Kaatsheuvel and the boundaries of the resort town concept
A.L.J. Martens (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
V. Baptist – Mentor (TU Delft - History, Form & Aesthetics)
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Abstract
Most academic papers never give a concrete definition of what a resort town is, which makes discussion of the topic difficult. To create more clarity on the subject this paper investigates the Dutch town of Kaatsheuvel, and if the theme park within its borders, the Efteling, makes the town an example of a resort town. To achieve this the history and development of the town were traced back to the inception of the Efteling in 1933, and this development was then compared to academic sources on resort towns, with the six stages of resort town development by Butler (1980) playing a key role. In the end, Kaatsheuvel has a lot of similarities to other resort towns, but especially the early stages of the resort town are not present in the history of Kaatsheuvel. This means that Kaatsheuvel can be considered as a resort town, but the path it took to get to that status differs from other more conventional cases. This conclusion has both specified and expanded the concept of the resort town, making future discussions on the topic more precise.