours technical and natural
sciences rather than “niche” subjects – such as tourism geography – in
the humanities.
♦ Growing demand for tourism courses accelerates the development of
applied courses at technical colleges and weakens tourism geography
research and teaching at universities
♦ Divergent Anglo-American research and evaluation traditions form a
barrier to the entry of young researchers to international peer-reviewed
publications
21
Essay on Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism
“The text casts too wide a net. Almost every single one of its different
themes could be discussed in an independent essay. For this reason it lacks
stringency and coherence in its arguments. Concepts are used without
The editors express their gratitude for your interest in
exactthis
definition,
far-reaching
made without
evidence. in his/her
journal
and wishclaims
the author
every success
further research on this important topic.
The empirical evidence is thin. One learns nothing about the figures,
represen-tativeness or evaluation of the sources. The article lacks
methodological exactness and the current state of research is not portrayed
adequately. Not enough is said about the previous research and writings of
Meyer and Müller. Although the text discusses an interesting theme, it is
not developed sufficiently for publication.”
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4. Conclusion
As in the Anglo-American scientific community, German-speaking
tourism geography is undergoing (although with a slight time-lag)
growing differentiation and fragmentation with regard to both themes
and methodology.
In particular the increasing integration of social science approaches,
the implications of the cultural turn and improved networking with the
Anglo-American scientific community have had a lasting beneficial
effect on German-speaking tourism geography, which for a long time
was primarily associated with empirical and application-oriented
studies.
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“In this respect also marked changes can be observed in leisure and tourism
geography, now that the earlier dominance of standardised quantitative methods
and a broad palette of hermeneutic qualitative methods is gaining considerably in
significance.
Instead of an objectifying attitude in accordance with the scientific-positivist
model, researchers in leisure and tourism geography increasingly immerse
themselves in their subject, pursuing a methodologically controlled understanding
of the “other” by means of participative observation, ero-epic dialogues, narrativeor problem-centred interviews.
They question spatially relevant decisions of tourism actors, reveal the hidden
structure of subjective perceptions and action frameworks in a tourism context or
decode and deconstruct attributions of meaning and symbolism and their spatial24
4. Conclusion
The level of institutional organisation in German-speaking tourism
geography is comparatively low and can be expected to continue to
decline in future, as tourism courses are primarily located at
Universities of Applied Sciences for reasons of cost and better
employability.
Research and teaching in tourism geography are currently coloured
by two central challenges:
1 Bologna process
2 The trans-nationalisation of scientific landscapes after the AngloAmerican model which critics believe will lead to a gradual
departure
from Humboldtian educational ideals
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Thank you!
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