Tourism Review Online Magazine 2 / 2006

A powerful call to “contextualise” our time on the planet - to understand how “it was”, to feel what our ancestors had touched – encourage amateurs and professionals to stage and visit various re-enactments and festivals with a historic twist. Reliving the past is a bit of deja-vu for participants and quests and at the same time a lot of work for our colleagues. This issue of the Travel-Review present a variety of such events and attempts reflecting on them from various perspectives. A private account of the re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings is published along with observations how this event has been managed. A company recreating Roman atmosphere in an ancient city of Jerash tells about the project. Local tourist board describes a variety of historic festivals an Italian city of Tretino hosts. Metaphorical recreation of the past – trips in search for ancestors - represents another aspect of the same thirst for reliving the past, and we reproduce an analysis of ancestral visits to Scotland conducted by the national tourist board.

Religious tourism represents an expanding but poorly researched domain. Journeys to holy places of various faiths attract not only believers, but secular pilgrims. In terms of professional approach, the tourism related to pilgrimage is not homogeneous; it is also structured differently in terms of participants, motives, budgeting, products and etc. We are only approaching this subject in this issue and suggest topics related to different religions and professional frames of reference. Ancient Indian sites dazzle imagination and attract not only Buddhists. Information from Jordan describes a strategy of targeting specific tourists. This Middle Eastern country, the cradle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is promoting biblical and archaeological sites. Believers organizing pilgrimages to the Russian Orthodox monasteries highlight the spiritual and educational function of pilgrimage. Many pilgrimage services in Russia have developed special programs to introduce pilgrims to the history, architecture and the cultural significance of the most interesting places encountered on their itinerary. Charity is another important component of these pilgrimage programs. Professional aspects of pilgrimages’ management and organizations are analyzed in the most extensive research of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

Professional discussions in our November issue are concerned with the questions of transport. Transport is an essential part of any journey – one might argue that only advancers in transport technologies allowed tourism to become an everyday reality for millions in the 20th century. We have decided to observe some issues regarding one of the “patriarch” means of transport – rail roads in Europe. We introduce the Railteam alliance which will offer travellers high-speed and hopefully high-quality travel across European borders. Two articles discuss some implications of a simple “change of harbor” for one the main service providers: Eurostar has announced cross-Channel rail services move from London Waterloo to St Pancras. Helicopters as new and successfully expanding way of transportation and sightseeing represents our second topic in this section. How passengers perceive such trips - as a service conveniently linking distant palaces or as an attraction of its own? Reports from different parts of the world show that, whatever is the answer, this type of travel services is rapidly growing. There are even claims that such tourism can destroy natural reserves by constant "Ride of the Valkyries”. Shall the air remain the dominion of the birds as it used to be when Sikorsky had not yet invented his helicopter?

For our Spa section we have arranged a triple presentation. Fist of all, meet our colleagues: a Canada-based travel author Anita Draycott and an on-line magazine Traveltowellness.com. They provided a detailed and personal account of various spa facilities. We also present two different (in any sense) spa destinations: France and Malaysia. Although these countries are popular tourist destinations, we hope that we will be able to tell our readers something new – and this is our third presentation today. From the list of World Heritage sites accepted as such by UNESCO we have chosen those in France and Malaysia that are praised for their natural beauty. Let the nature heal, too.