The attractiveness of history: How historical buildings influence visitor movement in Dutch city centers
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2025-08-31
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en
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This thesis explores the extent to which historical building segments affect the movement behavior of visitors in Dutch city centers. A literature review showed that, while plenty of work had been done to examine the perceived attractiveness of city centers and route choice behavior, very little had been done to connect this to historical elements. After conducting a survey in several medium-sized Dutch cities and examining chosen walking routes of thousands of respondents, it was found that historical street segments, with higher percentage shares of buildings built before 1945, were positively associated with larger numbers of visitors than their more modern counterparts. This effect was most measurable among visitors with hedonistic tendencies, although even utilitarian visitors preferred historical street segments. Although modern, planned city-types received higher numbers of footfall than historic or organic centers, visitors clustered more strongly along historical segments than elsewhere in all city types. Altogether, this highlights the appeal of small-scale atmospheric and cultural elements such as historical buildings in urban perception and visitor movement patterns.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen