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European Tourist Attractions Market Assessment 2005
Key Note Publications Ltd, Dec 2005, Pages: 101
Tourism Flows In Europe And The Role Of Attractions
Tourism patterns in Europe, or the `flows' from one country or city to another, have been shaped by a variety of factors, including history, colonialism, geography, concentrations of population and industry, international trends and events (e.g. the two World Wars and the development of the EU, etc.) and, above all, climate differences.
The north-to-south flow in search of sunshine, from relatively prosperous northern countries to poorer southern regions, has been a major feature of tourism. However, this is basically `seaside' tourism, whereas `attractions' tourism has a very different structure. Major attractions are visited by a combination of domestic tourists and daytrippers, students and foreign visitors, often with a high proportion of foreign visitors from neighbouring countries (e.g. exchanges of visits between Paris and London). However, visits from long-haul destinations are usually more lucrative, with tourists from North America or the Far East staying longer and spending more in Europe than other Europeans.
Historic Appeal and Types of Attractions Tourism
In contrast to other continents, European `attractions tourism' is dominated by attractions that are founded on history and cultures going back many centuries. For numerous visitors, simply wandering around the `Old Town' — the well-preserved ancient hearts of many cities and towns across Europe — is enough of an attraction. Some cities have never been allowed to change significantly, while others have enjoyed regeneration to make them more appealing to tourists. These areas that attract many tourists are often described as `honeypots'. They usually contain attractive scenery or historic or culturally significant buildings which invite tourists to cluster like bees.
Attractions tourism falls into a number of identifiable types:
- old town
- ecclesiastical (visiting major cathedrals and churches)
- collections (museums, art galleries, zoos, etc.)
- fortifications (castles and city walls)
- stately home (country seats, chateaux, palaces and royal residences).
This range of attractions is equalled by diversity in the ownership of the attractions. Owners range across national governments, regional and local governments, municipalities (cities), non-profitmaking organisations (including churches, charities and trusts) and private owners (divided between families, e.g. aristocratic owners of stately homes and corporate owners such as theme park operators).
Modern Developments
In terms of attractions that welcome millions of visitors, theme parks represent the major development in Europe, although the market still lags many years behind the US market, where it originated with the Disney parks in the 1950s and 1960s. Disneyland Resort Paris, the only Disney park in Europe, was 10 years old in 2005 and attracts up to 13 million visitors, making it by far the largest single attraction in Europe. Europe also has several other parks inspired by Hollywood studios and movie themes (e.g. Warner Bros Movie Worlds in Germany and Spain).
The UK is particularly rich in theme parks and its main company, Tussauds Group, operates other European parks and attractions. Spain and Germany each have several large theme parks, and there are three Legoland parks (in Denmark, the UK and Germany). Corporate groups operating parks are becoming more important than single-owner operators. These include Tussauds (UK), StarParks (the European division of the US-based Six Flags, recently acquired by the private equity firm Palamon Capital Partners) and Grévin (France). Other modern attractions take a more educational approach, often themed around science, space or the environment. These attract a mixture of domestic and foreign tourists and students.
The Major Honeypots
Ranking the most important attractions is difficult because tourists tend to be attracted in the greatest numbers to clusters of attractions, accommodation and other facilities. This makes it difficult to know whether a general area or a specific attraction is the main source of appeal (and vice versa).
Apart from the largest theme parks, which exert their own peculiar magnetism (led by Disneyland Resort Paris, Port Aventura in Spain, Europa-Park in Germany, Legoland in Denmark and Alton Towers in the UK), the following cities with their major `honeypots` are outstanding in Europe.
- Paris — including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Pompidou Centre and Notre Dame. France as a whole has easily the highest number of inbound visitors annually (at 75 million in 2003).
- London — featuring the British Airways London Eye, Tate Modern, the British Museum (four branches) and the Tower of London. The UK ranks fourth for European arrivals in total (at 24.7 million in 2003) but mainly offers cultural and attractions tourism for foreigners, rather than `seaside' tourism (which accounts for most of the 50 million-plus visitors to Spain).
- Rome — with attractions extending far beyond the Coliseum, the Forum and other antiquities and the Vatican. Italy receives up to 40 million visitors a year and Rome is just one major honeypot, the others being Venice and the area around Naples (e.g. the island of Capri and Pompeii).
- Berlin — which is attractive for its range of shopping opportunities and nightlife, as well as its historical curiosity since the Reunification of Germany and the regeneration of the former East Berlin.
- Barcelona — another city with a diverse appeal, focused for many around the work of the architect Gaudi and rejuvenated by its hosting of the Olympics in 1994.
Other cities that are particularly popular for short breaks are Amsterdam, Prague, Bruges, Madrid and Athens. Low-cost airlines are opening up destinations such as Krakow in Poland and the Scandinavian capitals.
Impact of Travel Infrastructure
Transport within Europe as a continent has never been easy, as a result of its numerous borders, the central dominance of the Alps and the wide variety of different languages. Major initiatives to make travel easier have included tunnels through the Alps, the Channel Tunnel (opened in 1994) and the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden (opened in 2000). In France, state investment in the rail network has enabled the fast TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) trains to compete with motorway and air travel.
For attractions tourism, the most significant development has been low-cost airlines, which have challenged the dominant national carriers with their high fares, better suited to executive travel than short-break tourism. Ryanair and easyJet, both based in the UK, took the lead, but cheaper flights are now offered by airlines in Germany, Italy and other countries. The new airlines demonstrated that the market for leisure flights is elastic — the volume of demand is dictated by price — and their use of secondary airports in a country has often turned the nearby cities and towns into potential short-break attractions.
The accommodation sector of the travel infrastructure has changed less dramatically. Two significant trends have been for hotels to be built adjacent to theme parks, and for low-cost or `no-frills' hotels to open in or near the more expensive cities (e.g. Travel Inn in London).
External Events
As in its past history, European tourism continues to be shaped by external events. The influence of the 20th century's two World Wars is fading, but monuments and sites commemorating the conflicts continue to be visited. The demise of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe from its control had a major impact in the 1990s, opening up borders for tourism (in both directions) and helping Berlin and Prague, in particular, to become major destinations.
The Balkan wars triggered by the break-up of former Yugoslavia had an adverse effect on European travel in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the situation has become easier since then. In 2004, a new phase of EU `enlargement' took place, bringing in ten more countries. Their membership will facilitate European tourism, and their cities have been able to apply to be European Capitals of Culture for a specified year (e.g. Sibiu in Romania in 2007).
Along with the Capitals of Culture awards, the World Heritage (WH) awards by the United Nations (UN) are another major form of international recognition that encourages attractions tourism. Recent additions have broadened out World Heritage status from major urban sites to less-visited sites.
Future Prospects
Attractions tourism will continue to grow despite disruptions by the types of terrorism and environmental disaster that occurred during 2005. A `bounce-back' effect has been noted, with evidence that tourists are becoming more resilient to threats and returning to popular destinations more quickly than they did in the 1990s.
Low-cost airlines will continue to stimulate tourism between European cities, with new destinations and routes being created and diversification by the airlines into other travel sectors (e.g. car hire, discounts to attractions and, potentially, cheap city accommodation). City discount cards (e.g. the London Pass and the Stockholm Card) offering discounts on admissions to major attractions, and urban transport will also become more important.
The theme parks sector is reaching a more mature stage in Europe but has a long way to go to emulate the US model, and many countries in Europe have yet to build their first such attractions. Europe's major attractions will continue to focus mainly on historic monuments and cultural collections, although cities such as Paris (with its Pyramide du Louvre, opened in 1989) and London (with its London Eye observation wheel) have demonstrated the
possibility of innovating.
The most significant future trend for Europe's tourism in the longer term will be the broadening of origin countries. Since the 1980s, there has been more travel abroad by nationalities such as the Spanish and Italians, who have tended to prefer domestic tourism, and eastern Europe's integration into the EU will present a further boost. Maturation of the Chinese economy could have a tremendous impact on global travel, with a rapid rise in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Europe.
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