The emergent tourism industry in eastern Germany a decade after Unification

✍ Scribed by Tim Coles

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 369 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0261-5177
• DOI: 10.1016/s0261-5177(02)00060-2

✦ Synopsis

The new German L .

ander have been practically invisible in discourses on tourism in post-socialist states. This case-study presents an exploratory examination of major tourism trends in the former German Democratic Republic since 1990. The purpose is to provoke further debate on the critical issues surrounding tourism transition, not least the wisdom and consequences of the general desire to eliminate disparities in production and consumption between east and west. Special emphasis is placed on the deployment of urban heritage tourism as a mechanism to realise these ambitions. Far from a less harsh experience of change, eastern destinations have had to compete with established western resorts and regions for domestic and inbound visitors. Several indices point towards convergence but concurrently raise concerns about uneven development and the limits to, and sustainability of, growth. A reading of product development and the settings of consumption suggests that important unexpected de facto constraints to tourism development may result from continued, unchallenged, widespread adherence to western paradigms in the east.