The “Spirit of the Place” gives meaning or essence to a particular place or creation (Graves and Poraj-Wilczynska, 2009). The spirit of the place pertains to the intangible elements of the creation that adds meaning to its tangible elements. Being intangible, the spirit of the place may be interpreted differently by different individuals; hence, a single work of art may instigate different feelings or essences depending on the persons looking at it. In other words, while the tangible elements of the place or object remain unchangeable through time, the interpretation or the feeling derived from it does change, because people change (Bott & Banning, 2008, p. 1). It is due to this relationship of human experience to the interpretation of the spirit of the place that different people with different cultural or religious background may reach different destination of experiences by looking or being within the same place (Akkerman and Cornfeld, 2010).
Destination managers must make sure that they are able to make people who visit the place experience the “spirit of place,” so that the concept becomes verifiable, despite that fact that it is generally regarded as an abstract concept or relatively undefinable. Destination managers can efficiently achieve such task by helping people assess or gauge the spirit of place objectively or quantifiably through the use of different tools, such as the Total Recreation Experience model and the Thematic Apperception Test to help people experience the spirit of place (Bott & Banning, 2008, p. 4, 11). Moreover, being able to quantify the spirit of place can help destination managers to involve stakeholders to design, build, and preserve a certain place (Bott & Banning, 2008, p. 6).
References:
Akkerman, A., and Cornfeld, A. (2010). Greening as an urban design metaphor: looking for the city’s soul in leftover spaces. Structurist, 30-33.
Bott, S.E. and Banning, J.H. (2008). The Use of Psychometric Scales to Measure Spirit of Place: Relevance to Heritage Conservation Efforts from Ninewa Province, Iraq. Retrieved from: <http://www.international.icomos.org/quebec2008/cd/toindex/77_pdf/77-RrEt-92.pdf>.
Graves, T., & Poraj-Wilczynska, L. (2009). Spirit of place’ as process: archaeography, dowsing and perceptual mapping at belas knap. Time and Mind, 167-193.
