Concepts and Models for Contemporary Urban Tourism

Chapter 2 Concepts and Models dealing with the Contemporary Urban Tourism The changing socio-economic conditions in the shift from the modern to the competitive, contemporary city has turned the urban realm into a space to be sold to external users, and it has brought to the steady commercial aestheticization of the collective spaces, which nowadays replaced the former public civic areas and converted them into consumerist simulacra. The steady commercialization of the urban space, and the rise of tourism as an activity associated with the main functions of the city can be arguably assessed as two of the most emblematic yet underestimated phenomenon. The academic interest on the so-called urban tourism is indeed very recent, especially if we consider the vastness and the prominence of the so-called Urban Studies and the importance of tourism as a key social, economic, and cultural factor in many different tourist destinations all over the world. Arguably, the very first contributor to the deployment of the so-called Urban Tourism Studies was Ashworth (1989), whose emphasis on what he termed as the Double Neglect underlined that, whereas “those interested in the study of tourism […] tended to neglect the urban contexts [and] those interested in urban studies [had] been equally neglectful of the importance of the tourist functions in cities” (Ashworth, 1989: 33, quoted in Page and Hall 2003: 16). In less than 20 years, the academic contribution towards the fulfillment of the gap between urban studies and tourism research has been remarkable, with the publication of several journals and books aimed at increasing the academic awareness of urban tourism as one of the key phenomena dealing with the city. Nowadays, we can claim that “criticisms of the neglect […] are not as valid as in the early 1990s” (Shaw and Williams, 1994, cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 16), though there are concerns dealing with the theories and the methodologies deployed so far (Page, 2000, cited in Page and 1 Hall, 2003: ibid.). The actual state of the art is still nebulous and lacking of defined analytical borders, definitely, the ultimate condition to consider urban tourism studies as a discipline. Despite the criticisms of authors such as Law (1996: 251, cited in Page and Hall 2003: 19), which argued that “nearly all studies of urban tourism reveal how little is known about the impact of the activity on cities” (ibid.), the correct research approach in urban tourism is the one suggested by Ashworth (cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 18), which basically consists of considering urban tourism “not as distinctive attribute […] associated with the main function of the city” but as “deeply embedded in the urban system” (ibid.: 88). Nevertheless, urban tourism is not a phenomenon which interests the whole urban space; only a limited area is regarded, promoted and experienced as a tourist attraction, although it is important to remember that there also is a very limited range of unobserved tourists which do not exclusively experience tourist-dedicated attractions during their visits, as they may seek for niche spatial consumptions as well. Moreover, the urban tourism phenomenology tend to take place within specific yet sometimes fuzzed collective spaces, where both city users – either residents and commuters – and visitors might simultaneously experience and consume a specific area. The structure of this chapter broadly follows part of the theoretical framework at the heart of remarkable work edited by Edwards, Hayllar and Griffin (2008) already introduced in the very beginning of this final report (§ Introduction to Theory). More precisely, this chapter considers the understanding of the tourist experience and his behavior within the so-called Tourist Precinct as crucial, in accordance with the assumptions held by Edwards et Al. (2007, reviewed in Edwards, Hayllar and Griffin, 2008: 96). This approach – although being relatively spread – encompasses all the main orientations in urban tourism research identified by Ashworth (1991), notably the demand for urban tourism, its collateral supply side and the policy perspectives on urban tourism. This chapter consists of five sections: the first section introduces the models and the main theories dealing with urban tourism, while the second one deals with the peculiar regeneration/urban tourism phenomenon. The third section focuses instead on the demand side of urban tourism through the analysis of the academic literature dealing with the tourist experience and the urban tourist experience in particular, while the fourth section discusses the centrality of images in tourism practice and theory. This latter section also focuses on the centrality of tourist perceptions and of place marketing as crucial factors to be considered in planning the tourist city (Ashworth1991; Godfrey and Clarke, 2002), which should be carried on through newly established 2 and challenging Integrative Destination Management (IDM) frameworks (Jamal and Jamrozy, cited in Harrill, 2009: 453). In order to be successful, urban tourist destinations organizations should indeed adopt collaborative planning approaches (ibid. 452-453, see also Section 3.3) and conceive the destination itself as the result of interconnected factors ranging from planning and promotion to tourist information and satisfaction. All the premises indentified on these four sections are then re-considered in the last section of the chapter, where the Author introduces his own model of tourist destination, notably, the so-called Pinball Tourist Destination Model, which conceives planning, promotion, governance, management and tourist experiences as interrelated one to each other. 2.1 The urban tourist destination: theories, models and metaphors Conceptualizing the tourist destination has been the centerpiece of different efforts by many researchers during the last 30 years. Since the rise of tourist studies in both social and economic studies, Authors were aware of the peculiarities of tourist spaces, as well as of the consumption patterns taking place within these areas. Nevertheless their researches were limited to seaside resorts located in the so-called passive tourist regions such as the Mediterranean resort destinations and the Caribbean islands. Moreover, most of the literature available dealing with tourism gives too much emphasis to the so-called Incoming Tourism, thus underestimating other, extremely important tourism phenomena such as the domestic tourism and the day-trip visiting. Similarly, the academic interest in the field of urban tourism was limited until recently. Only during the last 20 years, researchers recognized that that tourism could also take place in those cities and regions where – traditionally – tourist flows were from. Starting from the 1990s, both urban studies theorists and tourism studies thinkers merged towards a complementary focus on urban tourism – arguably “the most important type of tourist across the world” (Law, 1993: 1, quoted in Page and Hall, 2003: 9) – thus giving importance to this peculiar “aspect of the life and organization of cities” (ibid.). This recent academic awareness is, to some extent, objectionable, as the binomial between tourism and the city is almost as old as mass tourism itself. Indeed, it is widely shown that the rise of urban 3 tourism in cities such as London1, Paris2 and New York City3 yet began during the second half of the 19th Century. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of urban tourism occurred in many Western World cities subsequently the spread of regeneration practices has been to some extent decisive in redressing the attention of researchers on urban tourism analysis. Jointly with the spread diffusion of the so-called Business Tourism in cities such as Frankfurt, Zurich, Milan and Brussels, urban tourism is nowadays a remarkable phenomenon encompassing different yet heterogeneous academic disciplines ranging from culture and anthropology to social studies and marketing. The data available unquestionably demonstrate how urban tourism represents today the most important leisure-related economic voice in several developed countries. For instance, London is – by itself – capable to attract almost the same number of tourists that Greece as a whole can do. Statistics from 2008 show that the number of international arrivals in Greece were approximately 15,939,000, with more than $17.11billion of receipts (UNWTO 2010)4, while the number of only incoming visitors in London were 14,753,000 (Visit Britain, 2010)5, with an overall expenditure of approximately £1,196,290,000 (accommodation excluded)6. The many approaches deployed during the years have brought to the theorization of patterns and of approaches based on the prominent work by Law (1991: 7, cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 23), which developed a systemic framework consisting of three key features of urban tourism:   1 the inputs (e.g. the supply of tourism products and tourism); the outputs (e.g. the tourist experience of urban tourism) and; The 1851 Universal Exposition at the London Crystal Palace is arguably the first ever modern urban tourism attraction towards non-heritage or thermal destinations. For further readings see Amendola, 2009: 134-138. 2 McCannell (2005 or 1976: 62-82) reports the information of the 1900 Baedeker tourist guide of Paris, in which there are details of the most important tourist attractions of the French capital city such as the Supreme Court, the Morgue , the Stock Exchange, and the Parisian sewage conducts. 3 The rise of leisure activities in Staten Island, New York is well documented in the work of Leotta (2005: 117-132) in which the Italian visual Sociologist reports the activities that New Yorkers used to do at the end of the 1890s and in 4 Stadium. the early 1900s in places such as the Luna Park or the Yankee 4 Source retrieved at: http://mkt.unwto.org/sites/all/files/docpdf/unwtohighlights11enlr.pdf. 5 Source retrieved at: http://www.visitbritain.org/insightsandstatistics/inboundvisitorstatistics/yearlydata/index.aspx 6 Sources retrieved at http://vlstatic.com/l-and-p/assets/media/london_visitor_survey_annual_report_2008.pdf  the external factors conditioning the system (e.g. the business environment, consumer preferences, political factors and economic issues)7. According to this model, “without each of the elements outlined [...] the tourism system would not be a functioning system” (Harrill, 2009: 449): for instance, if there were no tourists, there would not be tourist attractions and therefore tourism as a whole (ibid.; Ashworth 1991; Urry, 2002). Focusing on the tourist amenities, Bertenshaw et Al. (1991, cited in Page and Hall 2003: 85) introduce a model consisting of demand side features and of a reasonable list of resources including:   Historic monuments;  Theatres and concert halls;  Cafés and restaurants;  Museums and galleries;  Night clubs and red light areas;  Shops; Offices in which workers undertake their employment. Similarly, Sant and Waitt (2000, cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 97), provide a list of tourist anchors by underpinning the statements deployed by Zukin (1995)8, which highlights on the steady commercialization of the public space within the urban realm. More precisely, this taxonomy is based on a field research undertaken in Sidney and it considers the following urban features as tourists anchors:  7  Heritage city;  Waterfront;  Gay triangle;  Retail district;  Chinatown; Sin city. This model underpins the characteristics of the systemic tourist destination (Blank, 1989, cited in Harrill, 2009: 449) which defines the latter as having the following characteristics: 1) a recognized appeal; 2) a tourist industry; 3) politcal integrity; 4) geographical coherence of the tourist-related features. Extracted from Page and Hall, 2003: 23. 8 For further readings: Zukin, S. (1995) The Cultures of Cities, Blackwell, Oxford. 5 These approaches have been profitable over the years and they have permitted to rationalize the complexity of the urban realm in straightforward yet inductive models towards a more comprehensive understanding of urban tourism (Hall, 2000a), Nevertheless, authors have always been aware that a simplified pattern would have required a range of quintessential reminds in order not to underestimate the dynamics of the contemporary city. Moreover these systemic bidimensional models can lead to, misleading, twisted assumptions and therefore negatively influence the research analysis. For these reasons it is important to remind that:  the contemporary competitive city is in a constant state of flux9 due to the constant definition of the forms and of the consumption experiences of its city users through the  highly mobile circulation of capital;  complex socio-cultural urban expression of the contemporary competitive city;  tourism and leisure cityscapes are only a one facet of the kaleidoscope constituting the the tourist city is hard to define as a whole; the tourist city should be considered as a “patchwork of consumption experiences spatially dispersed and often grouped into districts and zones” (Page and Hall, 2003:  49); “in time and space, capital competes within and between cities so that the tourism sector is constantly evolving” (ibid., also mentioned in Urry, 2002: 48-50). 2.1.1 The modeling of systemic-spatial urban tourism frameworks Many systemic models usually underestimated the spatial dimension, thus reducing the horizons of theorization in straightforward lists of facilities, elements and leisure infrastructures. There are however few yet useful models which – instead – consider also the spatial displacement of those elements constituting what Stansfield and Rickert (1970) termed as Recreational Business District (RBD). According to Getz (1993: 584), the modeling of these spatial-systemic tourist destinations models traces its origins back to the pioneer researches in seaside resorts introduced in Wolfe (1952), while Page and Hall (2003: 48) argue that “within the literature of urban tourism, the 9 For further readings Baumann, Z. (2000) Liquid Modernity, Blackwell, Oxford. 6 dominant paradigm has been shaped by the urban ecological model of Burgess (1925)10”. Speaking of empirical basis, Page and Hall both agree that “the most influential work has been by European geographers in relation to the historic city” (ibid. see also Ashworth and Turnbridge, 1990; Ashworth, 1991), although this latter instance should be revised at the light of the insightful argumentations and researches deployed by Getz (1993) and Judd (1999) in North America and by Hayllar and Griffin (2005) in Australia. The theorization of urban tourist places as districts has been broad and led to the proliferation of different sub-conceptualizations based upon the milestone concept of the above mentioned RBD (Stansfield and Rickert 1970)11. According to Stanfield and Rickert, the recreational business district is an “area characterized by a distinctive array of pedestrian, tourist oriented retail facilities [...] separated spatially as well as functionally form the other business districts” (1970: 213). Similarly, Ashworth and Turnbridge (1990: 64) refer to the Tourist-Historic City Model in their analysis of the tourist-related facilities in Norwich12 in order “to describe the […] characteristic spatial patterning in relation to the urban structure as a whole” (ibid.). Nevertheless, these two pioneering models are focused on two specific types of cities, notably, the seaside resort and the so-called Heritage City. Their application to other urban tourist destinations was therefore limited. The decisive shift towards a deeper consideration of the “other activities apart from the major purpose of visiting” (Blank and Petkovich, 1987, cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 83) is the theorization of the Tourism Business District (TBD) deployed by Getz (1993: 596-597), which 10 According to Page and Hall (2003: 48) the urban ecological model of Burgess has been decisive in influencing the urban tourism literature. The model constituted one of the strongholds of the Chicago School and it ideally conceived the city as expanding outwards in concentric circles from an inner city business district. For further readings: Burgess, E. (1925) The growth of the city. In Park, R., Burgess, E. and Mckenzie, R. (eds) The City: Suggestions of Investigations of Human Behaviour in the Urban Environment, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 47-62; Camagni, R. (1992) Principi di economia urbana, Carocci Editore, Rome. 11 The study of Stanfield and Rickert was based on an empirical study in two different important tourist destination during the 1960 in New Jersey (New Jersey, U.S.A) and at Niagara Falls (Ontario, Canada) respectively. 12 7 of describing “the […] characteristic spatial patterning The empirical study by Ashworth and Turnbridge consisted in relations to the urban structure as a whole” (Ashworth and Turnbridge, 1990: 62). Their study of the Norwich city centre permitted to outline up to three main tourist spatial elements - commercial accommodation establishments; catering facilities; tourism services and attractions – which constitute the most decisive tourism resources having a remarkable appeal among potential and actual visitors. recognizes the incapability – and the undesirability – in considering tourist-related and city-user facilities as two separated dimensions. The TBD indeed encompasses “attractions, services for businesses and visitors, and traditional CBD functions” (ibid. 596) and it conceives the attempt to distinguish visitors from residents in urban tourism destinations as “impractical and undesirable” (ibid.). Nevertheless, the TBD model has a flaw as well, since it disregards the presence of commuters and city users sharing altogether the TBD either for leisure or working reasons. Figure 2.1 below is a schematic model emphasizing the “synergetic relationship” (ibid.: 597) between the constituting elements of the TBD model: the latter conceives these urban features to be located within a restricted and highly dense parcel of urban land easily accessible from the outside and supplied with internal pedestrian accesses. The TBD model has been insightful in the recent urban tourism research, as shown by the study of Page and Hall (2003: 50-51) focused on the analysis of the Central Business District (CBD), by focusing on “the production function associated with service sector activities” (ibid.) located within usually revitalized, formerly industrial areas such as waterfronts and refurbished inner city areas. The CBD-centered model and its similar, engage the researcher into more holistic analytical approaches which permit to detect how tourism and the contemporary city coexist, interact, and generate economic activities structured around the production and consumption of a pleasant yet consumptive leisure time. Similarly, the second element of the TBD model – the so-called Essential Services – are further analyzed in other prominent tourism related studies. Page (1995: 60-66), for instance, provides a model based on the pioneer work of Jensen-Verbeke (1986) which considers “the urban area as a leisure product […] compris[ing] primary elements […] secondary elements […] as well as additional elements” (Page, 1995: 61-63). All these elements are summarized in a sort of list for the ideal tourist city (Figure 2.2) which shows “how [the] different elements of the […] city tourism system are interrelated” (ibid.: 64). This model, however, can lead to evaluate specific tourist resources and attractions in the wrong way. For instance the Café a Brasileira in Lisbon is a primary element due to its nexus with Fernando Pessoa and other prominent Portuguese writers and poets during the early 20th Century. (Picture 2.1), but it also is a secondary element, as its main function is catering. Similarly, the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai (UAE, Picture 2.2) is not just an hotel facility but – most importantly – a tourist attraction per se. 8 Figure 2.1 The Tourism Business District (source: Getz, 1993: 597) Focusing on the so-called Core Attractions, the TBD model has the limit to consider these features as concentrated within a given urban area, usually located close to the business functions of the city and the main tourist services. The prominent research of Pearce (1998) in Paris, however, clearly shows that the TBD spatial model is not appropriate to “explore aspects of the spatial and functional structure of tourism” (ibid.: 49). In fact, the model of Pearce “focuses on the spatial and functional association of tourism's diverse components around major nuclei and their insertion into the underlying urban fabric” (ibid.). 9 Figure 2.2 The Elements of Urban Tourism (source: Page, 1995: 61) The turning point consists of conceiving the urban tourist space as polycentric, with the main tourist attractions to be considered altogether with the other urban functions. Pearce has therefore the credit to conceive tourists attractions as potentially located in different boroughs of the city, as demonstrated with its empirical research in Paris. Another credit can instead be addressed to the importance given to accessibility between diverse and spatially distinct urban tourism districts, which partially underpins the assumption of pedestrian access stated in the TBD model. These contributions are useful in giving a clearer perspective of what urban tourism is, and it also support the conceptualization of catchy metaphors such as the Tourist Bubble (Judd, 1999) and of the Urban Tourist Precinct (Hayllar and Griffin, 2005) whereas the former consists of a “contrived and carefully managed tourism landscape which may also be insulated from the city environment” (Judd, 1999: 39), while the latter is conceptualized as “a distinctive geographic area within a larger urban area characterized by a concentration of tourist-related land uses, activities and visitation, with fairly definable boundaries […] mixture of activities […] such as restaurants, attractions and nightlife […] dominance of historic buildings […] within the city” (Hayllar and Griffin, 2005: 517, quoted in Edwards, Griffin, and Hayllar, 2008: 9).Similarly to the TBD model, the Urban Tourist Precinct considers pedestrian accessibility as decisive. 10 Picture 2.1 The remarkable tourist appeal of the Café A Brasileira in Lisbon represents one of the exceptions of the model deployed by Page afterwards the first modeling of Verbeke. The contextual socio-cultural peculiarities of urban tourism destinations can therefore make of a catering facility a tourist attraction known worldwide. Source: www.fromedome.com 2.2 Regeneration and the Tourist City As already introduced in Chapter 1, the competitive contemporary city seeks for external visibility and exogenous capital flows in order to gain a greater appeal in the globalizing high speed society. Cities might compete in many fields (e.g. attracting hi-tech corporations to their region; hosting important cultural events) and they also challenge with each other in the highly competitive tourist market. In many cases, the search for visibility and inward capitals is pursued as a countermeasure in order to tackle down the deep socio-economic crisis affecting the city and to provide an alternative re-development in its most derelict areas. Not surprisingly, Page and Hall (2003) are aware of “the significance of urban tourism as one approach to stimulate economic regeneration” (Page and Hall, 2003: 17), and as “a strategy for redeveloping redundant spaces in older industrial 11 cities” (ibid.), while Roche (1992: 592) asserts that “urban tourism can induce a modernization of the local economy through its effects on local morale and outside image, that it can positively influence outside and local investments and local labor productivity”. Picture 2.2: Panoramic view of the Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai. The iconicity of the skyscraper makes of this hotel facility one of the most represented landmark attractions in Dubai. (Source: www.baabrochureenglish.jumeirah.com, 2011) Conversely, it is assumed that a combined re-development strategy consisting of regeneration projects and tourism-oriented place marketing strategies may be decisive in improving the identity of neighborhoods, their external image, and in attracting employment opportunities to the area. Generally, these assumptions rely on pro-growth ideologies which address to both regeneration and tourism the power of trickling down the benefits of any area-based investment to the areas 12 surrounding the regenerated neighborhood. Nevertheless, these assumptions “would appear to be substantially flawed” (Page and Hall, 2003: 330), since redevelopment strategies may make life more difficult for low-income residents and force them to leave the regenerated area subsequently the rise of rent prices. Moreover, the employment outcomes in the field of tourism and retail services mostly consists of low skilled, temporary jobs, rather than highly skilled and well paid ones. Of course, regeneration and tourism contribute to a decisive spatial change, as well as to a remarkable amelioration of the built environment, especially in those areas whose landscape was previously dominated by former industrial districts located within the inner city area on nearby the waterfront. Both regeneration and tourism are in this case considered as a flywheel for regional economic growth and they are expected to render the built environment attractive to capital through the creation of leisure spaces, retail shops, restaurants and many other commercial activities. These brand new urban feature become part of what Zukin (1991, quoted in Page and Hall, 2003: 319) describes as a “site of spectacle, a dreamscape of visual consumption”. This orientation towards leisure-oriented spatial restructuring during the last forty years or so (Mugerauer, 2009) definitely changed the urban landscapes around the developed world, from world capitals such as London minor urban centers such as Belfast and Portsmouth. Many former industrial spaces “previously cut off from public access” (Law, 1993: 13) are nowadays “reclaimed by the community” (ibid.), with the old manufacturing spaces nearby the docklands being re-used for a variety of purposes, including prestige offices, up-market housing schemes, and tourism activities. Such a contemporary urban shift towards space consumption follows the hinges outlined in Harvey (1989, see also Section 1.2.1) according to which the so-called Late Capitalist city seeks for both inward capitals and users within globalizing and competitive zero sum frameworks. The rising academic interest in tourism and leisure oriented regeneration schemes can be arguably dated back to the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the first ever leisure-led regeneration of the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. Law (2000) analyzed the binomial between regeneration and tourism, with reference to the experience of Manchester, where the Central Manchester Development Corporation (1988-1996) pursued a flagship development strategy as a solution for the recovery of the city centre. According to Law, the Manchester experience and the other initiatives in the UK demonstrate that “since […] the 1980s […] tourism has been perceived as a growth industry” (Law, 2000: 121) which would have brought tourists and side-effect benefits to local people 13 through “an agreed integrated tourism strategy […] handed over to a public-private partnership” (ibid). Law indeed claims that investing in tourist attractions and environmental improvements for leisure consumptions can directly ameliorate the image of the city. The latter has however to be improved also through place marketing initiatives and positive tourists feedbacks. The increase of tourist expenditure within the city directly contributes to the local economy as a whole, while the amelioration of the city image can also have positive repercussions in terms of population growth and civic pride, thus leading to physical, economic and social regeneration. Figure 2.3 below puts in a nutshell the assumptions here discussed. Figure 2.3 Tourism and Urban Regeneration. According to Law, investing in urban regeneration may bring to positive side effects in terms of tourist appeal, civic, pride, territorial marketing, job opportunities as well as contribute towards the implementation of further investments. Source: Law, 2000: 120. The examples of leisure and tourism-oriented urban regeneration projects embrace almost forty years of planning initiatives which have been particularly prolific in the USA, in the UK, in Canada 14 and in Australia. According to Mugerauer (2009: 294-296 and 300-303) the lessons we can take from these experiences are vary yet tendentiously similar despite the different urban contexts they took place: until the 1980s, “the conventional wisdom [was] that an economically successful downtown required a shopping mall, new office towers, a convention center, an atrium hotel, a historic neighborhood, domed stadium, aquarium [and] cleaned-up waterfronts” (ibid.: 292), while the contemporary urban shift and the conversion of cities into places of spectacle and mass hedonism envisages the historical urban heritage, of the so-called Design Museums, and the teeming of city spaces into symbolic consumptive places as decisive (ibid.: 302). The taxonomy outlined at the light of the extensive planning practice analysis shows that “generally these insights have […] been incorporated into […] practice. In fact, following the conservative principle of staying with what works, the physical elements required of cities for economic success have become codified” (ibid., 295). Figure 2.4 below summarizes the facilities considered by Mugerauer as necessary for a conformed tourism-oriented urban regeneration. 15 Figure 2.4 Practical Architecture and Planning insights towards Urban Tourism (source: Mugerauer, 2009). Jointly with the above mentioned urban renewal practices, the exploitation of the historical urban heritage through restoration-oriented regeneration projects, represents a commonplace in urban regeneration. The initiative towards the recovery of the existing built environment for leisure and tourism purposes is usually spontaneous and rarely planned as a the main goal to achieve. The emblematic example is the one of Covent Garden in London (cited in Urry, 2002, Spirou, 2008 and Searle, 2008), where the conservationist efforts to rescue the area from demolition set the ground conditions towards an unannounced “gentrification and touristification, […] leaving only heritage facades” (Page and Hall 2003: 336). There would be, however, examples of restorationoriented urban regeneration initiatives focused primarily on the refurbishment of old sites for 16 leisure consumption purposes, such as the Manchester Printworks building, recovered afterwards the 1996 IRA terrorist attack in the Manchester city centre (Jones and Evans, 2008: 67-68). Generally, the rise of tourism within heritage spaces designated for physical restoration is incidental and – at most – a satellite development taking place nearby the main historical landmarks. According to Ashworth and Turnbirdge (1990: 52-58; 62-67) “the relationship between the urban conserved resources […] and the tourist function […] has been […] close and long-standing [especially] in Europe” (ibid. 52), and it has led to a one-to-one relation in which tourism shapes and defines the functions of the historic city and the historic artifacts are commercialized for tourism purposes. However, the “symbiosis between the conserved city and the tourism industry is complex and not automatic” (ibid. 57) and it encompasses a wide number of facilities ranging from the so-called Exclusive Tourism Resources to the secondary and transversal leisure products and services, with the latter being the main heading of the tourist consumption budget (see Ashworth and de Haan, 1986, cited in Page and Hall, 2003). Indeed, “tourism is never likely to provide financial support [and] effective occupation of conserved buildings” (Ashworth and Turnbridge, 1990: 56) as well as of the satellite non-profit cultural and social activities (ibid.): since, “the sights of the historic city are generally enjoyed free of charge, or [the] payment is sought […] is often either voluntary or below cost” (ibid.: 53). Nevertheless, the intrusion of the private sector has slightly changed the way heritage and culture are nowadays experiences in the contemporary city during the last decades. The spread of the so-called Nostalgia Business demonstrates indeed how culture and heritage are nowadays conceived as a ‘must be experienced’ paid leisure activities, from the most important historical sites to the most unlikely places (Urry, 2002: 94). The privatization of heritage and of history museums (ibid., 95), as well as the commodification of past into novel forms (ibid.) are other remarkable examples of this commercialized way of experiencing culture. The latter in particular is pretty noticeable in the process towards conservationism and heritage staging occurred in the formerly industrial cities of Britain, whose outdated industrial stock “had historically been based in inner-city Victorian premises” (ibid. 97) and therefore regarded as a resource by the Local Authorities seeking for alternative re-development strategies for local growth. Both conservationists and renewal urban strategies towards leisure-oriented, regeneration projects definitively contributed to re-shape the urban space as we can experience it nowadays. As previously stated (§ Section 1.3), the binomial restoration-reconstruction, jointly with the 17 awareness of the existence of tourist resources apart from direct facilities, imply the existence of a complex urban setting consisting of a myriad of urban features sought by visitors. We can therefore filter the many resources located within the urban tourist destination, as it follows (Figure 2.5). Figure 2.5:The four dimensions of regeneration-led tourism spaces. As shown in the figure, we can consider the built environment of a given city by grouping its facilities under two distinctive categories, notably, historic urban features and newly-built artifacts respectively. Therefore, we can filter these urban features through two distinctive tourism resources variable, more precisely, direct tourism resources and indirect tourism resources. At the light of the assumptions here introduced and the outcomes of the Newcastle-Gateshead case study, the Author suggests that, rather than speaking of tourism -oriented regeneration, it should be better to refer to what he conceptualizes as regeneration-led urban tourism, since tourism is the outcome of regeneration and not the pursuit of urban renewal. It is indeed important to keep in mind that – at the end – visitors make of a given place a tourist destination, in accordance with the assumptions of Urry (2002) and the principles of demand-side approaches (Manente, 2001). 18 2.3 The contemporary urban tourist The previous two sections provided the insights for the understanding of the urban tourism phenomenon and its spatial display within either refurbished new leisure areas or restored heritage buildings. In this third section we complete the explanation of urban tourism by focusing on its key factor, the element which makes of a given place a tourist destination: the city visitor. In the complex, contemporary urban context, visitors should are considered as one set of city users, as stated by Martinotti (1993: 137-198, also cited in Vicari, 2004: 182-185) in his prominent work13. Nevertheless, any of the city users and of the other urban populations can potentially experience the city as tourists, in accordance with the issue reported in McCannell (2005: 13) which states that – at the end – we all are tourists. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) there are two distinctive typologies of visitors, notably, tourists and excursionists. Tourists are people “who travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four (24) hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited” (UNWTO, 1995: 14), while excursionists are the day-trippers which do not stay overnight in the visited place. These conceptualizations, however, suffer from a reduced understanding of the tourist phenomenon, as they do not consider parallel yet noticeable tourist flows ascribable to the so-called VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives) tourism. Moreover, the horizons of the visitor phenomenology should also include, for instance, those visiting students coming either from abroad or other regions of the country. However, in this latter case there would be arguments against the inclusion of this specific city user as a heading of the urban tourist demand. Conversely, we regard to tourists as inward temporary city users experiencing the urban space under evincible performing ways: in many cases we tend to point at them as superficial sightseers seeking for banal and stereotyped representations to gaze upon or picture so that they can have a 13 According to the Italian Urban Sociologist there are at least four distinct urban populations, notably, residents, commuters, city users and metropolitan businessmen 19 visual memory of them once they return back home. The space consumption of tourists has been usually criticized, and it has often been stigmatized as the modern degenerated version of the noble traveler of the Grand Tour. Among these14. Nevertheless, Costa (2005: 62-65) considers these criticisms surrounding tourism as snobby and pessimistic: the Italian Sociologist indeed claims that the intellectual criticism of those that stigmatize tourism and its practices stands at the basis of a very lucrative niche market, as their romanticized and nostalgic glorification of the traveler has unavoidably led to an alternative tourism consumption patterns. Notwithstanding the type of tourist market, our contemporary society is permeated by the T&T (Travel and Tourism) industry. We should indeed recognize that each one of us has spent at least one holiday experience during our lives and that tourism is – more than ever – a globalized phenomenon15. However, it is important to provide at least a range of concepts and sociodemographic features which could be useful in order to define who the urban tourists are and how they experience the city during their visits. Speaking of characteristics, Urry (2002, also cited in Selby 2004: 127-128; Selby, Hayllar and Griffin, 2008: 186) defines tourists as amateur semioticians which experience the tourist place through their visual perception. During their urban experiences, tourists gaze upon a landmark and they attribute to it a collective meaning – grounded on their general cultural background – and a personal sense, which may be based on prior experiences – also known as fore-structure (Heidegger, 1927, cited in Selby, Hayllar and Griffin, 2008: 192). The British Geographer further argues that tourists choose to visit a specific place because there is an anticipation of it conveyed trough official marketing communication, unofficial representations and the feedback of friends 14 Costa (2004a: 19-34; 2005: 62-65) considers the anti-tourism claims by Urbain (1991), Auge (1993), Ritzer (1997), Bauman (1999) and Lofgren (2001) as examples of antiturismo militante, which has been widening the gap between the Academic World and the Travel Industry since the rise of modern mass tourism and the pioneer leisure studies deployed starting form the end of the 19th Century (e.g. Veblen, 1889). 15 According to the UNWTO Tourism 2020 Vision (source retrieved at http://www.unwto.org/facts/eng/vision.htm), in 2010 there would have been be more than 1 billion of International arrivals, with approximately 300 million extraarrivals compared to the year 2000. The forecast for 2020 is of approximately 1.6 billion incoming tourists, with 20 destination and Europe reaching over 700 million Australasia representing the upcoming international tourist international tourist arrivals. If we compared these data with the previous statistics from 1950 and the worldwide population growth over the period 1950-2020, we can see that the world population tripled, while the – only – international tourist arrivals will have an exponential increase of +3100%! and relatives that have already been there (Graefe and Vaske, 1987, also cited in Selby, 2004: 133). The tourist experience is characterized by the hegemony of the eye and of the visual 16, especially in the recent growth of urban tourism (Urry, 1999: 72). Moreover, international tourists seek for different, non-familiar socio-spatial interrelations, which usually drive them to “search […] the sign of Frenchness, typical Italian behavior, Oriental scenes, typical American thruways [or] traditional English pubs” (Culler, 1981: 127, quoted in Urry, 2002: 3). Finally, Urry argues that the gaze of the tourist is socially organized and that it is influenced by both individual sociocultural factors and “the representations produced by the tourism industry” (Selby, Hayllar and Griffin, 2008: 186). McCannell (2005: 115-139) explains instead that the eye-centered tourist experience consists of signs and that tourist attractions are the resultant of a – usually immediate – spatial-cognitive dialectic between the marker – notably, the representation of what the tourist observes – and the sight, that is, the object itself being observed. According to the American Sociologist, tourists do not actually see, but they perceive the space surrounding them either through a sight involvement – whereas the tourist experiences the landmark notwithstanding the previous knowledge of the latter – or a marker involvement, which is, in many cases, the key element of the tourist sightseeing17. More recently, McCannell (2001) challenged the assumptions of Urry by introducing what he termed as Second Gaze (ibid.), which is drawn on the assumptions of existentialists philosophers such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, and it is conceived as an alternative way of gazing which “avoids typical tourist sights” (Selby, 2004. 128) and moves towards non institutionalized markers. Unlike Urry, therefore, McCannell is aware that tourists are free to gaze upon everything, and that they are aware of the difference between institutionalized gaze and the primary sight-involvement. 16 The emphasis on the visual and the underestimation on the other senses has been criticized by many authors; even Urry (1995, cited in Urry 2002, Selby, 2004) partly recognizes such a neglect by giving importance also to hearing and tasting in experiencing the tourist destination. 17 The marker-sight theory of McCannell is based on the assumptions of the most prominent semiotics theorists, ranging from Chomsky and Pearce to de Saussure and, jointly with the argumentations and the researches of Cohen 21 2009: 71; 1979, cited in Selby, 2004: 95), it represents (1972, cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 58; 1976, cited in Franklin, the foundation of the research literature dealing with the tourist experience. Tourists do not exclusively gaze upon a place or engage a sight/marker involvement while visiting the tourist destination: actually, they usually take pictures of the landmarks they visit, a practice which is as old as tourism itself. The rise of photography in the 1840s is surprisingly contemporary to the origins of mass tourism (1841, year of the first organized travel ever by Thomas Cook) and it contributed to the extraordinary proliferation of images taken from the empirical realm. However, the consecration of cameras as the mechanical eye of mass tourism practitioners has to be ascribed to the 1888 first ever amateur photo camera released by the Eastman Kodak Company in the USA (Leotta, 2005: 117-126). The kodakization of the tourism experience through the tourist gaze is at the heart of the studies of Urry (1999: 75; 2002: 127-130) and Crang (1997), whereas the latter underlines the inner subjectivity of the picturing practice and the potential of this common activity to seize and freeze “a present moment and place for a future audience separated in time and space” (ibid. 366) thus permitting to tourists “to record that they were there” (ibid. 367). According to Crang, tourists can either “use explicit aesthetic codes” (ibid.) or communicate personal thoughts and feelings (e.g. irony, romance) through their picturing practice, notwithstanding the memory support or the type of machinery that they use to immortalize their own tourist experience. Selby (2004: 129) conveys the assumptions of Crang by arguing that “urban tourism can be understood through the way the destination is captured in photographs, as embedded within them is the practice and experience of tourists” (ibid.). This latter instance “demonstrates the corporeality of experience rather than the purely visual characteristics” (ibid.), since “images, sights and activities become linked through” (ibid.) this embodied tourist related experience. Both Crang and Selby therefore conclude that picturing through the tourist gaze slightly differs from the visual-centered tourism photography practice introduced by Urry (1999; 2002: 128-130), and that it should instead be conceived as the result of interrelated subjective factors such as gender and ethnicity (Crouch, 2000, cited in Selby, 2004: 135). Notwithstanding the gazing and the picturing practices, what has always been a taken-for-granted assumption was that tourist consume within the place while they visit it. Actually, gazing upon landmarks and taking pictures can be both considered as consumptive performances, albeit the mere consumptive performance usually implies the payment of either a service or a product. This specific practice may encompass a myriad of heterogeneous tourist-related features ranging from accommodation and catering to the payment for accessing cultural facilities. Most of the tourist categorizations adopted in marketing are based upon their consumptive behavior, although we 22 should not forget that there are also other classifications18 which do not consider visitor consumption patterns at all. Among the many taxonomies available in the tourism academic literature, Burtenshaw et Al. (1991, cited in Page and Hall, 2003; 85, 148) identify five types of city users with potential tourist behavior within the city and provide an overlapping scheme which foresees up to four different types of tourism-related city users, notably:   City residents;  Visitors seeking pleasure from their visit;  City-region residents;  Conference visitors; People working within the city Similarly, Ashworth and Turnbridge (1990: 118-121) provide an insightful model for the study of the tourist city users consisting of four main categories, notably:   Intentional users from outside the city region;  Incidental users from outside the city region;  Intentional users from inside the city region; Incidental users from inside the city region. The models of Burtenshaw et Al., and of Ashworth and Turnbridge can be credited for shifting the analysis towards both visitors and city users. Moreover, they demonstrate how urban tourism may involve also those who do not intentionally come to visit the city or spend at least one night in there, in accordance with the assumptions of the four metropolitan populations (Martinotti, 1993) previously introduced. Residents and metropolitan businessmen can indeed experience the city through their tourist gaze during their respective leisure time, which therefore implies that a portion of the tourism consumption is not tourist-related. Despite these premises, we should be aware of the extremely limited data that access to urban tourism available: neither the UNWTO or the OECD do provide exhaustive data to quantify urban tourism as a whole (Page and Hall, 2003: 5466). The statistics available generally focus on the visitor, and they usually evaluate his 18 Mill and Morrison (1992, cited in Page and Hall, 2003: 77) for instance include up to seven segmentations ascribed from the many market researches related to the tourism industry. These segmentations are: 1) demographic or socioeconomic segmentation; 2) product related segmentation; 3)physiographic segmentation; 4) geographical segmentation; 5) purpose of trip; 6) channel distribution segmentation; 7) behavioral segmentation. 23 expenditure through supply-side approaches, and the tourist-related facilities that he uses during his staying. The relatively scarce day tripper findings are usually restricted only to tourism facilities usage surveys, while there are no direct quantitative data analysis of city user tourist behavior, as this latter type of market research approach would be too expensive in terms of money and time. Although the implementation of demand-side attempts aimed at forecasting tourism experience and expenditure through econometric formulae in the analysis of the economic impacts of tourism in the city (§ Manente, 2001; 60-62), quantifying the tourist consumption is a very complicated task which requires to consider a myriad of heading expenses, in accordance with the principle which asserts that tourists are tendentiously multi-motivated consumers (Costa, 2004b). Gazing, picturing and consuming the place constitute therefore the main features of the tourist experience. The spatial consumption of tourist may take place in any part of the city other than in the tourism business district/urban tourist precinct, as showed in the surveys at Ilsinghton and in the Bankside area of North Southwark, London (Maitland, 2006: 29). The urban tourist experience and the urban tourist expenditure performances are extremely hard to be fully analyzed, although there have been several research attempts which tried to explain – in particular – the urban tourist experience as a socio-cultural phenomenon during the last decades. A myriad of studies and approaches have been implemented, each one with its pros and cons. Selby (2004: 125-143) critically revises the tourist experience research approaches adopted in human geography, by acknowledging that “studies which are usually associated with [...] phenomenology [and] the emphasis on individuals [...] should [...] be avoided in contemporary studies” (ibid.: 126). According to the British Geographer, researchers should adopt alternative research approaches, such as the constitutive phenomenology (Schutz, 1972, cited in Selby, 2004; Selby Hayllar and Griffin, 2008), or the use of in-depth interviews in phenomenograpic research. More recently, Selby, Hayllar and Griffin (2008) argued that “the ways in which people encounter and act within tourism environment [...] is important” (ibid.: 189) The emphasis on how “visitors interact and make sense of the landscape” (ibid.: 190) implies that, although “the landscape of urban tourism precincts has an important influence on experience, interpretations and landscapes vary significantly between different individuals (and groups) of visitors” (ibid.). Actually, every single person perceives the environment surrounding him in his own way. Veijola and Jokinen (1994), for instance, conceptualize tourists as dynamic social actors interpreting and embodying the tourist experience through their actions, while Merleau-Ponty (cited in Crang, 1997) asserts that 24 individuals are “neither completely acknowledgeable of their surroundings [...] nor psychologically constituting their environment” (Selby, Hayllar and Griffin, 2008: 192). Nevertheless, such subjectivity should not be conceived as something absolute. Tourism is indeed a socially embedded phenomenon, and the performativity of the tourist experience is “a shared not solitary act” (ibid.: 193) consisting of “proven recipes for acting” (ibid.: 194) such as “taking photographs of famous landmarks, and joining guided tours that can’t be missed” (ibid.). Tourist experience is therefore inter-subjective, as we “experience tourism individually, and partly through positions and perspectives forced upon [us] through an inter-subjective natural world view” (Selby, 2004: 151). Moreover, our experience of the tourist city as place consumer (Selby, 2004: 169-174) may take place also in the city where we live, and it can envisage the production of representations, in accordance with the assumptions of Amendola (2009, § Section 1.2.2), Crang (1997) and Selby (2004). Selby in particular has the merit to introduce an updated, cognitive model (Figure 2.6), which considers considers experience as part of a dynamic and cyclical process of knowledge construction (phase 1), consisting of experiences (phase 6) and images (phase 4) conveyed through direct perceptions of the landscape (phase 5) and mediated representations (phase 3) of the place. According to this model, the inter-subjective perception of the built environment is influenced by representations as well as first hand experiences, and it is the result of deliberate processes of tourist action (phase 2), with the latter conceived here as drawn upon the stock of knowledge. 25 Figure 2.6: Culture and experience of urban tourism (Source: Selby, 2004: 169) In conclusion, we are not tourist only when we go on a vacation: “the experience of tourism as a whole is finely integrated into everyday life” (ibid.: 150) and it takes place in socially embedded and mediated realms “which we modify through our acts” (ibid.) . The way we experience the tourist city is the result of different factors which influence our imageries and our perceptions of a given place. Focusing on what we experience is indeed a misleading research approach, as demonstrated in the critical review of Selby (2004: 125-143), and its findings cannot be considered as one fits all explanations. The shift “beyond […] surface manifestations” (Selby, 2004: 143) is therefore encouraged in order to provide more insightful insights findings aimed at a better understanding of the contemporary urban tourist experience. 2.4 The role of images in urban tourism In the two previous sections, we introduced the two key elements of the urban tourism phenomenology – notably, the urban tourist destination and its users – but a very limited emphasis was given to, arguably, the most important element of tourism. Images represent – indeed – the main push factor in attracting tourists to a particular destination, in accordance with the assumptions of Amore et Al. (2009: 148), and with the fact that “one of the most important aspects to consider [is that] tourism is made of images” (ibid.) Nevertheless, the literature review by Selby (2004: 70) recently found out that “the wider and fundamental relationship between images and tourism development are addressed by relatively few”(ibid.) authors, with the notable exceptions being Gunn (1972, cited in Selby, 2004: 70), Mayo (1973, ibid.), Bramwell and Rawding (1994; 1996) Bramwell (1998) and Baloglu and McCleary (1999). Most of the researches have indeed focused on the importance of images in strengthening the appeal of tourist destinations, as well as on the analysis of the official place marketing strategies through either institutional or promotional material analyses. On the contrary, a limited attention has been given to the importance of nonofficial, non-commercialized images (e.g. commonplaces, cinema representations, etc.) in defining both cultural imageries and representations. Similarly, non-structured qualitative studies focusing on the analysis of the images perception among tourists, have been relatively scarce. Speaking of 26 definitions, Selby (2004: 65-66) provides a reasonable number of concepts for tourism place image: he predominately refers to the concept introduced by Gallarza et Al. (2001: 60, quoted in Selby, 2004: 66), in which place image is described as comprising a set of “ideas or conceptions held individually or collectively of the destination under investigation” (ibid.) and consisting of cognitive and evaluative components. Jointly with this latter definition of place image, Selby considers as valid the concepts of image deployed by Goodall (1991)19, Ditcher (1985)20, and Kotler et Al. (1993), whereas the latter define the image as “the sum of beliefs, ideas and impressions that a person hold of it” (ibid., quoted in Selby, 2004: 66). Similarly, Baloglu and McCleary (1999) agree that place image “is mainly caused or formed by [...] stimulus factors and personal factors” (ibid.: 870), whereas the former consist of information sources such as brochures, tourist guidebooks and the similar, while the latter are conceived as the sum of social, psycological and affective values. According to Baloglu and McCleary, the overall place image consists of five diverse determinants, notably:   perceptual/cognitive determinants  socio-psycological determinants;  affective components;  demographic variables; information sources; Focusing on the information sources, Bramwell and Rawding (1996) as well as Selby (2004) refer to the prominent work of Gunn (1972), which outlines up to four types of images:  projected images, here conceived as the images conveyed through official tourism authorities;  organic images, which refer to the imagery deducted from non-tourism sources (e.g. movie representations, stereotypes, commercials and so on); 19 According to Goodall, place image is “a function of holiday-makers awareness of the product, attitudes towards the product and expectations created by limited knowledge of that product”. (Goodall, 1991: 63, quoted in Selby, 2004: 66-67). 20 Dichter (1985) claims that “an image is not just individual traits of qualities, but the total impression an entity makes on the minds of others” (ibid.: 20, quoted in Selby, 2004:27 67).  induced image, which “is formed from advertisements, brochures, guidebooks and the activities of intermediaries such as travel agents, tourism boards and marketing consortia” (Selby, 2004: 69);  modified induced images, which are formed through the first hand experience of tourists during their vacations and are then re-elaborated in their minds afterwards their return from holidays The example of New York city may be useful to better explain the Gunn model and its importance. Focusing on the mere images displayed in the front cover of official tourist promotion agencies and tourist guides, the projected image displayed on the 2010 New York City tourism authority brochure21 is a picture of the Empire State building, while the induced image in 2009 Time Out travel guide of New York displays a picture of Time Square by night. These two place images are however influenced by either positive or negative organic images, whereas the latter can be an aerial view of Manhattan by night (How I met your mother, CBS, 2005) or induce feelings of fear, spread of crime and danger (American Gangster, Universal Pictures, 2007). These three place image are supposed to influence the perception of the potential New York visitor, also during his first hand experience, although, modified induced images gained from direct experiences tend to be more decisive in the imagery formation of visitors. The centrality of images in territorial marketing is an established principle at the heart of the marketing theory. Marketing practitioners indeed argue that images do “constitute an integral part of a product” (Selby, 2004: 66) and they also acknowledge that any visual representation can stimulate perceptions on tourists and, therefore, considerably contribute in defining the imagery of a place. Similarly, Kotler et Al. (1993) underline that images are important in maximizing the appeal of a destination, as well as in “defining an area […] as a place product” (Bramwell and Rawding, 1996: 202) for targeted tourist markets. These argumentations are underpinned by Ejarque (2003: 40), which considers the place image as a decisive factor in his tourist destination formula. The Catalan marketing practitioner indeed claims that the mere tourist product is less decisive than the binomial image/notoriety, as without an imagery it is unrealistic to attract tourists to a given destination. Focusing on the importance of the place image and imagery in the minds of both potential and loyal tourist customers, Ejarque foresees up to three specific scenarios in which the consolidation of the image policy may overturn either the lacking or the overload of projected 21 Brochure available at http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nys_ded/ilny_travelguide2010/#/6. 28 and mystifying representations of the place, thus permitting the re-definition of the urban tourist destination marketing strategy towards more desirable visitor targets. Finally, Ejarque underlines the importance of brand policies in tourist promotion, whereas he claims that the key elements constituting the brand encompass not exclusively the image by itself, but both the strategic vision and the tourist offer as well. The importance of the brand is also envisaged in the works of Dobni and Zinkhan (1990, cited in Baloglu and McCleary, 1999: 872), Costa (2005: 67-69) and Kotler et Al. (2003: 164-166). The latter in particular underpin the assumptions of Ejarque about the importance of designing a visual, catchy brand logo as a strategy towards the distinction of a given place in the highly competitive tourist destination market. Such a distinctive image is indeed considered as crucial in attracting potential tourists, particularly during the first stage of their own decision-making process (Picture 2.3). Picture 2.3: the importance of branding and logo-centered promotion in tourism is recognized among marketing theorists and practitioners. The Turismo de Portugal logo, for instance, is used to promote Portugal as tourist destination abroad, but it is also used for gadgeting purposes as well as in the certification of high quality Portuguese restaurants and accommodation facilities. Source: www.visitportugal.com, 2010 Marketing models like the ones of Ejarque and Kotler are quite popular in the academic literature dealing with both geographical and social studies22. Nevertheless, there are also research methods that analyze the binomial tourist destination/image though more academic methodologies. Selby (2004: 72-73; 80) lists the several academic research in place marketing done so far under two 22 Bramwell (1998: 35-47, cited also in Selby, 2004; Hayllar and Griffin, 2008), for instance, based his study on the total quality model introduced by Parasuraman et Al. (2000, Italian edition) to demonstrate that tourists expectations may arise whereas there is a discontinuity between the expectations of visitors and their firsthand perception of the place. 29 distinct methodological approaches: from one hand we have the so-called Structural Approaches – arguably the most common ones in place image research – while, on the other hand, we have non-structured and alternative research methodologies encompassing the wide spectrum of qualitative studies (focus groups; in-depth interviews; promotional material analysis; etc.). Selby further describes the state of the art in place image research, as well as the difficulties and the theoretical limitations that such a branch of studies has to deal with. At the light of Selby’s prominent contribution, we realize that there are really few in-depth tourist experience studies focused on the perception that holiday-makers have during their visits. According to Franklin and Crang (2001: 6, cited in Selby, 2004: 81), the reason why in-depth, qualitative research methods are scarcely used in place image research, has to be addressed to the clumsy, taxonomy-obsessive approaches adopted in this specific field of study. Nevertheless, Selby warns that the adoption of non-structured research methods to urban tourism (e.g. behavioral studies) have several limitations, and that one of the common misleading assumptions adopted in these methods is that of conceiving images and representations (e.g. maps, brochures, travel guides, etc.) as “natural, non-political distortions of an objective reality” (ibid.: 83). 2.4.1 Promoting and managing the contemporary tourist city This last section introduces – arguably – two of the most important contributions in the study of urban tourism and place marketing in formerly industrial cities, more precisely the two fieldworks of Bramwell and Rawding (1994; 1996) dealing with the implementation of appealing tourist brand policies for the promotion of leisure and tourism in Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Sheffield, Bradford and Birmingham. According to the two authors, the tourist place image has to be distinguished between projected images and received images, with the former having reference to the image categories outlined by Gunn (1972, § Section 2.4) and the latter constituting “the interaction between […] projected messages and the consumer’s own needs, motivations, prior knowledge experience, preferences, and other personal characteristics” (Bramwell and Rawding, 1996: 202). Both the authors were already aware of the interrelations between place image and regenerated spaces, as well as of the potentialities of tourism as a catalyst for urban restructuring, in accordance with the statements of the English Tourism Board (ETB, 1980, cited in Selby, 2004;. 27). 30 Acknowledging the complexity and the limits of bridging projected, organic, induced and modified induced place images within a fully comprehensive research approach encompassing both the official place image promotion and the visual perceptions of tourists during their visits, the Author considers as necessary to adopt a research approach which analyses the official promotional material edited by the local official place marketing agency in Newcastle-Gateshead (the Newcastle-Gateshead Initiative, also mentioned here as the NGI) in order to find out the extent to which their official images emphasize the remarkable physical regeneration occurred in the Newcastle-Gateshead area. Taking for granted that these official projected images are by themselves rarely decisive in influencing the tourist experience of the city, the Author acknowledges that any official conveyed image has to be supported by a reliant and credible tourist information system, as well as by a visible built environment which could guarantee a sense of safety and control, as if it were a sort of playground were the tourist can play his own role and enjoy his leisure time. The relationships between built environment, official place images conveyed through the media, and tourist space consumption practices therefore constitute the heart of the research here deployed, which is drawn upon the researches of Lynch (1960) Bramwell and Rawding (1996), Bramwell (1998) and Baloglu and McCleary (1999). The study of Lynch is useful to explain how the tourist may experience the space surrounding him, particularly in the mental perception of districts and landmarks, with the latter being also supported by the statements of McCannell (2005) and Urry (2002) already introduced in the previous section. The study of Bramwell and Rawding is instead useful for the implementation a multidisciplinary approach encompassing marketing, geographical studies and critical sociology (Bramwell and Rawding, 1996: 203-206). On the other hand, the contribution of Bramwell “examines [...] the satisfaction of users with the tourism products in cities” (Bramwell, 1998: 35) and demonstrates how urban tourism destinations “are promoted through the use of signs that symbolize a high quality gentrified landscape” (Selby, Hayllar and Griffin, 2008: 187) in order to countervail the negative imageries associated in particular with formerly industrial cities. Selling a tourist destination is way more difficult than selling a product, as the responsible for services and amenities are vary and not connected one to each other. Conversely, the range of stakeholders involved in the display of a tourist space is hard to define, particularly in the case of urban tourist cities, where there are a considerable number of either complementary or distinctive 31 activities which differ from the mere tourist industry. The anarchic-sound context here described should therefore envisage a minimum of coherence towards a clear place marketing mission, a condition which would be possible through established marketing arrangements between the many stakeholders. These bargains are indeed necessary in order to promote and provide the perfect mix of images, services and facilities towards a successful tourist-oriented development of the urban destination. Notwithstanding the fact that cities compete in many other sectors of the economy, from hi-tech industries to the so-called Creative Industry within a competitive global urban economy, the Author firmly believes that tourism should not be underestimated as an induced and spontaneous corollary phenomenon, but that it should be instead planned, monitored and promoted jointly with the other place marketing strategies in order to achieve a long-term prolific urban renaissance. Indeed, there would be no tourism development without planning it, a condition which does not exclusively consist of promoting a place though catchy brands, appealing landscapes or hosting remarkable, world famous fairs, festivals and mega-events. Au contraire, tourism development in urban spaces should necessarily be focused on long-term planning initiatives, towards what Page and Hall (2003: 333-336) conceptualize as continuous regeneration. In a nutshell, what counts is not the mere event or landmark – although hosting and event or having a visual appealing urban landscape are both good push factors – but a well established tourism governance which envisages both marketing and management instances as well as long-term, all-embracing, integrative, opened, mixed, systemic, dynamic, and target-oriented tourism planning strategies (Godfrey and Clarke, 2002) which should foresee stimulational policies in order to stimulate urban tourism as a whole (Ashworth, 1991). 2.5 The pinball model applied to the urban tourist destination The models introduced in section 2.1.1 have the credit to delimitate the urban tourist space from the rest of the urban environment. Nevertheless, some spatial models have the limit to conceive the tourist area as located close or within the city centre, although Pierce (1998) pointed out that tourist districts are not necessarily located in the core areas of the city or close to the business district. Moreover, the performativity of the tourist experience suggests us that visitors might gaze 32 upon landscapes or buildings which could not be considered as attractions in any tourism promotion sources. Visitors might indeed be willing to visit, consume and experience the city in their own way, thus rendering likely unpredictable their economic behaviour within the city. Finally, the tourist area is also consumed and experienced by other city users coming from outside the city and – of course – by the residents living there, which experience the tourist space during their respective leisure time. These statements constitute the basis for a new approach in the modelling of the tourist city, in which the model of the environmental tourist bubble, the concept of urban tourism precinct and of the networked system merge into a new model: the Pinball/Tourist Destination model (Figure 2.7 and Figure 2.8). 33 Figures 2.7 (left) and 2.8 (above) sdsjdasdshjdsgdjahsdjasgdjsadjasdajhsdajsdsjhdashjdgsajdgsjhdgjhsadgsdgsahjdgsjdgajhsdgsahjdsdbsmdb asmbdmsbdsnmbdmnsbdmabdmsbdnmabdnmbsadnbasdbanmsdbansmbdmsanbdnmsbdnmabdsbdnsmadbn sbdsnadbnsmadbnsmadbnmsbdmnsbdsdbs 34 sdbsmndbsmndbnadbsnbdsbdnsbdnmabdsnabdsnbdnmsbdabsdnambdmnabdsmndbmsbdadbmanbdanbdan bdmnadbandbsndbsnmdbsndbandbadbansdbadnbanmdbamnsdbamnsdbamdbansbdsnbdsndbsndbsnmdbsa ndbsndbanmdbsnadbnamdbanmsbdmanbdsdsdjsdajsdhkadhjadhjsadhjsahdjshadjkshdjkshdjkshdjkashdjsa hdjahdj Similarly with the tourist bubble, the pinball allegory suggests that the tourist destination and its management can be conceived as a pinball machine, whose complex mechanism underneath the playfield underpins the concept of the networked system. To function properly, all the mechanisms of the pinball have to be all connected and work as one, as the elements of the urban tourism destination need to be interrelated one to each other in order to provide the most effective and the best urban experience possible to the visitor. The latter will unavoidably share the urban tourist space with both city users and residents, and – most importantly – he will walk within the urban city during his movement from one tourist attraction to another in the same way the metal ball of the pinball does on the playfield. The playfield of the pinball represents therefore the city, while the ball plays in this case the role of the visitor. The visitor is classified as a tourist when he decides to spend at least one night in a tourist accommodation, in accordance with the definition provided by the World Tourism Organization (WTO). In pinball terms, the drop targets of the playfield can be conceived as either hotels or bed and breakfasts where the tourist stays overnight. The arrival of the visitor/tourist in the city can be instead paralleled with the entry lane of the pinball, notably the launching ramp through which the metal ball is shot into the playfield. The entry lane can be further conceived as the main gateway to the city (e.g. the airport; the bus terminal; the train station; etc.). The arrival at the urban tourist destination is the ending result of the successful pretravel tourist marketing consisting a wide range of tourism promotion materials and – to a certain extent – the positive feedback that the just-arrived visitor received from his friends and relatives about the city. This pre-arrival phenomenon can be translated in pinball terms as well, with the plunger of the machine playing the role of tourism promotion, either in terms of pure place marketing or as the successful outcome of previous urban tourism experiences within the destination. Focusing on the experience of the individual visitor/user and his performativity within the destination, the experience of either a tourist attraction or any other feature of the urban built environment can be translated in pinball terms as the contact that the metal ball has when it hits the objects and the targets of the playfield. More precisely, the hit of a passive bumper can be conceived as the practice of gazing upon a given urban built element, while the active bumper can 35 be paralleled with the access of the visitor/tourist in a given tourist attraction located within the urban destination. The unpredictable movement of the metal ball in the playfield can instead be matched with the inter-subjectivity of the visitor urban experience, as suggested in the culture and experience of urban tourism model introduced by Selby (2004, § Section 2.3). Shifting the argument on the role played by those organizations responsible for what Harrill (2009) terms as Integrated Destination Management (IDM), the pinball allegory shows remarkable similarities with the tourist promotion and management practices. In particular, the stamina given to the plunger for the ball launch can be read as the efforts of place marketing organizations (in this case the player of the pinball) in persuading the potential visitor to travel to the city. The launch of the ball is, however, not a sufficient condition to assess the role played by the destination marketing organizations as successful. As Harrill (ibid.) and Godfrey and Clarke (2002) suggest, the monitoring and – most importantly – the management of the visitor/tourist experience represent two key features that any tourism destination organization should care about. The place marketing agency has therefore to consider marketing as a branch of destination management, in accordance with the statements of Pike (2004, cited in Harrill, 2009) which identifies four specific goals:   enhancing destination image;  reducing seasonality;  increasing industry profitability; ensuring long-term funding. The management of the tourist experience during his staying, and of the destination as well should in synthesis constitute the priorities of tourism destination organizations. Translated in pinball terms, the goal of the player (the organization responsible for tourism promotion and management) would consist of gaining the highest game score possible, with the latter here conceived as the main mission of any idealized destination management and marketing organization: notably, to make of the city a successful tourist destination. In order to achieve this goal, the ideal destination management organization is supposed to provide an effective tourist information system. In pinball terms, the flippers of the mechanism that address the metal ball towards either targets or toys set on the playfield can be paralleled with the in-place tourist information system which directions the visitor to paid tourist attractions, amenities and the main landmarks of the city. In particular, the provision of tailored tourist information can be paralleled with the use of manual flippers, while 36 the presence of standardized tourist information at the tourist information office can be coupled with the automatic flippers located along the playfield. Focusing on the visitor/metal ball actions, the displacement of the metal sphere afterwards it gets hit by the flipper, can be translated as the result of the interaction between the visitor/tourist and the destination tourist information system. In addition to this, three other pinball features can be ascribed as elements of the tourist information system, more precisely, the switch, the slightshots, and the rubber pads. The latter two in particular are here compared to the tourism promotion materials (e.g. brochures, flyers, tourist maps, official pocket guides, etc.) available at the tourist office, while the former can be coupled with any sort of additional tourist information which persuades the visitor/tourist to extend his staying in the urban tourism destination. One of the characteristics of tourism is that visitors, at some point, unavoidably return back home from holydays. This issue underpins the basic rules of pinball games, as they do not last forever. Nevertheless, the player of the pinball is willing to extend the length of the game in order to gain the highest score possible by addressing the metal sphere with the flippers to the targets set on the pinball playground. Furthermore, the player of the pinball can nudge the pinball to drive the ball to the target that he desires. Similarly, the destination management organization is willing to persuade the visitor to extend his staying by offering him a mix of information and attractions to see once he arrives in the city. Moreover, the organization responsible for marketing, management and monitoring of the tourist city will provide specific information and road signals to visitors and it will therefore guide them within the destination, in accordance with the statements of Ashworth (1991: 213-218). Both the pinball playfield and the urban tourism destination have a number of objects whose location and importance are decisive in the game as well as in attracting the visitor before and during his experience with the city. As Costa (2004b) points out, each tourist attraction has a sort of tourist appeal among visitors which should be strengthened by the responsible for tourism promotion through effective place marketing strategies. The appeal of the tourists attraction is also described as a sort of magnet (ibid.) which attracts both visitors and city users. The pinball allegory is here once again confirmed, as the power transistors located inside of toys and targets function as electromagnets which attract the metal ball to these specific features of the pinball. All the pinball components here introduced provide a score during the game which can be in this case assimilated to the tourist expenditure and satisfaction during his visit. Focusing on the targets, 37 it is here suggested that the mechanism of both stationary and bulls-eye targets can be assimilated with the paid visitor experience. Similarly, a vary-target is here conceived as a paid visitor experience within a defined leisure district, while a kicking target can be compared to a paid experience inside of a tourist attraction with an official tourist information point inside. The allegory of the kicking target in particular can also be applied to those amenities (e.g. hotels, restaurants, pubs, etc) which provide a range of standardized tourist information inside. Finally, the toy of the pinball is here compared as the key iconic elements of the city, which can range from design buildings, heritage sites, events, sports stadia, representative features of built environment, bridges, statues, landscapes and so on. In conclusion, the allegory adopted in this section introduces an insightful approach in the analysis of the urban tourism destination. The location of the main tourism attractions does not necessarily correspond to the central area of the city, as the appeal of these resources depend exclusively on the place marketing efforts of urban tourism destination organizations. This assumption stands at the heart of the pinball allegory, which considers tourist attractions and amenities notwithstanding their spatial location. The same shape of the playfield implies indeed that what is important is to promote the urban tourism supply altogether, possibly within a unified, well defined tourist image, in accordance with what already stated in Section 2.4. The mission of any destination management organization should therefore consist in coherently include all the elements of the built environment into a system in order to provide a functioning network which connects tourism attractions, tourist services, transportation systems, visitor information and any sort of urban feature with a minimum of tourist appeal. Moreover, these organizations should seek to include new magnets to the already existing tourism supply, through infrastructural ameliorations (e.g. hotel facilities, leisure spaces, shopping facilities) while searching for still not fully exploited tourist attractions within its territory for. This process of continuous improvement, jointly with the effective management and monitoring of the visitor/tourist experience, will make of the city a successful tourism destination, in accordance with the assumptions of Ashworth (1991: 213-218), which claim for long-term, stimulational policies. The adoption of these policies and of both reconciliative and defensive policies envisage the urban tourism image to play a decisive role. In fact, as Ashworth (ibid.) state, “by influencing the flow of information through official guidebooks, information centres, advertising sites and channelled along trials and corridors [...] promotion can be [...] more than a crude method of attracting visitors: it can also be an instrument for their 38 management” (ibid.: 214). Nevertheless, the organisation responsible for the management and the promotion of the urban tourist destination needs to implement its place marketing strategies within a functioning tourism system in order to achieve successful goals and provide the best urban experience possible to visitors, tourists and city users. This latter condition is satisfied when the elements of the urban tourist destination are connected one to another within a system, which can be assimilated to the effective functioning of the mechanism underneath the pinball playfield. The correct functionality of the pinball, jointly with the ability of the player, can be compared to the urban tourism governance behind the scenes of the urban spectacle, which can only be possible through a collaborative climate among the many stakeholders involved in the decisional planning debate and in its corresponding destination management practices 39