Fringe areas and spatial peripheries of tourist routes and cultural itineraries: The dynamics of spatial interaction.
This article examines questions of spatiality pertaining to tourism and culture-centred routes and their associated fringe areas or spatial peripheries. Clearly, these marginal areas, whether they feature high or low numbers of heritage sites, also need to be studied. Some tourism itineraries are woven into complex networks with high degrees of connectivity and connexity. At the same time, other tourism or culture-centred routes seem to cross spaces that are “out in the middle of nowhere”. Yet in every case, spaces are shaped and produced through the intersection of a range of spatialities. Our study uses diagrams to support our postulate that different types of interactions are related to diverse tourism and cultural mobilities. The purpose of the study was to explore how the concept of distance is understood and the meanings attached to the idea of vicinity or surroundings in reference to routes and byways available to and adopted by tourists. We present the resulting typology in conjunction with a number of explanatory keys that can be used to define the interplay between the heritagization of given routes and the areas around them. Examples are taken from the Alps (Switzerland and France) and the Rocky Mountains (USA and Canada). Configurations resulting from regional dynamics and spatial interactions reveal shadowing effects as well as disappearance processes. In some protected areas, intersecting itineraries may also confer special status on surrounding areas. This article focuses primarily on the spatial practices of individuals or social groups. We find a strong correlation between tourism and culture-centred itineraries and their spatial borders across different scales of time and space.