Project Description
Architecture tourism (shortly, ‘architourism’) is a relatively new niche within the world of tourism. As a more specific form of urban tourism, the main focus of architourist lies on visiting sites of modern architecture. The novelty of architourism causes it to be an unknown sector in the tourism world, among both the public and professionals. This exploratory research aims to clarify architourism and its different aspects. The research relies on qualitative data, namely semi-structured interviews, participant observation and content analysis. The research provides the reader an insight into architourism, its relation to city branding and the specific backgrounds and motives of architourists. Specifically, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, is used as a case study to examine the presence and development of architourism. The results of the research show that there is a certain relationship between architourism and tourists with specific motives and backgrounds, in which branding strategy and media are also involved.
Author: M. Dolstra (2015)
