Tourism as a Process of Promoting and Developing Traditional Settlements

The impact of tourism development is varied and contradictory. But nobody can deny that tourism contributes to economic development and culture. Arid and remoted areas at risk of abandonment and desolation are developing and continuing their course in time. However, this is not always the right way of this development. The unregulated and unlimited building, the wasting of natural resources, the lack of aims and planning, usually lead to undesired results. New trends and prospects for tourism product development want tourism to turn from mass to quality or alternative tourism. Part of the alternative tourism is the cultural tourism, which is the search for a different holiday mode, focusing on cultural destinations and authentic experiences. Staying in an active traditional settlement can be part of such an experience. Participation in daily habits and lifestyle of residents, in local events, customs and traditions of the region as a whole living experience, can be the basis of alternative tourism but also can become a development and promotion tool of this place. In this process, the interior space has active participation. The study, the depiction and interpretation of it, as well as the usable objects and the furniture that make it up; constitute an important parameter in this experience. This presentation is completed with the analysis and evaluation of the example of the reuse abandoned buildings, in the “Kostos” settlement of Paros, in the context of a diploma thesis.