THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CULTURAL TOURISM IN EUROPE

Cultural tourism plays an important role in the development of the tourism industry in European countries.What does ’cultural tourism’ mean? The term is widely used, and also widely misunderstood. Academics and policy-makers have been quick to identify cultural tourism as a growth market, without seriously considering what that market consists of. In order to examine how significant cultural tourism is in Europe, we first need to have a definition of the term. Cultural tourism is a problematic concept, however, because it consists of two elements, ’culture’ and ’tourism’, which are in themselves difficult to define. Most attempts at defining cultural tourism agree that it consists of the consumption of culture by tourists, but this approach introduces new problems. What kinds of culture should be included within the scope of cultural tourism? Does a visit to a museum turn an entire holiday into a cultural tourism experience? Are tourists who engage in cultural consumption actually culturally motivated? This chapter examines the problem of defining cultural tourism, and the changing nature of the relationship between culture and tourism.