Port Cities : the godsend of tourism…
Port cities are searching to diversify their economy and are attempting to implement new functions creating wealth and employment by relying on their specific character of being an international trade port. The development of tourist activities is an ambition widely shared by numerous port cities today. When it is correctly carried out, this strategy proves to be highly profitable for both for the port and the city. Moreover, city-port dialogue finds a new vitality through this.
The city – port interface is often defined as a special place for the development of international, but also local, tourism. Frequently engaged in a process of rehabilitation and of heritage enhancement, the city – port interface permits the management of an original tourist offer. Beyond the considerable development of cruise calls and associated functions, the availability of real estate and the emblematic sites enable both the setting up of programmes for cultural installations and the ability to receive popular and prestigious events which contribute to the vivacity and tourist renown of the spot. Making port activity into a spectacle, besides, constitutes a first rate and less and less underestimated tourist advantage.
Faced with these new tourist ambitions, port authorities are playing the card of citizenship and partnership with the city. The port, over and above its role as a stakeholder in international trade, finds here the means to take part in the vitality of regional sustainable development. Its implication in projects for tourist development provides it with an exceptional platform to put its own strategies into value. Beyond the exchanges of experience on the revival of the city – port interfaces through tourism, this seminar also shows us that tourism can prove to be the driving force for a win-win city-port dialogue.
