The Evolution from Transportation to Tourism: The Case of the New York Canal System

This research examined the New York Canal System in its evolution from a commercial shipping waterway to a tourism destination, with a focus on the canal system's life cycles. The author puts forward that chaos theory can be incorporated into the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) to explain the turbulences in some stages of the canal destination's life cycle. In addition, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis was employed to assess the operational status quo and future development trends. The SWOT analysis suggested some important threats to the New York Canal System, which other canal destinations should also consider. These threats include divergent missions among management authorities, lack of destination image and environmental problems.