INTERPRETATION OF MYTHICAL LANDSCAPE AND HOLY GEOGRAPHY IN CREATIVE CULTURAL TOURISM

Abstract

This paper presents a scientific analysis of the topic of interpretation of intangible heritage in tourism – through the myth of the arrival of the Slavs. By planned design, myth becomes a real tourist attraction. Embarking from the postulates of the paper, we try to explain the importance of the local community for the interpretation of the intangible heritage and of establishing a sustainable system of its interpretation. The paper makes an effort to emphasize and prove the exceptional relevance of animation for the shaping and developing of a tourist product. Interdisciplinary features of the paper impose the use of recent sources from a variety of scientific fields and disciplines (archaeology, anthropology, phylology, cultural creative tourism, economy of experience). This entire paper has features of a scientific review which mostly uses desk method and deconstruction analysis aimed at intangible heritage and interpretative capacities in animation, within the economy of experience. The process of interpretation, which includes recognition and shaping or 'packaging', converts the myth into a tourist product. This packaging is not a mere cosmetic process which would help improve the product or simplify it. Interpretation is actually the essence, or the basic content of the product, which is sold in order to enrich the tourist offer by traditional elements which, in a large measure, form base of the national and regional identity. The contribution of this paper is the animation model for the interpretation of intangible heritage in a tourist destination of cultural tourism, which gives guidelines for the interpretation and formulation of intangible heritage for tourist purposes at a more subtle and higher level, outside the hitherto known frame of predictable and familiar processes.This model indicates the way to interpret the myth and to recognize and register its particular parts through the system, in the space, as local, regional and national attraction, which is illustrated by the example of 'holy geography'. A special contribution is in the change of paradigm, where it is shown that a tourist area can be interpreted in a novel, original way, as a spiritual resource for tourists visiting the area, and for the local population.