ABSTRACT
Creating visitor attractions in peripheral areas Attractions are an integral part of the tourism industry, provide an important focus for tourism activity (Richards, 1996), and influence travel decisions. Attractions range from iconic in nature to relatively minor and of only local significance. In all cases, a site, event or place can only become an attraction when some special and significant value is given to it, and that value is communicated to visitors through interpretation and promotion (MacCannell, 1976). The process of converting a potential site, place or event into an attraction is the essence of tourism’s unique ability to turn a resource into a product to which visitors must travel, rather than a product that can be transported to customers for consumption. This process lies at the core of developing a tourism industry and is responsible for the flows of visitors from generating regions to destination regions. At another level, tourism exhibits a core-periphery relationship reflecting the flow of tourists from a developed core to a less-developed periphery in search of new icons and novel experiences not available in the core. The volume of the tourism flows that are generated is governed by the significance of the site, technology of travel, cost of the experience, degree of hardship endured during travel to the attraction and conditions encountered in the locality of the attraction. Peripheral areas seeking to build a tourism industry must first overcome impediments to tourism flows by offering a tempting visitor experience built on the pulling power of their visitor attractions and supported by associated tourism infrastructure.
