The Space and Place Theorem of Tourism - Essay Example

We don’t Choose a Life, we Live One Introduction A tourist must make crucial decisions before deciding on which destinations they visit on their voyages around the world. The drive and motivation which inspires one to choose a specific place are different from person to person because just like all other choices in life, one must have sufficient reasons why they think that their destination of choice is the best and will serve to please them. The hard fact is that some tourists will embark on the journey to a certain destination not knowing their reasons for liking their destination of choice, but unknown to them, there are underlying factors which motivate them to do so; unknowingly. As such, it is important to reveal the reasons which contribute to one choosing certain destinations while discriminating others, which in the context of tourism are understood as the place and space factors. To elaborate on this, the following text will evaluate two popular tourist destinations, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and using the place-space factors distinguish between which of the two would be more suitable as a tourist destination. One of the crucial determining factors for a whether a destination will attract large numbers of tourists is the environment and natural resources available. These include the landscape and climate of a place. As is the obvious, tourism is all about changing the norms of daily life and escaping from the hustles of everyday. As such, people will prefer to travel to distant away places which have a climate or appearance totally different from theirs. This is to say that if one is accustomed to living in the western chilly countries and they wanted to relax, the most suitable place for them to find their calm or change of atmosphere would be finding warm or sunny destinations. On the other hand, people accustomed to the hot climates would opt for chilly mountainous destinations such as those which have snow-capped mountains or experience snowy weather. The other determining factor which many may consider is the condition of the built environment. The built environment here refers to everything created by the hands of people. Apart from just visiting interesting destinations, tourists require amongst other things the ease of travelling, the comfort of living, security, shopping bases, and entertainment areas to mention but a few. In fact, these facilities can themselves become tourist attractions when they offer mega supplies of rare items and services. The best example is the festivals of visual and performing arts hosted by mostly the Asian continent. When it is possible that these were one meant to promote Asia’s tourism, they are now major tourist attractions, with hundreds of thousands of people streaming into the Asian continent during the festivals to experience delight and acquire unique souvenirs to take home with them. On a more “built” perspective, infrastructure is quite important in this aspect of travel. This is to say that there must be means of getting to the tourist destinations, of which the most recommended means of communication [travel] today is through air. Sea travel is also experiencing a growth in preference as a means of travel as it offers an interesting way of getting from place to place. Again, the tourist destination needs to have hosting facilities such as accommodation resorts, airports, hospitals, shopping centers, and so on. Concisely, the available facilities and infrastructure must meet international recommended standards so that the tourists do not have to struggle with adapting to conditions lower than what they are used to. The spirit or level of hospitality offered also goes a long way in branding a destination as preferred or not. Hospitality here has two sides to it; physical and non-physical. The physical aspect relates to the built environment in that the facilities offering the accommodation, shopping services, immigration centers or entertainment areas have to be of welcoming condition. Welcoming in the sense that for example a tourist hotel should offer like say varieties of meals and drinks on their menu from different regions of the world. This would work to host the tourists’ comfort by surprising them with offers they are accustomed to and which they can enjoy while still away from home. The non-physical aspect is that the environment provided by the natives should be welcoming and optimum for aliens to thrive in. They should be offered assistance where necessary, not exploited, exposed to the best places of interest and most importantly have assurance concerning their security. Sense dictates that nobody would spend heftily to go bask in beaches where landmines are regular occurrences, board planes to a destination famous for civil conflicts, or find accommodation at a destination facing terrorist attacks. The final and most important determining factor is the tourist themselves. One still requires having an evaluation model for choosing between the best and better destinations if all the above conditions are met by all the potential destinations to visit. These determinants are the motivations and personal drives that one possesses. There are people who move out of the normal to go searching for adventure or mere relaxation, and these two parties cannot have the same expectations, thus same choices of destination. There are some who take the tourist voyage as a chance to learn as they have fun. Better put, some visit places that are connected to say, their choice of career. For instance, an archeological student might opt to visit destinations popular for archeological discoveries. In short, the driving forces to a certain choice are vast. And rely greatly on an individual’s preferences. To this point, it can be justified that the reason why these choices and places will alwaysy differ is because each destination is constantly undergoing changes which contribute to the place being good or insufficient to quench tourist demands. These changes may fall under infrastructure, human, cultural or natural factors, being mostly determined by the sustainability that these aspects are offered. To further expound on this, the following section will compare and contrast, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur as tourist bases, adhering to Graham Smith’s book, Gatewaysof Discovery. The information furthers the dynamics of tourism by highlighting effective means of engagement and reflection of the major gateway cities from across the globe. Gateways are major entry and access points through which tourists can explore places and spaces, thus define the ideal discovery of tourism (Smith 1-12). Kuala Lumpur, KL Kuala Lumpur is the capital city of Malaysia, an Asian hilly country that is largely mountainous under a tropical climate. Its main languages are English, Chinese and Malay. In tourist rankings, this country holds the third position in terms of tourist numbers in the entire Southeast Asia. Of the total tourist numbers, only thirty-two percent are international, with the regional tourists from the Southeast Asia regions covering the sixty-eight percent. This observation results from its placement which is midway between Singapore and Thailand. As such, it is regarded a strong regional tourist destination than it is international, with Singapore is contributing most of the tourists (Hudman& Richard 458). The capital city, Kuala Lumpur is amongst the key tourist destinations in the country, offering exquisite world-class facilities such as resorts, trading centers and infrastructure located on beautiful hills and along beaches.The main attraction about the city is about the infrastructure, particularly buildings in that apart from just being an icon of the most uniquely built cities in Asia, its mention is common as hosting some of the world’s most popular skyscrapers. Although the city’s layout and infrastructure areultramodern, the ancient heritage of the native peoples still is still alive. The skyscrapers and other buildings are constructed adhering to themes inspired by the Malay cultures which includes color and design.The first thing about Kuala Lumpur that one is sure to learn aboutbeing the Petronas Towers. These towers were once the tallest in the world, adding up to eighty-eight stories above the ground floor. Their average height is four hundred and fifty-two meters, and their design is inspired by Islamic architecture. One of the towers is owned by Petronas while the other houses attractive innings such as art galleries, concert halls, and showrooms. The fascination about the building is its splash of color and height above the ground. The second attractive feature of KL is the Aquaria KLCC whichis the largest aquarium in the world with an estimated 5000 square foot stretch. It is home to one hundred and fifty species of aquatic life ranging from tiger sharks to seahorses and Arapaima. The most amazing thing about the aquarium is that visitors are submerged underwater where they get exposed to real underwater escapes and experience marine life as it is. The final, but not least feature about Kuala Lumpur is the MenaraTower, which stands about four hundred and twenty one meters above the ground, and is a visible landmark from anywhere in Kuala Lumpur. It has a sparkling spindle at the top plus a viewing deck at 276 meters above the ground, which is seemingly an overly breathtaking place to be. Singapore This small island is a Southeast Asia city-state with an all-year hot, humid tropical climate. Its population is constitutively English, Chinese, Tamil and Chinese. It is a popular tourist destination, favored by is placed in central Asia, thus mediating between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean shipping routes, and provides a duty-free port. This city-state is a global tourist destination owing to its rich offering of serenity and nature uniquely blending with a highly technologized layout. Singapore is mainly a business [trading] center. One of the best attractions in Singapore is the Universal Studios. This world renowned center has overly attractive divisions such as dinosaur world, ancient Egypt, a sci-fi world and many more. The second attraction is the Singapore flyer which is also the highest Ferris current in the world. Then there is the Singapore Zoo, which hosts rare animals where one can view thousands of animals in almost-natural habitats. A visit to Singapore without a mention of the Boat and Clarke Quays is impossible. These two are densely populated by clubs and pubs which fill the dazzling night atmosphere with loud Jazz music, creating spectacular entertainment joints for tourists. The final, but not least feature about Singapore is the Singapore Botanical Gardens. These gardens are located in midtown, stretching about sixty acres and offering dense species of fauna. It has a lake near the entrance, and the best thing about it; admission is free! Space and Place When selecting a tourist destination, space and place play key roles. Although these two might be confusing in relating to tourism, they both correlate in favoring or discouraging the attributes of somewhere as a tourist destination. Place is the characteristic about somewhere which make it unique or special in a way, and to some extent the feature that creates an attachment of humans to the place; that is belonging. On the other hand, space is the extensive three-dimensional relationship of objects to direction and position. Or simply put, it is the constituting features of a place that make up a [tourist] destination. The general relationship between the two is that a space can become a place when one becomes familiar with it. When choosing a destination, a tourist considers both, or one of the two aspects in defining its suitability to their wants. Some will consider the climate, featured special festivals or events, status of offered facilities, available recreational resources, or the prices offered for packages, to mention but a few. These features are made common by the sense that any destination can customize, or make efforts to make them available. As such, a tourist who is after these attributes can visit any place in the world as long as it offers them. These are called interchangeable destinations. Other criteria for determining the suitability of a place is through evaluating tangible and intangible contexts of the environment. The tangibles may include air or water quality, pollution, green space, infrastructure, and transportation modes amongst others. The positivity or negativity of these may attract or push away potential tourist. The intangible aspects include quality of place or space, meaning that this particular attribute is tied to the attachments of the place such as emotional, cultural, moral, political, biological, or economic. As such, a person [tourist] may prefer to visit some place over and over again simply because it once offered them a unique connection, and one which they may not want to part with. Important to note is that generally, place and space is more judged using tangible aspects, possibly because their objective as science can quantify them, whereas the intangible aspect is left to individual [personal] judgments. In a summary, place and space is judged according to what is done, being planned upon, or being done upon a particular place and space. Additional aspects such as age and beliefs influence the creation of intangible connections such as emotional or economic bonding between a person and the place/space. All in all, place and space are evidently the mostimportant and widely acceptable factors to consider when it comes to selecting a getaway destination. Personally, and using the above basis, a thorough evaluation between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur would see me prefer Kuala Lumpur over Singapore. Wherein both exhibit similarities such as highly advanced technologies, supporting nature-based tourism, and being closed-knit cities constituting of multiple cultures, there are potential gaps between their handling of tourism. Not to say that any of them is superior to the other, but rather, it is a matter of preference. Kuala Lumpur’s size is bigger than Singapore’s, and from the evaluation, it has more tourist destination sites than Singapore. Economically, the multiple tourist sites in Kuala Lumpur would obviously be competing to garner more numbers, and that means possibly lower pricing. This might not be the case with the city-state Singapore which, owing to its small size has fewer but more advanced tourist sites which are bound to cost more in admission charges. Again, I tend to fancy buildings, and skyscrapers to be precise, which densely populate the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur. The buildings earlier mentioned are world-famous and are most likely to have unique features added to the, not to mention the thrilling feeling of being hosted hundreds of meters above the ground. Singapore has skyscrapers as well, but they are not as numerous, and many might be meant for office or apartment business and not customized for tourists hosting. As such, Kuala Lumpur would be my tourist destination of choice. Conclusion In summing up, one can tell that tourism has more to it than just deciding “I’m going to Africa for the summer!” From the evaluation above, it can be concluded that before reaching such a decision, one must have applied a specific evaluation method to decide why Asia, America, Antarctica , or anywhere else is unsuitable,and why Africa would be their best option. The evaluation method would consider factors such as the dignity of a place, facilities available, climate of the place, or any other factor that suits their travel demands. These factors are categorized into tangible and intangible aspects, and these inturn work to affect the space-place relationship. The space and place theorem of tourism is manifested in the observatin that different people would prefer certain destinations or sites for reasons best known to them. These reasons might be a connection with the physical aspects of a place’s geography, or the intangible attributes given to the place. In a nutshell, place and space interchange in giving meaning to a tourist destination, and depending on an individual’s preference, they can have a choice over where to always visit, where to try and visit or where to never visit. Works Cited Hudman, Lloyd E, and Richard H. Jackson. Geography of Travel & Tourism. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson, 2003. Print. Smith, L G. Gateways to Discovery: The Geography of Tourism Website. S.l.: Kendall Hunt, 2012. Print. Read More