Dinosaurian geosites: successful geotouristic destinations ?

Résumé En

In response to the overcrowding of some tourist sites, as a result of the worldwide growth of this economicsector, innovative strategies emerged around the world. Geotourism offers new destinations and among themdinosaurian geosites hold an important place.The birth of dinosaurian geotourism, can be dated from 1957, the year of the inauguration of the Carnegie Quarry,Utah, the first site museum devoted to this theme. Since then, dinosaur deposits, "high places" of paleontologicaldiscoveries have evolved into geotourism destinations contributing to local economic development based on theconstruction of specific territorial resources through the patrimonialization of these exceptionnals geosites.Three types of deposits characterize dinosaurian geosites:The cemeteries, composed by numerous fossilized bones, allow the paleontologists’ work to be staged, by theselective removal of the most beautiful elements. For example, the Ischigualasto site in Argentina, inscribed onthe UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000, has just inaugurated the William Sill site museum.Nesting areas, where dinosaur nests and/or eggs can be found. Thus, the Dinosaur Egg Geological Museum,established in 2016 on the Qinglong Mountain National Geological Park site, is one of China’s 10 most beautifulmuseums.Footprints and dinosaur tracks left in suitable environments, numerous all over the world and whose interpretationmakes it possible to describe certain behaviors of these disappeared animals. For example, the Cretacico Park,which highlights the tracks discovered in 2002 in Cal Orcko, Bolivia, has become the most visited tourist site inthe country with 170,000 visitors a year.The geotouristic valorisation of these sites, which is based on strategies enhanced at different territorial scales, hasbeen in full expansion for some twenty years.This presentation analyzes how was build the attractiveness of these new tourist destinations by comparing thegraphs of networks of actors involved. As part of the field of digital humanities, the corpus of data relating tothe networks that actors weave have been collected on the web via the links they create between themselvesand with others. The analysis shows that geotourism clusters have been developed creating business ecosystemswhose spontaneous or constructed origin may explain the greater or lesser success and / or sustainability of thesedestinations.Tourism globalization must meet the preservation of these exceptional geoheritage in order to develop sustainabletourism practices.