Actor Networks and Development of Cultural Tourist Destinations

Introduction

The concept of cultural tourism, although quite widespread, is full of controversies and still elicits not always convergent understandings (Brito, 2009). In this sense, Ashworth (1995), like Richards (1996), point out that the definition of cultural tourism depends on the concept of culture used. On the other hand, the concept of tourist destination, although represents a fundamental aspect of tourism research, it is so common that it is often taken for granted and not defined (Pearce, 2014). With the intention of delimiting the framework of the study, cultural tourism is defined as that which is related to the visit to urban spaces with attractions of heritage interest (monuments, archaeological sites, historical buildings, cultural landscapes, etc.). Regarding the cultural tourist destination, it is conceived from the perspective of the relationships between the tourist actors, that is, individuals or organizations that have an impact on the tourist activity of the destination and that interacts with other actors to identify the needs of the tourists and create an experience for them (Ledesma et al., 2021); from this perspective, a tourist destination is a co-production system (Aarstad et al., 2015), that can be represented by a network composed of actors and the connections between them (Baggio et al., 2010; Ledesma, 2012; Ledesma and Simancas, 2020).

There is a wide and varied set of theoretical contributions that have been used to understand collaboration between actors in tourist destinations, as shown Fyall et al. (2012) and Merinero and Pulido (2016). Network theory is the theoretical framework used in this article and, like other relationship-based theories, such as relational exchange theory, stakeholder theory or collaborative game theory, is driven by the recognition and acceptance of mutual dependence, and the need for reciprocity in the search for shared interests (Fyall et al., 2012). In this way, from this relational perspective, a tourist destination can be analysed using the theoretical and methodological approach provided by Social Network Analysis (from now on, SNA), which allows the structure created by the relationships established between tourism actors to be identified. Using various information gathering techniques, data is obtained regarding the relationships between the actors who make up the various networks in a tourist destination and then analysed using matrix algebra, graphs, and networks, which provide the structural properties of the networks (Merinero, 2015). SNA has been one of the most used methods in tourism studies over the past two decades (Pulido and Merinero, 2018) and it has been implemented to analyse actor networks in tourist areas located on the coast, in the mountains, at heritage sites, etc. For a complete review of the scientific literature that uses SNA in tourism, see Casanueva et al. (2016), Merinero (2015), Merinero and Pulido (2016) and Valeri and Baggio (2021).

In this context, the relational structure of the networks of actors in Ronda, Loja and Osuna is analyzed, three cultural tourist destinations with important attractions of heritage interest that share the particularity that they are “medium cities” in the interior of Andalusia, that is, that they are outside the area of influence of the big cities and have a central role in the environment in which they are located and, therefore, its contribute functionally to the cohesion of the territorial structure of the region. The comparative analysis of the selected case studies is interesting because, despite the fact that they have similar geographical, demographic, heritage, and economic characteristics, which would minimize possible differences in terms of tourist outcomes, they have different tourism developments. The analytical interest is focused on the degree centrality indicator for socio-centric networks and asymmetrical relationships to obtain the indegree (prestige) and outdegree (influence) of the various actors. On the other hand, the analysis of the selected case studies allows to respond to the demands of Baggio et al. (2010) or Merinero (2015), among others, regarding the need to increase the number of comparative studies that link the relational structure with the development of tourist destinations in the research agenda. In addition, this book chapter responds to one of the limitations detected in a previous work of the authors where the convenience of expanding the number of study cases was raised to consolidate the results obtained and strengthen the conclusions (see anonymized).