Bundling attractions for rural tourism development

Abstract

Tourism is often regarded as a viable solution to economic crisis, especially for remote areas without many development options. While many tourism destinations have strong cultural or heritage assets, not all destinations have primary attractions that can bring visitors to the region. Rather than developing special interest “themes”, rural areas that do not have enough of any one type of tourism resource to act as a primary draw may consider bundling different attraction types to increase visitation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the preferences of visitors to secondary heritage sites and explore the relationship between heritage tourism and alternative, non-heritage activities in rural areas. Findings revealed that motivation to visit small-scale heritage sites consisted of two dimensions: learning and recreation. The two motivational dimensions influenced visitors’ interest in different heritage attractions and likelihood of visiting heritage tourism “scenarios”. As for alternative activities, there was a cluster of “popular” activities that were enjoyed by both learning-oriented and recreation-oriented respondents, but recreation-oriented visitors were more interested in nature-based activities and sport-related activities than learning-oriented visitors. Findings can help rural communities improve secondary attractions and diversify their tourism product by bundling heritage attractions with non-heritage activities. 旅游常常被认为是一种解决经济危机的可行办法，尤其是对那些发展选择稀少的偏远山区。虽然许多旅游景区拥有强大的文化遗产，但并不是所有的地区都有增加游客数量的主要吸引性。那些没有丰富旅游资源的乡村地区可以考虑通过与其他不同类型的景胜捆绑作为主要吸引游客的方法，而不是另去开发独具特色的``旅游主题"。本文的目的在于研究游客对次要遗产型景区的喜好，并探索乡村地区遗产旅游和可替代其的非遗产旅游之间的关系。研究结果表示，游客参观小型遗产景区的动机主要有两个：学习和娱乐。这两个动机影响了游客对不同文化遗产的兴趣和参观这些景点的可能性。而在择一活动上，学习取向和娱乐取向的受访者有许许多多的热门活动可供选择，但是相比学习取向游客，娱乐取向的游客对以自然为本以及运动相关的活动更感兴趣。本文的研究同时可以帮助农村社区提高其次要吸引力，并通过将文化遗产与非遗产活动绑定来丰富此类地区的旅游产品。