Tourist Attraction as a Social Resource (the Case of the Russian Provincial Town)

Abstract

The main emphasis of this article is the problem of the social construction of tourist attractions as a factor in the development of the territorial structure of society. Socio-spatial inequality is a result of structuring of social practices around different resources. The processes of development of territorial structure in contemporary Russian society are closely related with distribution of state power resources. The author argues that logic of constructing tourist attractions is the alternative way to create socio-territorial space. The aim of this article is to analyze the features of a tourist attraction as a social resource on the example of one of the small provincial towns in the Vologda region in Russia. The author analyzes the construction of tourist attractions as a communicative process with specific logic. Tourist attraction as a social resource is discursive and scarce. Moreover, the author argues that process of scolarisation is the most intensive internal tendency for their construction. Nomination and development of tourist attractions within certain areas of the space is a factor of inclusion of these areas in resource-distribution networks and flows. Finally, tourist attraction is a resource for different types of capital: sociocultural, communicative, cultural, political, economical, regional, territorial, and others. Transformation of resource into capital is a typical social process that is considered in this article.