![]() Based on Dean MacCannell (1976) and Clare Gunn (1972), Neil Leiper (1990: 371) developed the concept of attraction further to include tourism activities other than sightseeing. Sights can become markers themselves, and certain sites interest tourists because of their markers rather than the intrinsic qualities of the sights. Significance is given to the sights by means of information, in turn giving sense to the tourism experience. He defined a tourist attraction based on the empirical relationship between a tourist, a sight (the subject of sightseeing), and a marker (information about a sight). Importantly, historic sites often have material remains (there is something to show) and a history (there is a story to tell).Ĥ In his analysis of the semiotic of attractions, Dean MacCannell (1976: 109-110) suggested that tourism attractions are signs, that is, they represent something to someone. However, as noted by Brian Schiffer (1987), sites are not static but subject to transformations resulting from both natural and cultural processes. Unlike iconic Arctic fauna, for example polar bears or walruses, historic sites can reliably be found in the same place year after year. They may have originally been established because of logistic advantages such as having a safe anchorage or comparatively easy access. ![]() Historic sites are attractive to tour operators for several reasons. For the purposes of this article, a historic site is defined as any location that demonstrates past human activity, evidenced by the presence of artefacts, ecofacts, features, structures, or other material remains (Kipfer, 2007: 50).ģIn Antarctica and Svalbard, historic sites are among the most visited of all sites (Roura, 2008a: 59). Historic sites-a tangible form of cultural heritage-are the subject of specialized polar tourism and also a component of mainstream tourism itineraries, complementing the “menu” of tourist attractions offered to customers. Ashworth and Brian Graham (2005: 7), heritage “is that part of the past which we select in the present for contemporary purposes, whether they be economic or cultural (including political and social factors) and choose to bequeath to a future.” More succinctly, “Heritage denotes everything we suppose has been handed down to us from the past” (Lowenthal, 2005: 81). Consequently, certain sites that have particular natural, cultural heritage or other attractions become tourism destinations where organized visits take place on a regular basis through the tourism season. Top of pageĢPolar tourism combines two global processes: the longestablished use of the polar regions as resource frontiers (Sugden, 1982), and the centrifugal tendency of the tourism system that constantly expands into new areas (Cohen, 1984: 382). The application of this approach to other sites in Antarctica and Svalbard is discussed. Through narratives, the mast becomes a place of significance and a symbolic marker of the North Pole and polar exploration. Tourism narratives enable the different elements of the tourism attraction system to “click” together into a coherent whole. Based on Dean MacCannell (1976) and Neil Leiper (1990), a tourism attraction is a system comprising a tourist or human element a nucleus or central element and a marker or informative element. ![]() The questions addressed in this paper are: How does cultural heritage in the polar regions operate as a tourist attraction? What is the role of tourism narratives in creating a tourism attraction? Direct observations constituted the main research method. The analysis is based on a case study of visitation to the airship mooring mast built at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, for the 1926 “Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile Transpolar Flight” of the airship Norge. ![]() This paper explores the use of narratives in the transformation of historic sites in the polar regions into attractions and consumable tourism products.
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