The Importance of Cultural Tourism in developing the European Identity. Malta May 2006.

 

 Photo Xacobeo

If cultural tourism constitutes the new European horizon for tourism, it is in effect first and foremost a question of tourism.

Within this, cultural tourism forms part of an economic industry, the key players of which – who follow one another from the conception of a product up until its commercialisation, by connecting a group of services  - must collaborate in perfect harmony.

However cultural tourism corresponds to a very particular economy which engages

 

-        both the public and private sectors,

-        both the ministries in charge and local authorities, in varied forms of mixed economy,

-        both those responsible for the protection of our heritage as well as those whose mission is to develop or to commercialise it.

-        both the administrative officials for cultural action and those who are in charge of  town planning, national and regional development, and the introduction and development of small and medium-sized enterprises,

-        as much researching authenticity as the need to address a wide audience in a democratic way.

 

Cultural tourism, like other cultural industries, constitutes an economic stake, the turnover of which is essential and the possibility of creating jobs important. But the concrete discovery of cultural diversity, of a common identity and of the importance of pluralism are equally important stakes for cultural tourism, as for musical productions and the book industry.

 Active European citizenship and the sharing by experience of a communal memory should also be considered amongst these stakes, stakes which several world wars, several regional wars and even totalitarian regimes have hopefully failed to disfigure or even erase. European territory has, in effect, yet to be rediscovered and, to the countries which we have not been able to visit for many years, we offer a part of our heritage which has been cut from us.

Photo Via Francigena.

At a moment when so many discussions talk of a disenchantment with the “European idea”, we, however, are persuaded a little more each day, by all the concrete contacts established by the European Institute for Cultural Routes, that cultural tourism – and one of its essential components, the cultural routes which have been sought after by the Council of Europe since 1987 – constitutes, on the contrary, a re-enchantment of the idea of Europe. Born from a report ordered by this Institution in the sixties and entitled « Europe is carrying on », this program remains the best practical example of a concrete European construction and of integration in all its forms.

We should certainly not forget that other international and intergovernmental organisations  have also become aware of the way in which the tourist phenomenon has evolved, both through a diversification of what is on offer and by the bigger demand which exists. A methodological and ethical adaptation must accompany such a progression, evident in the form of Charters and Conventions. The European Union, UNESCO, ICOMOS, just like the organisation Europa Nostra or the European Cultural Tourism Network, they all work together complementarily with the Council of Europe to underline contradictions, avoid drifting, and re-centre around what is essential: innovation, creation and the cultural message of a common heritage and identity.

 

To quote from the Wroclaw Declaration on 50 years of European CulturalCo-operation within the Council of Europe: 

“Europe undivided”, “a cultural diversity which manifests itself today particularly through the exchange and consumption of goods and services which are culturally different.” 

If partnerships are sought between European institutions, it appears to us that the domain of cultural tourism is certainly, due to the cross-disciplinary nature of all its aspects, a domain which takes priority.

 

Michel Thomas-Penette

Director of the European Institute of Cultural Routes, Luxembourg