Territorial resources and tourist destinations: couples with a bright future?

Abstract

Cultural tourism is based on the construction of destinations with attributes that are recognized and prized by people outside the area. A destination is an ensemble of territory-specific resources whose uniqueness is highlighted by their anchorage within the territory. The present article describes a framework for analyzing territorial resources through the three stages of resource construction, that is, revelation, development, and articulation with other resources. It then describes two case studies, in Morocco and Niger, conducted using this approach. Our framework can be used to investigate the notion of resource attribute in more detail and to examine the conditions under which a “panier de biens” combining tradable and non-tradable objects is formed. This co-construction leads to associations between resources with attributes that can be transposed to other objects anchored to the same territory.

Keywords

• actors
• tourism
• heritage
• Aïr
• Moroccan Atlas
• Niger