Tourism, place and placelessness in the phenomenological experience of shopping malls in Seoul

Tourism Management 45 (2014) 106e114

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Tourism, place and placelessness in the phenomenological experience of shopping malls in Seoul Changsup Shim a,1, Carla Almeida Santos b, * a

Division of Tourism, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 133-197, South Korea Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 104 Huff Hall, 1206 South Fourth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA b

h i g h l i g h t s
This study sheds critical light on Relph’s concept of place and placelessness.
The phenomenological experience of shopping malls in Seoul was examined.
Shopping malls offer both an ambience of placelessness and new appeal for tourists.
Contemporary dynamics affecting urban tourism are experienced at shopping malls.
Shopping malls are places where socio-cultural changes manifest themselves.

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 10 May 2012 Accepted 7 March 2014

Despite the broad conceptualization of shopping malls as placeless, malls increasingly serve as popular tourist attractions and yet remain significantly under investigated in the tourism literature. With this in mind, this study investigates tourists’ lived experiences and their implications for understanding contemporary manifestations of place and placelessness. It focuses specifically on shopping malls in Seoul, South Korea and adopts a phenomenological perspective to address two research questions: first, are there particular features that give rise to tourists experiencing shopping malls as placeless? And second, notwithstanding placelessness, what is the appeal of Seoul’s malls to tourists? Findings propose that malls can be understood as a negotiated reality between the forces that create placelessness and those that enhance the appeal of malls. The study affirms contemporary notions of placelessness as symbiotic with experiencing place; reaffirming space as a production of human intention where social and cultural changes manifest themselves. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Shopping malls Placelessness Place Urban tourism Phenomenology Seoul

1. Introduction For the last few decades, East Asian cities have applied global standards to their entrepreneurial urban strategies as they face intense competition to become regional and global hubs (Jessop & Sum, 2000; Maitland & Ritchie, 2009). Their efforts have simultaneously been credited with successfully creating spectacular urban landscapes that highlight skyscrapers, rapid transit systems, and cutting edge shopping malls and attract an increasing number of tourists, while also being faulted for producing undistinguished

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 217 244 3874. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C. Shim), [email protected] (C. A. Santos). 1 Tel.: þ82 10 7203 4837. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.03.001 0261-5177/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

urban environments that lack uniqueness and local flavor (Morley, 2009; Wu, 2003). This homogenization of the urban environment was thoughtfully described by Relph (1976) in Place and Placelessness, where he first coined the term placelessness, arguing that urban development without consideration of the “significance of place” resulted in “the casual eradication of distinctive places” and “the making of standardized landscapes” (Preface). Shopping malls, “extraordinary tourist attractions in their own right” (Urry, 1990, p. 147), present the most notable contemporary example of placeless urban environments. Hopkins (1990, p. 10) deemed malls placeless due to “their redundant style and seemingly ubiquitous sets of chain stores”; similarly, O’Brien and Harris (1991) pointed out that the market mechanism continually transforms malls into homogenized urban landscapes. In their quest to become regional and global hubs, East Asian cities have experienced over the last decade a significant increase in the

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development of large-scale shopping malls filled with multi-national brand shops, chain restaurants and entertainment centers (Cho, 2010; Kwon, 2010). In these East Asian contemporary manifestations of placelessness, it is not surprising for tourists to encounter mall environments that differ little from those in their home countries. Interestingly, despite the commonly unchallenged understanding of shopping malls as placeless, malls increasingly serve as popular tourist attractions and leisure spaces and yet remain significantly under investigated (Shim, Santos, & Choi, 2013; Urry, 1990). In the United States the Mall of America attracts approximately 43 million visitors per year, and in Canada, West Edmonton Mall annual visits are around 22 million (LeHew & Wesley, 2007). Additionally, malls in East Asia, such as the COEX Mall in Seoul, the Xidan Shopping Centre in Beijing, and Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, have become preferred settings amongst tourists (Cho, 2010; Kang, 2010). Consequently, although malls may display several features of placelessness, tourists increasingly appear to perceive them as desirable ‘places’ to visit. What is it, then, about these places and the experiences they enable that are increasingly attractive to tourists? To address this inquiry, the current study sheds critical light on Relph’s concept of place and placelessness. He conceptualized places as “the significant centres of our immediate experiences of the world”, and argued that place cannot exist independently but must be explored in terms of how people experience it (Relph, 1976, p. 141). His ideas are central to tourism studies as they locate the tourist experience as a complex process of meaning-making, through which a space becomes a place with special meaning to the individual experiencing it. With this in mind, the aim of this study is to understand the experiences and meanings that tourists ascribe to their visits to shopping malls in Seoul, Korea. Adopting a phenomenological approach, which facilitates the understanding of “the focusing of experiences and intentions onto particular settings” (Relph, 1976, p. 141), this study responds to Selby, Hayllar, and Griffin’s (2008) call for a better understanding of the urban tourist experience of space. In so doing, it contributes to discussions on the complexity of the experiential dimensions of contemporary urban tourism by integrating spatial considerations in the examination of the growing phenomena of tourists visiting shopping malls. Two specific research questions guide this study: first, are there particular features that give rise to tourists experiencing shopping malls as placeless? And second, notwithstanding placelessness, what is the appeal of Seoul’s malls to tourists? 2. Literature review 2.1. Shopping malls in Seoul Following the Korean War in the 1950s, South Korea experienced rapid economic growth and urbanization, which brought about the expansion of the city of Seoul. Over the past 50 years, while property values in Seoul have increased significantly, the downtown has deteriorated. Urban redevelopment was therefore inevitable as city government sought to have a well-ordered urban landscape, land owners needed valuable property, and property developers sought profits (Kim, 2009; Kim & Choe, 2011). Accordingly, urban spaces in Seoul have increasingly been reshaped into new consumption landscapes, often on deteriorated industrial sites (Kim, 2009; Shin, 2008). Producing new commercial venues to attract tourists and residents alike has become central to Korean contemporary urban redevelopment policy; as a result, Seoul has experienced considerable development of shopping malls, such as the COEX Mall, I-PARK Mall, and Times Square (Cho, 2010; Kim, 2008).

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Moreover, following the 1988 Seoul Olympics, many multinational companies entered the South Korean market, bringing with them an influx of Western culture. In the process, Seoul’s shopping malls have become contemporary urban spaces where global and commercial culture influence place identity. Given that shopping malls attract a significant number of tourists and local visitors, multi-national corporations, such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Nike, clamored to gain an advantage in this new marketplace (Kim, 2009; Robinson, 2005). For these companies, malls are not only more than just retail locations but also provide a wide array of ongoing promotional opportunities, consumer narratives and relationships. Therefore, these malls have largely focused on identifying and satisfying the needs of visitors and have come to embrace characteristics quite different from those of preexisting Korean urban spaces, sharing common and undifferentiated aesthetic, architectural, and design features with Western suburban malls. Interestingly, although they mimic their Western counterparts, Seoul’s malls increasingly serve as preferred leisure settings among tourists and residents alike (Shim et al., 2013). The most frequented malls in Seoul, the COEX Mall, Time Square Mall, and I-Park Mall, each attract over one hundred thousand visitors daily (Cho, 2010; Kim, 2008). This can be partly attributed to the fact that these malls do not fulfill a single purpose, but rather provide a wide range of options, including shopping, eating, and socializing. These malls approach consumers through artificial images and representations, promoting themselves as fantasy worlds and entertainment sites. Indeed, the CEO of Time Square Mall stated that Korean malls employ a “malling system” which refers to “the idea that visitors can visit one place and get access to almost anything they want, conveniently” (Lee, 2009, p. 1). 2.2. Placelessness In the 1970s, Edward Relph rejected quantitative approaches to the understanding of space, criticizing them for underplaying the subtle meaning of human experience. Place, he proposed, must anchor its meaning within the context of human action. Relph (1976) argued that place is “where we have had a wide variety of experiences“ (p. 29) and that place identities are constructed by “the individual, group, or consensus image of that place” (p. 56), invoking “a direct and genuine experience of the entire complex” (p. 64). Founded on this conceptualization of place, he first coined the term placelessness to describe places that have become abstract, a historic, and inauthentic, suggesting that rapid industrialization, commercialism, and mass media give rise to placelessness that is further advanced by kitsch and tourism which deplete a place of historical and local context (Relph, 1976). The concept of placelessness strongly corresponds with Augé’s (1996, p. 177) later notion of “non-place” and “supermodernity”, which describe “the acceleration or enhancement of the determining constituents of modernity”. In particular, Relph (1976, p. 93) identified tourism as one of the most influential contemporary sources contributing to placelessness, suggesting that the landscape of tourism is a prime example of “other-directed architecture”, designed for outsiders, spectators, passers-by, and consumers and that long-standing local identities are replaced by “conventional tourist architecture, synthetic landscape, and pseudo-places”. Moreover, he asserted that tourism is a ubiquitously “homogenizing influence”, allowing for “an uncritical acceptance of mass values” (Relph, 1976, p. 82). Others who adopted this perspective cite such tourism landscapes as motorways (Augé, 1995), shopping malls (Thrift, 1997), airport lounges (Rowley & Slack, 1999), Disneyland (Warren, 1999), and festivals (MacLeod, 2006) as examples of placelessness. They propose that these

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contemporary tourism landscapes do not reflect local characteristics but instead represent modernized and illusory environments within enclosed commercial spaces, which, in turn, offer tourists hollow experiences that serve to further decontextualize meaning and place (Nijman, 1999). 2.3. Phenomenology of place Relph (1976), as well as Buttimer’s (1976, 1987), conceptualization of place and placelessness explicitly identifies research on place and space as a phenomenological endeavor that requires “an attitude to the world that emphasize[s] subjectivity and experience rather than the cool, hard logic of spatial science” (Relph, 1976, p. 20). Likewise, Lefebvre (1991, p. 38) asserts that space, long understood for its physical and economic dimensions, should instead be framed as a contextual, social, cultural, and conceptual system, suggesting that “urban reality” is reflected in “daily routine” and therefore best understood in terms of “the routes and networks that link up the places set aside for work, ‘private’ life, and leisure”. Phenomenology is both a research methodology, as well as a philosophical movement (Santos & Yan, 2010). Its underlying assumption is that the everyday world is a meaningful and productive source of key insights into the nature of any given phenomenon. Phenomenology aims to explain experiential phenomena not in their empirical individuality but in their essence; therefore, a phenomenological approach seeks to capture the essence of shared lived experience in order to arrive at a deeper and inter-subjective understanding of a phenomenon (Giorgi, 1997). van Manen (1990, p. 38) asserts that “[l]ived experience is what we experience as it happens, but we can only get at what we experience after it happens through a reconstruction of that experience”. In this regard, Seamon and Sowers (2008, p. 43) suggest that a phenomenological approach requires “step[ping] back to call into question the taken-for-granted nature of place and its significance as an inescapable dimension of human life and experience”. A phenomenological approach has been adopted in the current study seeking to describe and understand tourists’ lived experiences, as it allows for “action research into the human dynamics of tourism” (Ingram, 2002, p. 1). Pernecky and Jamal (2010) explain that it facilitates an entry point into data collection, analysis and contextualization that does not limit its investigation to observable realities and accepts researcher subjectivity as inevitable. This approach can, therefore, be especially useful to the understanding of the synergetic relationship between lived experiences and particular settings, in this case, to understanding shopping malls as negotiated spaces where contemporary dynamics affecting urban tourism are experienced and grounded. 3. Methodology As Streubert and Carpenter (1999, p. 48) explain, “there is more than one legitimate way to proceed with a phenomenological investigation”. In this study, the research approach was designed to generate thematic understanding and adopted analysis strategies proposed by Giorgi (1997) and Hycner (1985); namely, reduction and thematic description. 3.1. Research sites Data collection was implemented in four shopping malls in Seoul, all built after 2000: Times Square Mall, I-PARK Mall, COEX Mall, and Central City. The space now occupied by the Times Square Mall was previously a large manufacturing factory; I-Park Mall was a famous railway station; and Central City Mall was an express bus

terminal. While a few of these spaces still serve to perform some of their original function, there is little left of their previous place identity, as the focus has shifted to their function as consumer spaces. They are located in the center or subcenters of the city and are connected to subway stations, attracting significant numbers of visitors. Each mall houses various shops, restaurants, food courts, movie theaters, and large bookstores. There are also stages inside and outside the malls for seasonal events and public appearances. Moreover, without exception every one of the malls also includes a large-scale discount chain, such as E-mart or Home-Plus. 3.2. Data collection Semi-structured interviews were conducted as they allowed study participants to serve as experiential experts who guided the direction of the interviews, and were thus able to introduce issues that the researchers had not previously considered (Corbetta, 2003). Specifically, interviews were conducted with tourists, as well as local visitors and shop owners at each of the four research sites. The decision to interview local visitors and shop owners came after initial interviews with tourists suggested that observation and engagement with others sharing the mall was an element of the lived experience of tourists. To recruit suitable participants, the first author visited each of the four shopping malls five separate times at different times of the day and week during a period of two months. The participants (except for shop owners) were recruited at rest areas, food courts, parking lots, and bus stops where they were resting, chatting with others, or waiting for their friends, cotravelers or tour guides. At the end of each interview, a gift of a small traditional Korean jewelry box was offered in appreciation of their contribution. Purposive sampling was used whereby participants were selected because they shared specific features in common with one another (e.g. visited the same malls where data was collected), and offered multiple perspectives on the experience of “being-in-the-mall” (e.g. tourists, local visitors, and shop owners) (David & Sutton, 2004). A total of 26 interviews were conducted (ranging from four to eight interviews per site). As shown in Table 1, the participants

Table 1 Profiles of study participants. No.

Nationality

Gender

Age

Status

Location

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17 P18 P19 P20 P21 P22 P23 P24 P25 P26

China China China China China Japan Japan Japan Japan Japan Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong United States United States Australia Australia Vietnam South Korea South Korea South Korea South Korea South Korea South Korea South Korea South Korea

Male Female Female Male Female Male Female Male Female Female Female Male Female Female Male Female Female Female Female Male Male Female Female Female Male Female

22 27 21 46 22 33 39 22 31 47 29 24 33 31 38 21 31 21 41 47 32 25 29 34 44 39

International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist International tourist Local resident Local resident Local resident Local resident Local resident Shop owner Shop owner Shop owner

COEX Mall I-Park Mall I-Park Mall Central City Mall COEX Mall Times Square Mall I-Park Mall Times Square Mall COEX Mall COEX Mall COEX Mall COEX Mall I-Park Mall Central City Mall COEX Mall Times Square Mall COEX Mall COEX Mall COEX Mall I-Park Mall I-Park Mall Central City Mall COEX Mall Times Square Mall I-Park Mall COEX Mall

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included 18 tourists, 5 local visitors, and 3 shop owners. The youngest participants were in their early 20s while the oldest were in their 40s; 9 were male and 17 were female. Overall, participants’ mall visitation patterns varied from frequently to intermittently, thus allowing for consideration of different perspectives. Interviews with local visitors, shop owners and tourists from the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, and Vietnam were conducted by the first author, who is fluent in English and Korean. Chinese and Japanese tourists were interviewed through a ChineseeKorean interpreter and a JapaneseeKorean interpreter, respectively. During the interviews, participants were asked to describe their experiences, thoughts, actions, and opinions. As shown in Table 2, several primary questions were used to facilitate open dialog. Additional open-ended, clarifying questions were asked based on the emerging data, as well as to ensure that the interviewer understood the intended meaning of the participants’ answers. Interviews lasted an average of 35 min. All interviews were tape-recorded.

and read by the authors, who then met to discuss each summary with any disagreements resolved by consulting the transcribed interviews and the researchers’ reflective notes. This process resulted in the generation of various meaning units that described the essence of participants’ experiences. Third, the researchers grouped meaning units across the interviews by relating elements to each other and to the whole. This involved clustering meaning units and identifying common themes with irrelevant, repetitive or overlapping data eliminated. Finally, the researchers probed each transcript and summary by inquiring into what the identified themes revealed about the essential qualities of the phenomenon in question. This involved assessing the ability of the identified themes to offer a holistic understanding of the participants’ experiences, and further refining the identified themes.

3.3. Data analysis

The phenomenological experience of shopping malls in Seoul reveals patterns of meaning that embody the manifestation of the following interrelated themes: cultural globalization, commercial mass culture, contemporary authenticity, consumption of space itself, and quasi-public space. These themes provide a holistic understanding of the mall experience, and its associated meanings, as interlinking tourists’ desire for the consumption of contemporary global spaces with their interpretation of the mall as both a functional and socio-cultural space.

Data analysis was performed by two researchers who witnessed first-hand the global phenomena of shopping malls as they grew up in East Asia and Europe, were educated in North America, and traveled widely in the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Initial interest in the topic arose from the researchers’ observation of the tension between malls as increasingly undifferentiated spaces and their ever-growing global popularity as tourist attractions. Subsequent exploration of the tourism literature revealed a lack of research on the topic, thus inspiring the current study. Given the researchers’ experiences with the phenomenon under investigation, reflective notes were written during data collection and analysis to ensure that the focus remained on the participants’ experiences and not the researchers’ experiences or judgments. The data analysis approach adopted in this study involved the use of the following procedures. First, the researchers read all the transcripts to get a sense of the whole experience and achieve deep immersion. This involved the first author listening to the tapes several times and then transcribing each one of them, followed by each author reading the transcripts multiple times. Second, each transcript was read for meaning units that illuminated the recurring features and expressions participants used to describe their experiences. This involved reading, writing, and discussion between the authors. The authors read each transcript several times and wrote summaries of each study participant’s description of experiences that included meanings attributed to the experiences, accompanied by illustrative quotes. The summaries were shared

4. The phenomenological experience of shopping malls in Seoul

4.1. Experiencing shopping malls as placeless Largely, study participants described their experiences by referencing several features that are thought to contribute to placelessness. Specifically, many compared their experiences in Seoul’s malls to ones in their home country and described the similarities between them as largely centered around such topics as homogenized interiors, multi-national brands, cosmopolitan settings, similar foods, or American culture. These foci are in fact discussed in Relph’s (1976) work to describe structural and commercial elements affecting place identity. Two main themes reflected the participants’ experiences and associated meanings: ‘cultural globalization’ and ‘commercial mass culture.’ 4.1.1. Cultural globalization P12: Korea is a much more modern country than I expected; there are a lot of skyscrapers and a lot of traffic . it’s the same as

Table 2 Interview questions. Research questions

Sub-Categories

Interview questions

1.Are there particular features that give rise to tourists experiencing shopping malls as placeless?

Urban tourism

- Can you describe your motivation to visit cities when you travel? - Can you describe the types of attractions and activities you usually go to/engage in when you visit a city? - Is it important to you that you experience local culture when you visit a city? If so, why? If not, why not? - What sort of attractions or activities do you believe best allow you to experience local culture when you visit a city? - What is most important to you when visiting a mall? - What was it like to visit this mall? - Why did you decide to visit this mall among many other attractions, activities and shopping places in Seoul? - What did you do while at this mall? - What specific aspects of this mall most appealed to you, and why? - In what ways was your experience alike your past mall experiences? And, in what ways was your experience different? - Is there anything else you would like to add that would help me to better understand your shopping mall experience and what it meant to you?

Local culture

Shopping malls 2. Notwithstanding placelessness, what is the appeal of Seoul’s malls to tourists?

Motivation

Appeal

Others

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any other city . except for the language on the signs, it’s essentially the same as my hometown of Hong Kong . there is nothing special about the malls here except for the Korean restaurants, of course. But I can also get those at home. An essential experience shared by the majority of participants involved the perceived lack of undifferentiated, distinct or memorable mallscapes across the globe. Indeed, several commented that Seoul’s malls resembled those in other urban spaces. P14: It’s cool to see what Koreans are into . but I was surprised that the mall and the stuff in it is really not that different than at home [USA]. I thought it would be more unique . but maybe that’s not possible, you know? . especially in big cities ‘cause they are starting to look very alike. Globalization is increasingly leading to a world represented by a single and undifferentiated global culture; several participants affirmed that Seoul, along with other major cities they visited, is no exception. Specifically, the consumption of globally available commodities has contributed to such undifferentiated experiences. A Vietnamese participant (P18) explained: P18: I was raised in Vietnam and I go to school in Australia. And the mall here in Korea is extremely similar to the malls in both of those places. I can shop at the same stores and even eat the same food in the malls in all three of those countries. I can get this exact same sandwich that I am eating here in Australia and Vietnam. These and other described experiences are not surprising given that shopping malls are increasingly designed by a few select transnational firms, and as such share common features of architecture, aesthetics, and design (Salcedo, 2003). Shopping malls as private businesses take an active part in cultural globalization as cosmopolitan culture, typically associated with North American culture in East Asian countries, is believed to attract visitors and result in increased sales. Moreover, East Asia is not alone in experiencing such a manifestation of cultural globalization. As Erkip (2003) explains Turkish urban residents prefer to consume foreign brands as they are increasingly accustomed to Western culture through mass media, including television and Hollywood movies. As such, the mall “far from becoming a distinctive ‘place’ that gave a sense of local identity to an otherwise indistinguishable environment, instead became as much a standardized product as any of the commodities sold within it” (Jewel, 2001, p. 320). 4.1.2. Commercialism and mass culture P8: I care about culture, but malls have to make profits and sell products that people want . I found what I wanted, so I enjoyed my experience.

P25: Why are you even asking me about local culture and my shop? What is the point of asking this question? If you’re going to ask anyone, ask the owner of a souvenir shop in Insa-dong (a historical district in Seoul). We’re in a mall; this is a place of business. I’m just trying to attract customers to sell merchandise . not them educate about our culture . if they want that this is not the place for it. Such a perspective on the mall further affirms and locates placelessness as resulting from “kitschdan uncritical acceptance of mass values, or techniquedthe overriding concern with efficiency as an end in itself” (Seamon & Sowers, 2008, p. 4). The dynamics revealed provide interesting insight into contemporary society. The majority of participants generally defined the main purpose of malls as maximization of profits, and described most of their experiences as void of cultural content. Shopping malls are after all commercial spaces owned and managed by private enterprises. However, malls also perform multiple roles as cultural, social, and recreational urban spaces. To maximize profits, they use diverse business techniques and marketing strategies to attract visitors. Such techniques and strategies, such as spatial design and layout and advertisements rely on standardized and undifferentiated cultural texts and images of malls as urban cultural hubs (Davis, 1999; Hannigan, 1998), and served to entice these study participants to visit. It follows, as many participants described consuming undifferentiated products and experiences not grounded in local history, context or tradition, that the adoption of a commercialized mass culture further promotes placelessness. Accordingly, while the malls included in this study promote themselves as cultural hubs, most participants experienced them largely as undistinguishable in the global mallscape and lacking in cultural content. Moreover, several participants described how they wanted cities to provide “lots to do” (P1); what scholars labeled “entertainment machines“ (Clark & Lloyd, 2004; Sassen & Roost, 1999). A Japanese participant (P9) explained how he was purely looking for entertainment and a great shopping experience: P9: Korean culture? I’m not interested in Korean culture. When I travel, I’m not looking to experience culture I’m just going to shop and be entertained. As Davis (1999, p. 454) asserted, “corporations with enormous creative talents and research budgets continue to try to find new physical, psychic and cultural spaces to penetrate”. In this sense, contemporary culture carries the connotation of entertainment rather than high art, of standardization rather than individuality, and of commercialism rather than community (Oswell, 2006). 4.2. The appeal of Seoul’s shopping malls

Another essential experience shared by many of the participants involved the often uncritical acceptance of a variety of dynamics which originate from capitalism and contribute to placelessness; leading most participants to embrace commercialism as encompassing of the mall experience. Moreover, several described how shopping malls, necessarily exploitative in nature, provided meaningful experiences and opportunities unique to the mallscape. P16: I really like this mall [Times Square Mall], it’s great . there is so much more to do than shop. A shop owner in I-Park Mall (P25) seemed bemused with the researcher’s questions regarding local culture.

Understanding why, despite experiencing them as placeless, malls and the experiences they facilitate are increasingly attractive to tourists proved complex. Participants were often stumped when trying to voice their motivations for visiting the mall, with several explaining that they had never contemplated the specific reasons beyond “something to do” or “just shopping”. Notwithstanding, participants discussed several reasons associated with why they found Seoul’s malls appealing, such as the latest fashion, passing time, public spaces, predictability/familiarity, and image consumption. Three themes reflected their experiences and associated meanings: ‘contemporary authenticity’, ‘consumption of space itself’, and ‘quasi-public space’.

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4.2.1. Contemporary authenticity P5: I actually asked my Korean friends to recommend some great places in Seoul. Most of the places on their list of recommendations were not really what I had expected. But it was good since I believed their recommendations would show me the real Seoul. P2: I would like to experience what Koreans actually wear and eat, and where they actually shop. P17: I’m here to experience Asian culture . like authentic Asian food, Korean culture and their authentic life. Several participants revealed that they desired to experience the “real” Seoul and the “authentic” Korea, although understandably their conceptualization of real or authentic was not always clear. To be sure, authenticity is a cultural value constantly created and reinvented, emphasizing selectivity and interpretation (Bruner, 1994; Olsen, 2002). Indeed, most participants described experiencing “mall culture” not as fixed but rather as continually being reproduced. This was particularly well-described by a Korean participant (P23): P23: Well, I don’t really know. This is not exactly Korean culture and this is not exactly Western culture either. This is kind of anonymous. I don’t think there is anything genuinely authentic here. Every time I come to this place there is something new and it keeps on changing. It follows that the evolving local urban culture was experienced and understood by most of the participants as an integral part of its authenticity. Moreover, many tourist attractions, including museums and amusement parks, are mainly designed for tourists. In contrast, although malls in Seoul serve to attract tourists, most visitors are Koreans who have various purposes for visiting the mall, such as purchasing goods, dining, and meeting friends. Malls, therefore, are shared tourist and resident spaces. As one Japanese participant (P6) described, to him Times Square Mall was a great place to witness and experience interesting dynamics and realities regarding contemporary Korea and Koreans. P6: I am surprised to see so many Korean people eating in the Japanese restaurant in this Korean mall. I am not sure if this is Japan or Korea? But the Japanese food here is actually quite different from authentic Japanese food you would find in Japan. Malls in Seoul have become favorite places for Seoul residents, particularly for young individuals who seemingly embrace global, mass culture (Shim et al., 2013). Hence, malls represent what some enjoy in contemporary Korean society. One Chinese participant (P2) described the mall as a perfect place to experience contemporary Korean culture: P2: In China, Korean pop music and television shows are extremely popular. The Korean people in these TV series always seem very wealthy and high-class. When I come to Korean malls, I feel like I am a part of that life style. It’s fascinating for me to participate in the local Korean culture . I came here specifically to see the latest Korean fashion and hear the newest Korean pop music. Shopping, therefore, might be the easiest way to experience the uniqueness of native culture (Hsieh & Chang, 2006). As Davis (1999, p. 453) asserts, place identity is “not the uses space is designed for, but the uses people find for space”. Various dynamics surrounding

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the malls in this study seemed to create and locate contemporary authenticity in Seoul. Many participants regarded these malls as places to experience Seoul’s contemporary authenticity, unlike other traditional attractions that provide historical approaches to the city. 4.2.2. Consumption of space itself P17: For me, it was such a big decision . It’s enough that I’m in an Asian country. P3: Seoul was a place I have always wanted to visit. I also wanted to go to New York City . So I’m just happy to be here because I have never been here before. Most participants’ stories emphasized the consumption of space e the malls, Seoul, Korea, and even East Asia. In this sense, several participants described malls as a text or a sign that concealed the actual purpose within the space. P11: I went to many famous places like the Seoul City Hall, Gwanghwamoon, and some museums yesterday. And I’m going to visit another shopping center this afternoon . it was too many places to go, but I had to go to those places while I was here. P20: It’s been more than five years since I was last here [I-PARK Mall]. And the last time I was here this place was a decrepit train station. In that short amount of time, it has been completely transformed in to a modern shopping center. Even though this is a relatively undeveloped part of Seoul I feel like I am in Kangnam [a modern and developed part of Seoul]. Participants’ motivation and behavior paralleled Baudrillard’s (1983) understanding of postmodern society. In a postmodern society, he suggested, symbols and signs replace reality and meaning, and human experience is a ‘simulacra’ of reality. He also proposed that things no longer have an original function or utility value, rather signs and images communicate their meaning to others. Space is no longer experienced as a geographical and physical place, but rather a field where various symbolic phenomena come out through the medium of consumption. As several participants explained, they visited these spaces not only to buy a particular product or enjoy a specific type of entertainment, but also to consume the space itself. A Chinese participant (P5) revealed what the COEX Mall meant to him. P5: The COEX-MALL is well-known in China, it’s even referenced in all the tourist guides. All of my friends want to visit it. I finally came here, so now I can go back and brag to all of them about it and what I did and saw while visiting. As Gottdiener (1997) explained, a shopping space does not merely play a role in promoting particular products but it begins to be consumed as a whole; as the image of the space itself. Likewise, Lefebvre (1991, p. 39) asserted that spaces “tend towards more or less coherent systems of nonverbal symbols and signs”. Indeed, shopping malls provided this study’s participants with a combination of several functions of space into one created image. For one local resident (P22), the Central City Mall was not just a shopping space. P22: I didn’t come here to buy anything, just to take in the sights with some friends. This mall is just our playground. To be sure, in many cities malls serve as popular recreational spaces and tourists and residents alike consider them playgrounds

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or “spaces to hang out” even though these spaces are primarily privately owned (Urry, 1990). Goss (1993) suggested that malls produce various images, such as a ‘Dream House’, or ‘Fantasy Island’. He defined this phenomenon as the commodification of reality, which serves as a symbolic example of Baudrillard’s statement that “the symbolic subverts the material order, and the distinction between illusion and reality has become problematical or entirely collapsed” (as cited by Goss, 1993, p. 21). As a result, urban spaces have become a commodity to be bought and sold not only to business interests but also to individual consumers (Ellin, 1996; Meethan, 1996). Considering that “. we are living between a now-aging modern era and an emerging postmodern era that remains to be adequately conceptualized, charted, and mapped” (Best & Kellner, 1997, p. 31), a postmodernist perspective provides a framework for understanding this study’s participants experiences and the appeal of shopping malls in Seoul. 4.2.3. Quasi-public space P26: It’s really hard to say why I’m here . I really don’t know. P7: I’m staying at the hotel in the same building as this mall . I’m here just to wait for my Korean friend . this place is good for killing time. Another essential experience shared by most participants is related to the actual function of malls. Malls were experienced and described as comfortable places that study participants felt free to visit without physical or financial barriers. This suggests that malls in Seoul spatially and culturally perform as public spaces, providing a comfortable environment for visitors to interact. As Goss (1993) suggested, malls may in some ways serve the public interest in part by their design and in part by their latent function. He suggested that several strategies, like offering rest areas, free events, and free restrooms, enhance their appearance as vital public spaces. One local male (P21) highlighted the attractiveness of I-Park Mall as a public space. P21: As a practical point, the mall is a good place to hang out because you know that there will be free restrooms available which are hard to find outside of this type of place . there’re a lot of attractions and things to see so it’s a good place to spend some time without spending money. Furthermore, mall proprietors increasingly employ the idea of providing public-like spaces as a marketing strategy. Davis (1999, p. 436) argued that in postmodern cities, private corporations are changing “the relationships between public and private experience” by creating public spaces “defined by marketing criteria and shaped to the most profitable audiences”. In fact, many characteristics of public spaces are found in Seoul malls, and most participants described enjoying them. Much like traditional public spaces including parks and plazas, several participants described not only visiting these malls just for purchasing goods but also for other purposes such as socializing. In addition, most participants appreciated that they could largely predict what they would see in these malls because they mostly consist of similar brand shops and franchise restaurants, as well as a similar arrangement of these stores. Moreover, since mall settings create a planned exclusion of danger, disorder, and chaos from the streets, consumers feel comfortable and safe at malls (Jacobs, 1988; Titus, 1990). One American participant (P15) found the predictability of the COEX Mall comforting. P15: As an American, I feel more comfortable and at ease in the malls than I do elsewhere in Korea. It is very hard to find food

that I am familiar with in more local areas so I always enjoy coming to the mall because I can find food here that I would eat in America. There are even signs in English here . Many Koreans find foreigners to be a spectacle which obviously makes me uncomfortable. However, here in the mall there are a lot of foreigners which naturally makes me feel more at ease. The public-like characteristics and predictability of Seoul’s malls led to study participants perceiving these spaces as public spaces. Essentially, participants described experiencing these malls as functional and as a part of the city, rather than as separate spaces where people go to shop. 5. Discussion This study provides three central findings that allow for there interpretation of Relph’s concept of place and placelessness, as well as the understanding of the phenomenological experience of shopping malls in Seoul: first, Relph’s (1976) conceptualization of place and placelessness is valid for understanding several aspects of contemporary urban spaces; second, Relph’s original work did not account for some contemporary changes shaping place identity, particularly the influences of globalization; third, Relph’s concept of place, which highlights human experience, is fundamental in understanding urban spaces as “places” and their relation to the experiential dimensions of contemporary urban tourism and the creation of a new meaning of authenticity. Relph’s notion of placelessness serves as a heuristic framework for uncovering meaning in urban spaces. The experiences described by the majority of this study’s participants support his argument that in the modern era, place identity in urban sites is gradually being overshadowed by mass communication and culture, big business, and tourism, all of which results in uniformity, standardization, and formlessness, which in turn produces placelessness. Study participants largely perceived and interpreted the general condition of these malls as placeless, experiencing them as conventional and bland. Elements of placelessness were experienced and articulated by several of the participants as pervasive in these malls, where one can observe “the casual replacement of the diverse and significant places . with anonymous spaces and exchangeable environments” (Relph, 1976, p. 143). Nevertheless, the experiences described also serve to illuminate how Relph’s understanding of placelessness fails to address critical elements of contemporary urban society, particularly the forces of globalization. Shopping malls in Seoul have become a “dramatically delocalized world” (Appadurai, 1995, p. 178) through the prevalence of multi-national brands, global chains, media technology, and tourists, all of which were hardly anticipated in Relph’s work decades ago. Furthermore, due to their global background and knowledge, many of the tourists interviewed were not surprised at such manifestations of cultural globalization and commercialism. This indicates that Relph’s conceptualization of place and placelessness unwittingly neglected the possibility of “global sense of place” (Massey, 1997, p. 323) and “the universal neutral values of global culture” (Jewel, 2001, p. 335). Hence, the current findings expand upon Relph’s conceptualization of placelessness by identifying it as a consequence of globalization. In this regard, some later scholars’ arguments are helpful in contextualizing the current findings, making up for gaps in Relph’s (1976) work which ignores “specific temporal, social, and individual circumstances” that construct the current identity of particular places (Seamon & Sowers, 2008, p. 47). Meethan (2002, p. 37) proposes tourism spaces “encompass sets of values and meanings, the symbolic element that is derived from the experiences of

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tourists as much as the inhabitants”. Likewise, Hollinshead (2007, p. 166) suggests that tourism as a system not only corrupts cultural distinctiveness but also has the potential to serve as “a lead vehicle in valuation/revaluation of local places”. Tourism, therefore, should not be understood only in terms of (post)modernization, globalization, or homogenization but rather as a new and hybrid form of local culture and its dynamics, since individuals do not passively accept its influence but rather subjectively change it to create or recreate culture (Meethan, 2002). In this sense, the place identity of malls in Seoul can be redefined over time through a process of “emergent authenticity” (Cohen, 1988, p. 379), as many participants described observing contemporary Korean culture despite the mall’s globalized, commercialized, and placeless environment. Finally, several of the experiences described by study participants and current phenomena surrounding these Korean malls revealed numerous similarities to the North American and Japanese malls that Davis (1999) described in her research. As Davis (1999, p. 438) noted, entertainment-retail projects that had been largely operated by media conglomerates exhibit “postmodern pastiche” or “historical reconstructions” intended to attract a wide variety of tourists to “the replication of an older urban world”. Defining “location-based entertainment” as a growth and promotional strategy of profit-driven companies, she asserted that these commercial development projects aim to create a sense of authenticity “evoking the diversity and unpredictability of the older city using carefully calibrated recipes”(p. 446). Similarly, Korean malls have begun to organize and control consumer behavior in specific ways and yet despite contributing to the development of commercialized culture, several study participants found these highly commoditized environments and the experiences they facilitate appealing. 6. Conclusion Shopping malls, largely deemed as placeless, increasingly serve as popular tourist attractions. To date, however, not much is know as to what makes malls and the experiences they enable so increasingly attractive to tourists. With this in mind, this study examined the experiences and meanings that tourists ascribe to their visits to shopping malls. The theoretical interest is in advancing the argument that despite placelessness assumptions, shopping malls and the experiences they facilitate do increasingly matter to those visiting them. This study proposes that shopping malls in Seoul are a medium for the contemporary dynamics that serve to create an ambience of placelessness, while at the same time offering a new appeal for this study’s participants. These shopping malls can be understood as a negotiated reality between the forces that create placelessness and those that enhance the appeal of these malls. Thus, the current study does not preclude experiencing placelessness as acceptable, but instead affirms it as symbiotic with experiencing place. Accordingly, this study reaffirms space as a product of human intention where social and cultural changes manifest themselves. Given the numerous social spheres within the contemporary urban landscape, globalization forces have led to an overlapping of social spheres that once were distinct. The current findings apply not only in the context of Seoul’s malls, but also have implications for the development and management of urban tourism more broadly. First, a key application is that an urban tourist site must consider accommodating not only tourists but also residents to create and facilitate “contemporary authenticity” that appeals to diverse visitors. The placeness of urban tourist attractions should therefore encompass all facets of contemporary reality, of everyday lives and culture, whether rooted in locality or constructed by external dynamics. Shopping malls in Seoul provide an example of how to create contemporary

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authenticity, a phenomenon that is quite distinct from the objective authenticity of a museum and one with broad appeal to tourists and residents alike. Findings suggest that what tourists consider authentic in the city environment is neither necessarily ‘staged authenticity’ nor a ‘pseudo-event’ prepared with tourists in mind but rather it is the local identity of the city, which reflects a composite of local residents’ day-to-day lives. Local identity arises from cultural heritage, values and traditions, all of which are revealed not only in traditional performances or historical sites but also are found in the daily lives of contemporary urban residents. Second, the most successful urban tourist attractions create their own symbolic meanings that require understanding how tourists perceive and experience the space. Postmodern theorists suggest that urban environments have themselves become commodities to be consumed. Despite their original function as commercial venues, shopping malls in Seoul now satisfy tourists who increasingly want spaces they can visit anytime, and where they can consume the symbolic image of space without any specific purpose in mind. This phenomenon is not fully consistent with Relph’s concept of placelessness because in the age of simulation, the distinction between authenticity and in authenticity or place and placelessness has become problematic if not entirely collapsed. In contemporary urban environments, the investigation of the tourist experience should not strictly adhere to the concept of authenticity but rather should embrace the notion that urban spaces are commodities to be consumed through their signs, symbols, and images. Third, to advance cultural sustainability in the context of urban tourism, those in the industry would be well-served by placing priority on enhancing the openness and inclusiveness of tourist attractions by including local residents. Cities come to have their own heritage, values, and traditions, and these have been created, co-created and negotiated by successive groups of individuals living, working, and recreating in the cities. Since city culture is an accumulation of people’s everyday lives, a city cannot be culturally sustainable if local residents are not freely expressing their emotions, opinions and passion. Urban spaces should strive for culturally sustainability by providing physical and cultural links to expressions of the local community, such as the creation of quasipublic space in shopping malls in Seoul, which are freely accessible to residents and tourists alike. As preferred recreational spaces, shopping malls in Seoul illuminate the possibility for private tourist attractions to be spatially, socially, and culturally linked to the local context. Finally, the current study has several limitations. One limitation is that the majority of extant scholarship relied upon in the current study was conducted in Western cities, while the current study exclusively focuses on Korean urban spaces. Thus, although the current analysis revealed many similarities between Western and East Asian urban tourist sites, it was unable to fully explore the distinct aspects of urban tourism in East Asian countries. It has thus raised deeper questions for further study concerning how urban tourist sites in East Asian cities have developed and contextualized their own histories and cultures. Another limitation is that the phenomenological analysis of the interview data is inherently subjective and is inevitably influenced by the authors’ sociodemographic status, philosophical foundation, and cultural background. The purpose of the current study was to identify the dimensions of the new and growing Korean socio-cultural phenomenon of shopping malls. Accordingly, more empirical studies on East Asian urban tourism utilizing both quantitative and interpretive approaches are needed to address numerous unanswered questions regarding cultural phenomena in East Asian tourism markets.

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Carla A. Santos is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Her research program is focused on the examination of communicative practices (from mass mediated narratives to the face-to-face dyad) as a means of addressing the socio-political and cultural impact of tourism on the world’s people and cultures.