Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The sandstone quarries are the commonest quarries in Mallorca. However, they have been always unknown landscapes. This paper tries to offer a panoramic view of the sandstone quarries, tracking between different scales. First of all, the understanding of their territorial dimension on the island, proposing a new concept: the Quarries Territory, a landscape that allows the discovery of the quarries, only possible through the path that they offered, the differentiating aspect of each one. Afterwards, the memory and tradition that they have generated relate the elements of heritage which have emerged from them, so they are also part of cultural heritage and landscape of the island. They have become immobile transcribers of the landscape history that have generated, becoming true heritage archives of Mallorca. Finally, thinking in sandstone quarries as cultural landscapes will be obvious when the culture that generated them get back to appreciate the values described here. If this not happens, their future is predestined to disappear.

Tourism is one of the most important modern phenomena of the last hundred years. Not only for its economic significance, but also by the changes it has produced in the city and the territory. Unfortunately, in many cases its economic success has exceeded the growth forecast, destroying what had been its raison d’être: the city.Urban planning and architecture have participated in this process by showing their contempt with the physical consequences of this slackness. The discipline seems not to have understood that we are in front of a major phenomenon that needs its own tools to face these transformations.Nowadays, in the early twenty-first century, there are two different challenges: how to turn the tourist conglomeration in Southern European coast into a city, and how to include the matter of leisure in the postindustrial city debate.

The main subject of this paper is to study the use of land reclamation development in the contexts of tourism spaces construction in its relation to consolidate urban and growing regions. Referring to the processes involved, it is relevant to analyze the interaction of massive tourism developments using urbanization based on rapid construction enhanced by land reclaimed to water. The “urbanization of water” for tourism purposes creates diverse asymmetries, raising problematic issues namely in the urban context. Among others one can find conflicts in the limits and borders, contaminating and spreading phenomenon that formulates new in the existing, causing controversial dichotomies leading to the construction of history in detriment of consolidating past testimonials - that includes heritage and cultural aspects now replaced, reinvented and recreated in thematized urban contexts.

The paper focuses on a process of symbolic reconstruction of cities, where existing image or meaning of places is purposely changed with an aim to attract new investments, events or tourists to a particular city. We try to situate the process within the context of growing competition of cities. Symbolic reconstruction also affects tourism development in cities as it provides an easily marketed and consumable image and meaning of places. The case of Cheonggyecheon restoration in Seoul helps us to study how symbolic reconstruction of cities is related to and affected by competitive urban policy of cities, urban renewal and city marketing. Observing local consequences we conclude that while the Cheonggyecheon restoration and resulting symbolic reconstruction helped Cheonggyecheon to become the major tourist attraction and icon of global Seoul, it also results in decline of local places and cultures, contradicting in this way its initial goals.

This paper explores the new tourism region Macau-Zhuhai which is emerging in the south-western part of the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Since Macau’s handover to the People’s Republic of China in 1999, the former Portuguese enclave is becoming increasingly integrated into the PRD. Together with its mainland neighbor Zhuhai it is creating a bi-city region; although without coordinated planning. Currently, both cities embark on a first joint project encouraged by the Chinese Central Government on the island Hengqin. The paper is investigating the attempts of both cities to reinvent themselves as places to play and how they find themselves on the playing field of global and national forces. The paper ends with the suggestion of an alternative understanding of tourism and destinations which learns from spatial practices of a new generation of tourists in Asia.

In Venice the famous network of pedestrian foot-ways deserves attention and research since has to face very often mass events. Even the ordinary mobility has peculiar needs. The efficiency of main road and rail transportation infrastructures and of the principal hub of modal interchange, relays on the service quality of the pedestrian infrastructure in the old city. This is matter for an original investigation.

Harvey’s assessment of the Lefebvrian concept of the Right to the City is that it is a communal right, shared by association with the community around the urban project. How might this idea translate to a small island nation, recently transformed from being a rural society, headlong into a post-urban, spatially chaotic coagulation of small cities, suburbs, and landscapes of tourism consumption, or ‘Tourscapes’?Existing and emerging Tourscapes can be mapped and analysed, at different but simultaneous scales, related to their local, city or regional importance, and the meanings of these in the visual and spatial order can be reviewed. This work will propose exploratory scenarios for addressing tourism related spatial practice, using Irish Case Study examples, and also will investigate how communal rights to Tourscapes could be claimed or exercised, for use by the broad community around the analysis, management, control and proposition of spatial form.

While on one hand, social entrepreneurship, as a new movement, is being spearheaded by individuals to make the world a better place, on the other hand, small islands, dominated by Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) seem to have overlooked this emerging concept in their tourism management initiatives. The work of Séraphin (2012) highlighted two important social entrepreneurship schemes in Haiti, but failed to shed light on its relevance and implications for island tourism. Similarly, in Mauritius, the Ministry of Tourism and Leisure is engaged in various tourism management initiatives aligned with the governmental vision called ‘Maurice Ile Durable’ (MID), but, social entrepreneurship is not considered in the tourism plan. With these gaps as foundations, this paper examines the concept of social entrepreneurship and investigates its role in promoting global citizenship in island tourism destination management. Starting with a brief presentation of Mauritius and Haiti as tourism destinations, this paper examines two small islands heavily dependent on tourism. Exploratory in nature, it unfolds with some meaningful observations on the Haitian and Mauritian tourism industries. The paper thereafter develops new insights on the role of social entrepreneurship in island tourism and suggests its merit as a tool for island destination management.

This paper presents a framework for the formulation of a sport tourism event policy for the island of Barbados. Although some research has been conducted on the residents’ perceptions of major sporting events including the Olympic Games, smaller but globally significant events such as the Golf World Cup have received little attention from researchers. Less attention has been given to sport events in the Caribbean. This dearth in knowledge has inspired the direction of this study, which is, to explore the stakeholder perceptions of the Golf World Cup which was hosted in Barbados in December 2006. The data collection process adopted included semi-structured interviews with the Barbados tourism private sector.The 65 participants in this study highlighted a diversity of mainly congruent views. Private sector participants contend that the Golf World Cup was socially exclusive and perpetuated social divisions rather than ameliorated them. Many stakeholders felt that the event was culturally alienating and highlighted the failure of the organisers to undertake stakeholder consultations.The findings in this study can make a worthwhile contribution to the marketing, management and design of future events and the direction of policy formulation for sport events on the island of Barbados and the wider Caribbean.

This case study describes how EU funding through Erasmus Intensive Programs can be used to develop internationally orientated programs for Tourism Management students. The mobility afforded to staff and students through the EU grant allowed us to provide students with a vocational challenge in a sustainable manner within the setting of an authentic overseas tourist destination. The program has proven to be a valued bridge between class room theory and real world practice. From the institutional point of view, this project has helped the three involved universities to improve their level of internationalization and the degree of employability of their students.