Landscapes and Tourism - Exploring the touristscapes of Bucharest

This course is about the closely related social phenomena of tourism and landscape and will be examined in the context of a summer school in Bucharest. We propose to discuss touristic interrelations in the context of a synthesising '-scapes' perspective, in order to be able to more easily connect the study of tourism in its spatial logics and effects to the tradition of landscape research on the one hand, and on the other hand to situate it in the context of other '-scapes' (such as soundscape, technoscape, cityscape, eventscape or festivalscape), with which spatial linkages and unequal distributions are discussed, for example.

Marked by several repetitive and radical changes, the Romanian tourism market has experienced growth, with a significant increase in the number, variety, and degree of sophistication of products and attractions within which the place with its sense stands at core. Bucharest as country capital and the most visited city in Romania according to the statistics is particularly interesting as object of research in the context of ‘touristscapes’,  but certainly and therefore a city with differentiated tourist landscapes, but at a level at which tourism still plays a role among many. Bucharest might not be as „touristified” as Rome nor should it be since its profile its different therefore subject to research in order to determine its ”touristscapes”.

In this course students will learn about different theoretical approaches to a human geography topic, learn about the relationship of methods to theories, and conduct an empirical study under supervision in nationally mixed teams. In doing so, they also learn soft skills such as efficiency, time management, prioritisation, etc. The incentive for a motivated work on the respective topic is the publication of the results in an English-language anthology. 

Main topics addressed

• Landscape theory
• Interrelations of tourism an landscapes
• Touristscapes of Bucharest

Learning outcomes

• New and broad knowledge in tourism and landscapes
• Improved ability to apply theory and performing social science methods
• Improved or confirmed proficiency in the English language, oral and written