Potential for Tourism Development in Industrial Towns based on Cultural Heritage . The Cases of Svit and Martfü

Abstract

Certain industrial settlements of the world were established and administered by a single enterprise. These “company towns”, as this specific type of industrial settlements have been called in literature since the end of the 19th century, became an integral part of the concern’s policy. Our study compares the establishment and development of two originally Bata-founded industrial towns (Svit in Slovakia and Martfű in Hungary). We draw special attention to the deindustrialization and economic restructuring processes after the change of regime, to the tourism development plans as well as to the possibilities of exploitation of industrial cultural heritage in this process.