The liaison between culture, tourism, tourism destination competitiveness, attractiveness and image. (original) (raw)

Tourism has undergone major transformation, from the rise of the mass tourism which has brought several negative impacts. Such are overcrowding, environmental issues, degradation of a local culture, etc. On the other hand, cultural tourism was often addressed as a “soft”, “good” form of tourism, which was small-scale, high-spend and low impact. Moreover, cultural tourist, as a segment of the market, were perceived as desirable target, due to the fact that they usually are high-educated, good mannered and well paid from the so called upper middle class. Tourism industry has developed so rapidly that is one of the industries outpaces car, steel, electronic and agricultural industries. The economic effect of tourism is to some extent that provoked researchers study it from several aspects – as industry, customer behavior, travel flows, host opportunities, recreation needs, attractiveness, satisfaction, establishments, human capital investments, etc. Studying recreation and tourism as a part of common knowledge shows that cultural tourism is developing from the mass tourism and the relationship between them it’s a mutual advantage. A constellation of prominent scholars have proven that arts and culture are tourism attractions and tourism provides great number of customers for art and culture. Key words: culture, tourism, competitiveness, attractiveness and tourist destination image.