Abstract
The notion of coviability, which highlights the interdependence that exists between every system and its environment, is applied here to tourism systems at a territorial scale (territorialized tourism systems, TTS). TTS correspond to territorial systems whose dominant feature is touristic or recreational (which raises the question of their degree of specialization). Such systems can be described as articulated around a core system that is itself structured around tourism activities, in close interaction with an encompassing tourism system at a different scale (region, state, world, etc.), as well as with an intra-territorial environment conditioned by geophysical and ecological processes, on the one hand, and by other socio-spatial functions (agriculture, livestock farming, industry, residentiality, etc.), on the other. Since it is a medium of interpretation of the territory, a TTS does not directly include the totality of the territory’s features, and it should not be confused with the sole sub-system of tourism activities in the strictest sense of the term. The question of its viability leads us to explore a dual form of coviability, which is both intra-territorial (having a potential for synergy and coherence of relationships with other sub-systems identifiable within the territory), and extra-territorial (dependence on the touristic meta-system and on fluctuations in its environment). Numerous case studies linked to ongoing research, mainly concerning mountain areas, are taken to illustrate this dual coviability and explain the factors that influence the time lags between the changes in tourist modalities and those of other territorial modalities.
Research undertaken under the aegis of the SYSTERPA program, certified by the Human-Environment Observatory of the Pyrenees – Upper Vicdessos: http://w3.ohmpyr.univ-tlse2.fr/programme2013_6.php – Labex DRIIHM, of the ANR AQAPA program and the MSH Aquitaine TRATSO program
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Notes
- 1.
The approach of coviability proposed by Bourgine is developed in reference to living beings as systems that can be studied in terms of their “autonomy”: “The autonomy of a system is its ability to maintain, through its self-organizing processes, its viability in diverse and changing environments. In other words, the test of autonomy is viability. However, this viability is conceived only by respecting internal constraints such as homeostatic ones. Because the environment is populated with other autonomous systems, viability is also a coviability which depends on interactions with these other systems. Thus, at an organizational level, autonomy must be referred to the laws of coevolution in force at a higher level of organization.” But this approach can be usefully transposed to any other type of system.
- 2.
The introducer of the concept of the geosystem in France, G. Bertrand, suggests inserting his analysis into a broader perspective of the “GTL system” (Geosystem, Territory, Landscape) “in order to analyze how a geographic environment functions as a whole” (Bertrand 2000).
- 3.
“Most of the real systems we know live at the boundary between complexity and chaos. A situation frequently called edge of chaos, where a system is in a condition of fragile equilibrium, on the threshold of collapsing into a rapidly changing state, which may set off a new dynamic phase” (Baggio 2008).
- 4.
“It is argued here that researchers need to venture outside the ‘core system’, to explore the other connections and interactions that extend as far as tourism significantly affects the ways of life, the economic well-being of the system, and the people involved, either directly or indirectly. This comprehensive tourism system encompasses multiple system levels from the core, to the global or Earth system, all interrelated, open and hierarchical” (Farrell and Twining-Ward 2004: 278).
- 5.
“A destination has the properties of a system: an organized assembly of elements or parts (components) connected to each other with some defined relationship, and having the general objective of accomplishing a set of specific functions, or achieving particular goals” (Baggio 2013).
- 6.
We encompass here the complete socio-economics of leisure activities, not limited only to activities related to tourism as defined by the World Tourism Organization (“a tourist is a person who moves outside their familiar environment for at least one night, and for objectives not related to a remunerative activity in the visited contexts”).
- 7.
“In economic terms, writes Vlès (2014:93), they are territorial systems of production and distribution of leisure goods and services.”
- 8.
It is a matter of an initial observation, in the form of a hypothesis, whose validation depends on an in-depth analysis of the system.
- 9.
SYSTERPA program (renewed since 2011, Human-Environment Observatory of the Pyrenees – Upper Vicdessos: http://w3.ohmpyr.univ-tlse2.fr/programme2013_6.php – LabexDRIIHM), TRATSO program (2012–2015, MSHAquitaine: http://www.msha.fr/tratso/), AQAPA program (2014–2017, ANR/UMR CITERES, Tours: http://aqapa.hypotheses.org/)
- 10.
System of advertising and reservation of rental properties between individuals that takes place over the Internet and through social networking tools such as AirBnB.
- 11.
Pastoral Land Associations (Associations Foncières Pastorales), which are encouraged by the elected officials in Vicdessos, regroup private lands to entrust their management to one or more livestock farmers.
- 12.
In Greek, meta “refers to change, succession, the fact of going beyond, next to, transformation. A meta-resort is therefore a resort exposed to change and mutations” (Vlès 2014: 23).
- 13.
- 14.
Extension of the ski area and/or the installation of snow guns and/or the modernization of ski lift systems.
- 15.
Butler’s (1980, 2011) “Tourism Area Life Cycle” model considers the feedback effects of the damage done to local environments due to visits that exceed a tourist destination’s maximum “carrying capacity” as one of the possible causes for triggering a phase of “decline.” But even after accounting for the fact that the concept of “carrying capacity” causes problems of measurement (Deprest 1997) that seem to have no solution, no actual situation has so far confirmed Butler’s hypothesis. As Stock (2003: 246–250) note, “there are no known examples of a tourism location that has collapsed due to an excess of tourists.”
- 16.
Ongoing experiment on a small area around Ghorepani.
- 17.
“Station Sport-Nature du Montcalm.”
- 18.
It is true that the national context of March 2014 was also not favorable to the municipalities governed by the Socialist Party.
- 19.
It is instead the Community of Tarascon-sur-Ariege whose tourism development is associated with that of Vicdessos within a joint union, which predominates in the cultural heritage dimension with an impressive collection of pre-historic attractions (painted caves of Niaux and Bédeilhac, the prehistory park in Tarascon).
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Dérioz, P., Bachimon, P., Loireau, M., Upadhayaya, P.K., Arcuset, L. (2019). Territorialized Tourism Systems and Coviability: Theory and Lessons Learned From a Few Case Studies. In: Barrière, O., et al. Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78111-2_5
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