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Culture is an entity that characterises people, country, region and society – it informs about us, it shows our values, traditions, today’s expressions and future perspectives to other nations. Culture talks about similarities and differences.
The basis of cultural tourism is people’s interest to find out more about the different, to discover, to study, to experience something new and unknown. A person that has learnt about architecture of Gaudi will desire to visit Barselona, a Mozart’s fan will crave for a visit to Salzbourg and it's opera festival. A lot of people will desire to experience a Russian Winter and Maslennica celebrations, or to see the magnificent flower show in Holland. More and more tourists are willing to learn about local traditions, lifestyle, to enjoy local arts and food, to take part in local cultural events. Personalised attitude is expected. What a pleasant thing to write to a friend: “Yesterday I was in a fishermen festival in Salacgriva. I took part in boot throwing competition, won it, the prize was a barrel of herrings. We were eating and drinking together with the locals, but still we couldn’t finish the food, so we gave leftovers to the kindergarten.”
Cultural tourism is a particular mode of tourism that is associated with the culture of some region or territory, lifestyle, history, traditions and religion of local people, artistic and architectural values that they have created.
“Cultural tourism is the kind of tourism where the aim of traveller is to visit and participate in cutlure activities and cultural heritage of other nations or the nation of tourist” (Dictionary of Tourism and Hospitality Terms, Riga, 2008).
Cultural tourism is an original synthesis of culture and tourism industry. In general, culture is international – music and dance is comprehended by everybody, but the most surprising and interesting is national originality. “Most cultural products can be defined as complex, especially when the works produced reguire specific knowledge or rely on abstract notions that require the consumer's ability to appreciate such concepts. Complexity becomes even greater when the consumer is unfamiliar with a particular type of product.” (Marketing Culture and Arts, Montreal, 2001, p.43). Therefore development of national cultural tourism events is very crucial in order to achieve the diversity of tourism events in the international tourism market. Every nationality with its cultural inheritance such as language and folklore, architecture plus today’s understanding is interesting for others. In opposite to electronic ways of communication and exchange of information, cultural events give people an unforgettable impression that is brought by the effect of presence and the common feelings. Cultural events make people feel united by common goal and interests, which draws people together. In order to attend some event a person analyses his or her needs and chooses between thousands of offers. Why? Because the thirst for knowledge of the mankind and the world itself is vast enough, so it would be impossible to experience everything by 100%.
Cultural tourism can be associated with different types of events that can be classified as follows:
Examples from Latvia
Examples : Shows of Valmiera Drama Theatre regularly assemble large numbers of inhabitants of Riga. Garden of Sculptures by Ivars Feldbergs in Sabile is a popular local destination for art lovers.
Examples: The castle of Turaida is the central place of interest in Sigulda, Basilica of Aglona – in Aglona, the monument of Kr.Valdemārs in Ventspils is the most popular in the city, the events of the “Museum Night” are attractive all over Latvia
Examples: Opera Festival in Sigulda, Music Festival “Positivus” in Salacgrīva, Early Music Festival in Rundāle Palace, Festival of Plays by R.Blaumanis in Valmiera, Sand Sculpture Festival in Jelgava, Cēsis Art Festival, Music Festival “Sun of Saldus”, International Art Festival “White Night” in Riga.
Examples: Latgale Song Festival in Daugavpils, Day of Kokle (a Latvian national musical instrument) in Jūrmala, Folklore Festival “Annas Dagdā”, Festival of Amateur Theatres in Liepāja “Zeme, Debess, Jūra’’, Modern Music Festival “Fonofest” in Uplandi, Cēsis region.
Examples: Jomas Street Festival in Jūrmala, Rīga 800, Ventspils 700+20, Festival of Cēsis Town “Pikniks pilsētā” (“Picnic in town”), Fishermen’s celebration in Engure, Roja, Mērsrags and Salacgrīva.
Examples: pilgrimage to Aglona on the Day of the Ascension of Saint Mary, Easter and Christmas events in Latvian churches, Midsummer celebrations – Līgo, Easter and Christmas events all around Latvia.
Examples: Festival of Middle Ages “Livonija.1378. Wenden” in Cēsis, Tournament of Knights and celebration of May in the Castle of Livonian Order in Ventspils.
Examples:” Kite party 2010” in Ventspils, gathering people fond of kiting, Get-together of Antique cars in Jūrmala and Rīga, Gathering of the Baltic Sea Region “Kurland Bike Meer 2010” in Ventspils, uniting people driving bikes.
As we can see, offers of architectural and professional art, as well as event organizing in towns, are associated with cities, therefore it is called urban cultural tourism. We, on the other hand, will do a research on events and elements that could be successfully used in the development of cultural tourism events in rural areas, which is a working field for local tourism entrepreneurs. These events are more associated with the development of national traditions - history, religion and non-material culture. In Latvia there are several outstanding cultural values that can be used by businessmen such as “Song and Dance Festival tradition” and “Space of Suitu culture”, that are incorporated in the UNESCO World Non-Material Cultural Heritage List. “The Book-case of Dainas (Latvian folk songs)” and historic peoples' live road through the Baltics – "The Baltic Road” are listed in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. This indicates the possibility to create cultural tourism events using older, as well as more recent expressions of traditions. We can involve tourists in events by giving them an opportunity to experience something new and valuable.
Local cultural potential for every nation is a great power. If national traditions and community’s interests are used creatively, an attractive and exciting event may be produced not only for the local, but also for international market.
In this module we will analyze an example of a cultural tourism event created by Latvian rural recreation complex “Rakši” – event called “Celebration of Līgo in Rakši”, held in June of 2010 (Līgo is a Latvian traditional celebration of Midsummer Night).
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