Original Scientific Article
Systems Approach to Cultural Tourism and Events
Tadeja Jere Jakulin
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies – Turistica, Slovenia
tadeja.jerejakulin@upr.si
In this paper, we will present the systems approach methodology, which has been
widely used in the natural sciences and engineering for the last seven decades since
Ludwig von Bertalanffy published his manifesto on general systems theory (1952)
andNorbertWiener his on cybernetics (1948). The intention of general systems the-
ory and cybernetics is the ‘ontology’ of action, which is shown by feedback informa-
tion. Its goal is to find a method to predict the consequence of a decision-making
action. Industrial engineering recognised it when Forrester published Industrial Dy-
namics (1961), and social sciences rediscovered it with Senge’s work on the learning
organisation The Fifth Discipline (1990). Cultural tourism is an element of a com-
plex tourism system within global and local dimensions, in which cultural events,
as even smaller elements, play essential roles within the range of tourism goods and
services. As a methodology for the research of complex phenomena, the systems ap-
proachwill explain two of itsmethods, systems thinking andmodelling, as those that
can significantly influence decision-making when taken into account. We will show
the appropriateness of the methodology within cultural tourism decision-making
and modelling.
Keywords: systems approach, analytical and systems thinking, complexity, cultural
tourism and events, modelling
https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.12.185-191
Introduction
The systems approach became an optimal methodol-
ogy for creating solutions within engineering and the
natural sciences a few decades ago. The feedback loop,
which represents the circle within a system, shows that
correct anticipation of the future outcome is possible
only if a decision-maker observes problems in reality
from a systems point of view. Such a point of view, or
‘the big picture,’ is a view in which all observed sub-
jects or objects are seen as connected, interdependent,
influencing each other, as is known in nature and en-
gineering. Frequently, it is difficult to see closed con-
nections and interdependency within social and or-
ganisational systems composed of elements (compo-
nents, departments) that are nested within each other
even though they are not only elements but also sys-
tems. Nesting and the difficulties of seeing boundaries
among the elementsmake them complex systems and,
as such, they need appropriate methodology to ex-
plain them, as well as solutions for their problems.
Tourism and its subsystems of cultural tourism with
events and all their connections, boundaries, and in-
terdependency represent systems complexity. The sys-
tems approach, with its systems thinking and mod-
elling methods, can survive the most rigid testing and
can find systems solutions.
Analytical and Systems Thinking
A vision without systems thinking ends up painting
lovely pictures of the future with no deep understand-
ing of the forces that must be mastered to move from
here to there (Senge, 1990).
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Tadeja Jere Jakulin Systems Approach to Cultural Tourism and Events
(1) People, decision makers
for cultural tourism policy
(2) Process of creating
cultural tourism policy
(3) Cultural tourism
policy created
Figure 1 Model of Conventional (Linear) Thinking
(C) Group of experts
and decision-makers
(D) Processes and
programs of creation
(A) Cultural tourism policy
created
(E) Environment(B) Feedback Information
Figure 2 Systems Model of Cultural Tourism Policy
Some relevant paradigms to analysis were descri-
bed by Rosenhead (1989) and Mulej et al. (1994), in-
cluding soft analysis, the hard study of a system, criti-
cal thinking, strategic options development and anal-
ysis, and the dialectical theory of systems. The linear
(analytical) approach is based on interpretation as a
three-step thought process. It takes apart that which it
seeks to understand, then attempts to explain the be-
haviour of the parts taken separately, and finally, and
finally tries to develop an aggregate understanding of
the components into an explanation of the whole.
The systems approach uses a different process. It
puts the system in the context of the larger environ-
ment of which it is a part and studies the role it plays in
the larger whole. The parts are no longer the primary
focus. The elements are essential, but what ismore im-
portant is the interrelationship between the elements
as they work together to fulfil the purpose of the whole
system.A systems approach is optimal for understand-
ing interdependency, which requires a way of think-
ing differently than analysis; it needs systems thinking.
The number of works dedicated to the systems think-
ing, systems models, and methodologies devoted to
social, economic and natural sciences is enormous.
These include System Dynamics (Forester, 1961), Sys-
tem Thinking (Senge, 1990; Vennix, 1996), Autopoi-
etic System (Maturana & Varela, 1998), Living Sys-
tems (Miller, 1978), Viable Systems (Beer, 1959), An-
ticipatory Systems (Rosen, 1985) as well as others. Sys-
tems thinking searches for the optimal solutions and
answers from right to the left, as presented with the
systems model of cultural tourism policy in Figure 2.
The primary step of the system approach starts at A:
the outputs or vision of the optimal cultural tourism
policy. The expert group uses as fundamental ques-
tions the questions about the influence of optimal cul-
tural tourism (outputs, A) to the environment (E –
other people, nature, community), uses feedback in-
formation (B – what will cultural tourism policy bring
to the E) and asks 1. What will the vision (A), outputs,
organisational effectiveness, environmental effective-
ness (Getz & Frisby, 1988) bring to the environment,
environmental uncertainty, community context, net-
works complexity (E)? and 2. What is the current sit-
uation (C), inputs, ideas, teams, finances, material re-
sources, facilities (Getz & Frisby, 1988) for achieving
(A)? and 3. How can they help in the process (B) either
with the help or without any worries if they cannot in-
fluence the process? To avoid the trap of the simplicity
of systems thinking, one can build a simulation model
of effective decision-making in which one attempts to
implement the optimal systems solutions. The model
helps identify the flows and uses of resources, includ-
ing money and information, which are the life-blood
of all events. It helps identify key stakeholders who
have to be brought into decision-making (Getz, 2004).
Systems evaluation helps the manager keep the ‘big
picture’ in mind, whereas the natural tendency is to
get lost in daily problem-solving.
The systems model differs from the linear model.
Environment and feedback information are those parts
of systems thinking and modelling that enable see-
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Tadeja Jere Jakulin Systems Approach to Cultural Tourism and Events
Complex tourism system
Catering &
accommodation systems
Travel & transport systems
Cultural tourism, events
systems
Education systems
Supporting systems
(banks, services, etc.)
Sport, recreation and
wellness systems
State administration
systems
Legislation, safety &
insurance systems
Health systems
Environment
Figure 3 Interdependency of the Cultural Tourism System, Other Subsystems and the Environment
ing the ‘big picture’ point of view to an observer. The
model’s feedback information shows internal eval-
uation, which pertains to management’s collective
responsibility to ensure that all functions and pro-
grammes are meeting goals and that operations are
as efficient as possible. The external evaluation covers
both the organisation’s linkages with other agencies
and stakeholders and the impacts of its actions (Getz,
2004)
Ongoing assessment helps steer the institution, or-
ganisation, and manager towards meeting their goals.
The event can always be improved, marketing en-
hanced, and benefits increased. Furthermore, evalu-
ation can help avoid and suggest ways to eliminate
or enhance negative consequences. Evaluation means
assigning a value or worth to something, and it inher-
ently involves subjective judgment as well as technical
analysis (Getz, 2004).
The Complexity of Cultural Tourism and Events
The art of systems thinking lies in seeing through com-
plexity to the underlying structures generating change
(Senge, 1990).
In the context of tourism, we can use an expanded
concept of culture. From this point of view, culture
serves not only human education through the pro-
vision of music, theatre, museums, exhibitions, fes-
tivals and listed buildings, but permeates every area
of human life (Dreyer, 2000). According to Adams
(2008), cultural tourism is a type of special interest
tourism involving leisure travel to view or experience
the distinctive character of a place, its peoples, and its
products or productions. The complexity of cultural
tourism and events is visible since they are elements
of a more extensive, tourism system. The word ‘com-
plex’ is used only to indicate that the problem treated
here cannot be expressed solely in hard (quantitative)
relations and that most relevant values are qualita-
tive.We consider complex systems to be networks cre-
ated of many components, which interact among each
other in a nonlinear manner; theymay evolve through
self-organisation so that they are neither completely
regular nor completely random (Sayama, 2015). With
a conception of complex systems, we also present a
system within which the complexity of interactions
among system elements plays a leading role. These
elements are systems themselves and, for this reason,
the behaviour of a system as a whole can hardly be pre-
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Tadeja Jere Jakulin Systems Approach to Cultural Tourism and Events
dicted: the system of systems, which exchanges energy
and informationwith its environment while in transit,
inflected by internal and external influences. Organ-
isational systems are complex because of the existing
relations and nesting of its subsystems. This is repre-
sented in Figure 3.
The systemswithin a system of tourism nest within
each other, which means that they represent subsys-
tems at the same time that they represent systems as
wholes. The interdependency and relations among the
entities of these subsystems are far more critical than
independent systems. This is especially seen between
the subsystems of travel and transport, catering and
accommodation, art and culture, sports, recreation
and wellness subsystems. There are certain interde-
pendent relationships among all subsystems, which
strongly influence each other. If we map the tourism
system to the local (national) or global (international
destination), we reach a level of a system, which en-
compasses a wide variety of partners, branches and in-
stitutions. They create a complex system as such; with
all interconnections, interdependency, and nesting in
each other (dependent on the size of a subsystem).
General Tourism SystemModel
Remember, always, that everything you know, and ev-
erything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your
model out there where it can be viewed. Invite oth-
ers to challenge your assumptions and add their own
(Meadows, 2008).
A society is a real world, which changes by al-
tering relations among its participants as well as in-
teractions with the environment. Tourism is often
studied as an industry, alongside hospitality, with re-
lated educational programmes stressing professional
career preparation. It is also a social, cultural, and
economic phenomenon with all its potential impacts
(Getz, 2007). Learning and experience through deci-
sion-making provide tourism development and gro-
wth that are observed through its evolution. The evo-
lution of society and skills as part of the past and the
anticipation of the future causes these systems to grow
and develop with the environment as the restriction.
Thus, we can say that tourism system is, as its subsys-
tems, dynamic. Regulation is necessary but far away
(P) Tourism process
(D) Decision-making team
(X) Inputs (Y) Outputs
(U)State of
environment
Figure 4 A General Model of Tourism as a Goal-Oriented
System (adapted from Jere Jakulin & Kljajić,
2006)
from being sufficient. The most important is a strate-
gic vision of a development, and the understanding
that the environment influences the prediction of the
strategic vision.
For this reason, tourism systems can be defined
slightly differently, so that the fundamental causes of
system behaviour are emphasised. Usually, they are
called ‘management subsystems.’ The tourism sys-
tem can be described with a model, which is an ide-
alised and simplified image of the real situation or
phenomenon and contains only necessary quantities
and their functional dependencies. The model is an
attempt to identify critical variables in a case study
and the relationship that exists among them (Kljajić,
1998).
In Figure 4, we define a generalmodel of tourism as
a goal-oriented system with a pair (P,D). P represents
the managing process in the tourism system, D the
managing subsystem. Loop P → Y → D → U → P
represents feedback information, which functions on
the cause-and-effect principle; therefore, we can call
it ‘reactive control.’ For small perturbances, such con-
trol suffices. For decision making in a tourism system,
information from the environment is necessary. The
chain X → D → U → P provides feed-forward data,
which represents the anticipation of the future state of
the situation. It is an essential part of the strategy of
goal-oriented systems.
The inputs consist of ideas, scenarios, tangible re-
sources, human resources, which start the process of
cultural tourism policy creation and outputs, which
can also include unintended and negative impacts that
should be identified through research. The decision-
making team plays a role in the model evaluation and
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Tadeja Jere Jakulin Systems Approach to Cultural Tourism and Events
consists of those experts and people who create goals
and have responsibility for the system’s development.
The team and its capabilities make the systems work
towards their balanced functioning and goals.
Building a Causal Loop DiagramModel
Modelling is a part of systems methodology, which
requires more than basic knowledge of the topic one
models. By modelling, we understand an activity en-
abling us to describe our experiences within a spe-
cific procedure (mental model) with one of the ex-
isting languages in the framework of a precise the-
ory (Jere Jakulin & Kljajić, 2006). Model building in
tourism seeks to understand a complex relationship
and to aid the management of the place or process (Ja-
fari, 2000). From a pragmatic point of view, a system
is defined by the double S = (E,R), where ei ∈ E ⊂
U = 1, 2, . . .n represents the set of elements, R ⊆ E×E
the relation between the elements, and the U univer-
sal set. The construction of concrete systems requires
specific knowledgeK(ei) ∈ E (property of elements) to
identify the elements of the systems (including those
from environments) and a theory T(ei, ej) ⊂ R to find
relationships among the elements. Each element ei can
be set as well as Rj ∈ R, j = 1, 2, . . .m defining different
relations between the elements. Such a procedure is in-
ductive and represents the model of a real system. In
other words, modelling represents the activity of de-
scribing our experiences by using one of the existing
languages within the framework of a specific theory
such as formal concepts analysis described in (Wolff,
1999). In this way, our experiences also become acces-
sible to others in that they may be proven, confirmed,
rejected, broadened or generalised.
From a causal loop diagram, shown in Figure 5, one
can derive that there is one basic circle (–) of the causal
loop, whichmeans the growth of tourists’ number and
borders of growth, caused by infrastructure and di-
minished environment attraction. In a vision of cul-
tural tourism policy, we have to predict development
as a whole to avoid limitations. If in the reinforcement
circle, which consists of investments, tourism infras-
tructure, environment attraction, only one element
starts to fall (–), this means all of the other elements
will fall.
GDP
Cultural
tourism
policy
Quality
of cultural
tourism
supplyEnvironment
attraction
Tourism
infrastructure
Investments
Cultural
tourism
events
Number
of tourists
+
+
+
+
+ +
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
Figure 5 cld Model of the Interdependence of Cultural
Tourism Policy Elements
The above-discussed model (Figure 5) requires
decision-making given by a group of experts and deci-
sion-makers who influence areas of cultural tourism.
Figure 5 presents the cultural tourism expert group
as a part of the cultural tourism legislative process, in
which modelling and ideas about penal code deter-
mination represent a knowledge-capturing process in
the form of the structure and behaviour of the model.
Once the model is defined and validated, experimen-
tation with different scenarios is possible. The cultural
tourism expert group determines the set of different
ideas, which represents possible future activities in
the real system. The results gathered as the output of
the model are evaluated with the multi-criteria eval-
uation function. At this stage, many different multi-
criterial evaluation methods may be used, from the
weighted average (Vincke, 1992) to the Analytical Hi-
erarchy Process (ahp), (Saaty, 2012) and Expert sys-
tems (es) (Rajkovič & Bohanec, 1991). Information
feedback provides the expert groupwith the possibility
of creatively determining a new set of ideas on cultural
tourism policy and multi-criteria evaluation func-
tions relating to the given situation. Simulated and
actual performances of the system are compared to
adapt the strategy according to changes in the environ-
ment.
The systems thinking solving method with sim-
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 2, December 2019 | 189
Tadeja Jere Jakulin Systems Approach to Cultural Tourism and Events
Cultural Tourism
Expert Group
SD Model
(structure and behaviour)
Results
(Cultural Tourism Policy)
Structure and Parameters
Multicriteria Evaluation
Function
Modelling
Ideas
Output
Model Validation
Figure 6 The Principle Scheme of Simulation Methodology for Decision-Making Support
(adapted from Jere Jakulin & Kljajić, 2006)
ulation model follows standard steps: state analysis,
development of causal-loop diagrams, writing of the
model’s equations, andmodel implementation. Partic-
ular scenarios that form and determine a tourist mar-
ket in a particular environment are tested on a sim-
ulation system. A simulator is connected to the gss
(Group Support System). The participants using gss
work directly with the system simulator. A system sim-
ulator is connected to a database, which is necessary
for simulationmodel activation. Simulation results are
evaluated both with the group decision-making sup-
port system and with expert systems. In all of this,
the understanding of the system increases. With the
described model, the experimental loop on a simu-
lation model has been finished with the help of the
system simulator and scenario ranking. The elements
of the decision-making support system are Powersim,
a tool for the construction and use of a simulator; Ven-
tana Group Systems, the Ventana group working sup-
port system; dex, a shell of an expert system expert;
and Expert Choice, evaluation with the ahp method.
Since the work with group decision-making tool is
anonymous, it raises creative thinking, which enables
a higher flow of ideas and reduces unwanted influ-
ences. The participants become more relaxed since no
one knows where the ideas come from and, thus, cre-
ativity is released; this would not be the case in the
more conventional ways of working. The work time
decreases and the efficiency of participants increases
(Jere Jakulin, 2017). The final result is better, as the
decision becomes a group decision with which con-
flict between polarised groups is minimised, and a
consensus is achieved for the development of further
actions.
Conclusions
The present article discusses the method of describ-
ing and modelling the complex cultural tourism sys-
tem from the systems and decision-making point of
view. The systems approach has become a necessity
in contemporary life, which we see as a modern com-
plex system composed of a variety of other systems
and their elements. In the paper, we discussed the cul-
tural tourism system and its elements or subsystem
of travelling and transport systems, catering and ac-
commodation systems from a systems point of view
within the environment. The cultural tourism system
was described as a so-called soft system phenomenon,
in which people, with their actions, knowledge, and
characters play the leading roles, representing a com-
plex system of a society. As we reach a certain level of
complexity, we must search for an optimal methodol-
ogy to find an optimal way of dealing with this com-
plexity. The methods of systems dynamics, systems
thinking, and modelling are some of them. Therefore,
the anticipated system is much closer to describing
the essence of complex systems behaviour. However,
the influence of the observer in the process of mod-
elling the complex system is of primary importance.
The role of the observer usually is usually played by
expert groups and decision-makers who are entitled
to accept decisions regarding policies in society. In
literature, this problem has not been sufficiently con-
sidered.
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