Gregory J. Ashworth, Professor of Heritage Planning, University of Groningen, Netherlands

The world-wide growth in heritage tourism presents destinations with three main issues: the resource identification, the product commodification and the market multi-selling problem. The first poses questions about the nature, characteristics and recognition of a heritage resource; the second examines how such a resource is activated and assembled in resource combinations to produce tourism products; the third accepts that tourism is only one use among many and thus the same resources may be used in different products and the same products sold on different markets.

Since the late nineteenth century Newfoundland has offered two main tourism products one derived from the physical geography of indented rocky coast and barren interior, the other from the economic, settlement and cultural geography.  The first has been commodified as 'wilderness' providing health and spiritual advantages: the second was the self-conscious reinvention of the Newfoundland tradition of simple fisherfolk.  Neither are Newfoundland inventions although few places have become so dependent upon the idea, as both an export product and, even more important, for the shaping of local own identities.  Both 'wilderness' constructed from nature, and 'folk' constructed from culture can be traced to nostalgic romantic reactions to nineteenth century industrialisation and urbanisation as well as the rise of ethnic nationalism which needed the identification of ethnicity as a basic prerequisite.

The two are combined and expressed in the single powerful idea of the outport.  Prosaically this is just a settlement adaption to a physical environment and to an economic function which resulted in settlements with distinctive physical forms, a fishing dependent economy, and a cohesive local society whose isolation nurtured and then preserved 'folk' characteristics of language, custom and music.  This association between a concept of culture and a particular settlement form has grown into such a potent symbol of 'authentic' Newfoundland for both residents and tourists that for both, 'the "real" Newfoundland is the outports and their people' (Overton, 1980:106).  For the former its continued existence is a reminder of the resilience of the 'fighting Newfoundlander' in the face of climatic, economic and political hardship.  To the tourist the romance of the outport is a combination of the visibly picturesque and the socially quaint.   The world-wide success of the novel, 'The Shipping News' (Proulx, 1993) is just the most recent projection of this romance (generating a 'Proulx tourism') and follows earlier biographies (Mowat, 1972; 1989; Macfarlane, 1991) describing 'the last stronghold of non-industrial values'.

The demand for this tourism product clearly exists and for most visitors the experience of the outport is an essential component of the visit without which the 'real' Newfoundland has just not been experienced.  The problem facing the tourism industry, however, is that this product is effectively unsaleable. The difficulty lies not in the untenability of, 'the idea that Newfoundland culture is out there in the outports and that it has certain essential characteristics once and for all' (Overton, 1996: 17) nor the intrinsic deception of 'staged authenticity' (Cohen, 1979).  It is that the 'authenticity of the experience' has to be preserved by a voluntary suspension of disbelief on the part of the consumer and an extreme skill and sensitivity on the part of the tourism producers and promoters.

The defining characteristic of an outport is physical isolation while the activation of a resource for tourism depends on physical access for the tourist.  The presence of the tourist is not only a threat to the continuing existence of the resource, it is a sign that the resource, sensu stricto, no longer exists.  Of course in practice such a position can be modified and outports classified according to their type or degree of accessibility.  Public transport is scarce, neglected by the provincial government and ignored in tourism information, resulting in a tourist dependence on the motor-car, either brought on the Marine Atlantic ferry (accounting for around one-third of visitors) or hired on the island, both of which are expensive, raising the costs of the outport as tourism product.  Most tourist accommodation is found either in the towns (dominantly in St John's) or in motels along the major highways which have been constructed largely through the uninhabited interior of the island rather than through the coastal settlements.  Thus even if tourists can be brought to the outports, they have only limited possibilities for remaining over-night.  The provincial government has encouraged 'hospitality home' development and O'Dea (1984) has made a plea for the establishment of a chain of outport 'Heritage Inns'.  However outport accommodation marketing is generally not through the official tourism channels.

There are four main solutions to the problem of commodifying the outport for tourism.

1) The souvenir outport.
The outport's cultural resources can be consumed as either folkcraft or nightlife, elsewhere.  In St.John's this tourism experience is spatially concentrated into the well-defined area of central Water Street and Duckworth Street, including the restored 'Murray Premises' speciality shopping Mall, and the interconnecting passages between the two.  This area is now almost exclusively occupied by souvenir/craft retailing and food and drink facilities.  In such retailing the production process and even the producer is as much on display as the product itself.  The food and drink establishments stress combinations of elements drawn from the British 'pub', the waterfront seaman's tavern, the 'celtic caile' and a newly discovered Newfoundland gastronomy (cod's tongues, seal flipper pie, moose stew, cod 'n brewis etc).  All are simply marketing variations on the theme of the outport, its people, music, crafts, food, drink and visual image.  The tourist can thus buy the product without the inconvenience of physical transport.

2) The urban outport. St John's has expanded
to incorporate former outports which retain their physical forms which are now scrupulously preserved. The 'Battery' and Quidi Vidi village  provide the physical experience of the outport, although gentrification of these desirable properties excludes the social dimension of what otherwise is a virtual outport experience within
 strolling distance of  the major hotels.

3) The outport heritage trail.
The recognition that a single outport is unlikely to detain the visitor longer than an hour, that accommodation is likely to be elsewhere and that the car is the favoured means of transport, has led to the promotion of 'heritage-tourism routes' linking sets of outports sometimes with the addition of an historic, scenic or ethnic appellation  ('The Captain Cook Drive', 'Marine Drive', 'The French Islands Drive', 'The Irish Loop Drive' and the like).  One fundamental difficulty of the 'heritage routes' is that being road oriented, they contradict the basic patterns of geographical accessibility that they are endeavouring to exploit.  Traditional regionalisation, being water oriented, focused upon the bays but the heritage regions being created focus instead upon the peninsulas.  The three most developed of these are all relatively close to St John's and the eastern end of the island. The Avalon Peninsula, indented into what amounts to four separate peninsulas, is the most accessible and developed offering a number of circuits for day or weekend trips from St John's that includes the major sites of Argentia, Placentia, Ferryland and Trepassey. The Baccalieu contains some of the most self-consciously pretty villages such as Brigus, Cupids, Carbonear or Harbour Grace.  The Bonavista Peninsula is less accessible but has the notable towns of Trinity and Bonavista and proximity to the most accessible National Park on the island selling a combination of maritime history, whales and scenic interiors.  The Burin Peninsula is the least accessible and frequented despite the potential attractions of Grand Bank, the south shore ferry at Bay L'Argent and the ferry for the French islands at Fortune.

4) The developed outport.
St.Pierre has a similar physical setting and settlement history to other outports with the exception of the single distinguishing characteristic of being the last political remnant of French North America.  This alone has determined that its development is quite unique.  The concentration of national government investment, together with its gallic characteristics has resulted in few of the outport attributes remaining extant.  It has three main tourism products: the excursion potential of the 'island off an island' phenomenon, the attraction to 'collectors' of countries, and most important the selling of a 'little bit of France' in the New World to neighbouring markets,  combining foreign exoticism with proximity and North American cultural familiarity.  Such a development path is just not an option for the rest.

The above inventory of the marketed heritage outports includes only a small percentage of the total, neglecting almost completely the Great Northern Peninsula and the Western Shore, the South Shore between Port aux Basques and Harbour Breton and the highly indented North Shore.  However the outports here sold to tourists tend either be ancillary to scenic drives or are served, if at all, by provincial spurs off the Trans-Canada Highway.

The outport is thus a highly flexible product range which can be sold to both residents, legitimating their place identities and to visitors as a defined brand-image, an on-site experience and portable souvenir.  It is, in these respects, a relatively problem free tourism product range in Newfoundland.  The difficulties lie mostly in rendering accessible what is by its nature inaccessible. This is compounded by the inability to finance the development of a supporting infrastructure of sufficient quality to sustain and expand the possibilities as well as find the exploitable markets in competition with spatially better favoured areas.  In other words the tourism industry echoes so much of the history of Newfoundland in general, namely a richness in the resource base is unlikely to be transformed into rich economic gains for the inhabitants.