- Email: [email protected]
World Tourism Cities: developing tourism off the beaten track
696
Book reviews / Tourism Management 31 (2010) 691–697
There are some useful contributions here, particularly those that are focussed on the micro-level applications of techniques for evaluation and understanding of the cultural tourism offer. For instance the valorisation strategies for the Adriatic coast, the utility and visitor preferences for attributes of art galleries and the chapter on strategic evaluations all offer much in terms of testing methodologies and seeking best practice. The final contribution from the editors attempts to draw the book to a conclusion by looking at ways forward. This is a two page contribution and could have been elaborated much more fully and much more usefully by addressing the macro-issues raised by the book directly. The questions of value and valorisation are complex and frustrating. We have just developed a managerial framework for those who run cultural heritage attractions, designed to identify areas of underperformance within and around the attraction. We had to deal with the complexities of
ascribing values to different aspects of the cultural heritage and I am sure we have not got it fully elaborated yet so I know some of the frustrations that the authors here are dealing with at first hand. It is often true that without the economic case being convincing that the development of cultural heritage attractions will not be considered and will not command support, no matter how important the cultural elements are to local audiences. This book therefore had a great opportunity to help shape the field for valuing cultural heritage but I have to confess that I am not sure it has added much our understanding or our best practices. Alan Clarke University of Pannonia, Veszprém 8201, Hungary E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2009.07.008
Maitland, R. and P. Newman (2009) World Tourism Cities: developing tourism off the beaten track. Routledge, London, ISBN: 9780415451987 (hbk) It is not immediately obvious what this book is about. It is not about World Cities as such, although the concept is discussed and is clearly relevant. It is also not about the nature or significance of urban tourism or even specifically about tourism in world cities. The clue lies in the sub-title. The book is about tourism developments occurring, spontaneously or as part of official policy, in neighbourhoods of major cities. It focuses upon the emergence of new urban districts of interest to tourists away from the already established tourism attractions and areas: thus ‘off the beaten track’. This is therefore actually a book about urban neighbourhood development or regeneration in which tourism is either one of the instruments powering such development or is a resultant of such development occurring for other reasons. As such it is not of particular interest to those in tourism studies but to those concerned with urban planning and management. From the book I learned much about tourism related neighbourhood redevelopment but very little about how tourists behave in cities or indeed why they have come in the first instance. The first chapter by the editors introduces and defines the terms, especially the central structuring idea of world city. A world city is not a synonym for a large city. All the cases considered here are large in the sense of housing multi-million populations but there are many other and even more populous cities that do not qualify as world cities in the sense of being globally dominant players politically, economically or culturally. Conversely there may be quite small cities that nevertheless have played, and continue to play, a global role functioning as at least mini-world cities, such as Amsterdam. The phrase world tourism cities is defined here as tourism occurring in world cities rather than as cities dependent upon tourism for their global profiling, such as Venice, Florence, Bath or even Las Vegas. It is perhaps too easy to cavil at the five cities selected for consideration as world tourism cities. Of these, only two unmistakably qualify as both world cities and major foreign tourism cities, namely London and, to a lesser but still significant extent, Paris. New York is certainly a world city in economic and cultural terms but attracts insufficient non-domestic and indeed non-business visitors to qualify on the second criterion. Berlin has just too short
a record as a unified, national and international player to have other than an interesting potential as both world city and world tourism city. The inclusion of Sydney has little logical justification apart from the convenience of the existence of local specialist knowledge. The fact that I, and I suspect most readers, would have made a radically different selection, omitting some or even most of the cases described here and including others, is perhaps inevitable. Singapore, Toronto, Istanbul, Bombay, Cairo and many others would all have their advocates but the reader must just accept the five we have presented here as at least representative of more general issues and opportunities. After a clear and conspicuously well-written introduction, which sketches the wider context, the five cases are treated individually using a uniform framework. The case of New York is presented through a well-structured argument with a clear time-line dominated by before and after the attack on the world trade centre and by a useful counterpoise of the global and the local. Personally I found the Paris case the least revealing, perhaps just because I happen to know that city better than many of the others. The new tourism developments of Belleville, Bercy and the Viaduc des Arts were described without sufficient context of explanation. The London case was well and succinctly presented, focussing on the discovery by tourists of Islington and the extended South Bank, although the track has been pretty well beaten by the feet of tourists for some years. There is an unexpressed but ever present sub-text, namely how did London beat Paris in the 1990s? The interesting corollary, however, of was this because of or despite the efforts of government and other public agencies remains unasked let alone answered. The case of Berlin is a competent and engaging vignette of the development of Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg. The Sydney case is to me the least convincing but then it is merely used as a peg on which to hang a much wider discussion about senses of place and what the authors call tourism precincts. The value of the book and the justification for its focus hangs very largely upon the concluding chapter written by the editors. They must make the comparisons between cities that validates and makes relevant the individual descriptions. This they indeed attempt in a thoughtful and clearly expressed chapter that uses the neighbourhoods described in various cities to illustrate a number of useful generalisations about tourism and neighbourhoods. Whether a clear and potentially useful cross-national
Book reviews / Tourism Management 31 (2010) 691–697
typology of tourism districts, tourism development paths or tourism impacts emerges is uncertain. The task is daunting and this book is not the last word on the topic but at the very least is a valuable contribution to it.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2009.07.009
697
G.J. Ashworth University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected]
Book reviews / Tourism Management 31 (2010) 691–697
There are some useful contributions here, particularly those that are focussed on the micro-level applications of techniques for evaluation and understanding of the cultural tourism offer. For instance the valorisation strategies for the Adriatic coast, the utility and visitor preferences for attributes of art galleries and the chapter on strategic evaluations all offer much in terms of testing methodologies and seeking best practice. The final contribution from the editors attempts to draw the book to a conclusion by looking at ways forward. This is a two page contribution and could have been elaborated much more fully and much more usefully by addressing the macro-issues raised by the book directly. The questions of value and valorisation are complex and frustrating. We have just developed a managerial framework for those who run cultural heritage attractions, designed to identify areas of underperformance within and around the attraction. We had to deal with the complexities of
ascribing values to different aspects of the cultural heritage and I am sure we have not got it fully elaborated yet so I know some of the frustrations that the authors here are dealing with at first hand. It is often true that without the economic case being convincing that the development of cultural heritage attractions will not be considered and will not command support, no matter how important the cultural elements are to local audiences. This book therefore had a great opportunity to help shape the field for valuing cultural heritage but I have to confess that I am not sure it has added much our understanding or our best practices. Alan Clarke University of Pannonia, Veszprém 8201, Hungary E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2009.07.008
Maitland, R. and P. Newman (2009) World Tourism Cities: developing tourism off the beaten track. Routledge, London, ISBN: 9780415451987 (hbk) It is not immediately obvious what this book is about. It is not about World Cities as such, although the concept is discussed and is clearly relevant. It is also not about the nature or significance of urban tourism or even specifically about tourism in world cities. The clue lies in the sub-title. The book is about tourism developments occurring, spontaneously or as part of official policy, in neighbourhoods of major cities. It focuses upon the emergence of new urban districts of interest to tourists away from the already established tourism attractions and areas: thus ‘off the beaten track’. This is therefore actually a book about urban neighbourhood development or regeneration in which tourism is either one of the instruments powering such development or is a resultant of such development occurring for other reasons. As such it is not of particular interest to those in tourism studies but to those concerned with urban planning and management. From the book I learned much about tourism related neighbourhood redevelopment but very little about how tourists behave in cities or indeed why they have come in the first instance. The first chapter by the editors introduces and defines the terms, especially the central structuring idea of world city. A world city is not a synonym for a large city. All the cases considered here are large in the sense of housing multi-million populations but there are many other and even more populous cities that do not qualify as world cities in the sense of being globally dominant players politically, economically or culturally. Conversely there may be quite small cities that nevertheless have played, and continue to play, a global role functioning as at least mini-world cities, such as Amsterdam. The phrase world tourism cities is defined here as tourism occurring in world cities rather than as cities dependent upon tourism for their global profiling, such as Venice, Florence, Bath or even Las Vegas. It is perhaps too easy to cavil at the five cities selected for consideration as world tourism cities. Of these, only two unmistakably qualify as both world cities and major foreign tourism cities, namely London and, to a lesser but still significant extent, Paris. New York is certainly a world city in economic and cultural terms but attracts insufficient non-domestic and indeed non-business visitors to qualify on the second criterion. Berlin has just too short
a record as a unified, national and international player to have other than an interesting potential as both world city and world tourism city. The inclusion of Sydney has little logical justification apart from the convenience of the existence of local specialist knowledge. The fact that I, and I suspect most readers, would have made a radically different selection, omitting some or even most of the cases described here and including others, is perhaps inevitable. Singapore, Toronto, Istanbul, Bombay, Cairo and many others would all have their advocates but the reader must just accept the five we have presented here as at least representative of more general issues and opportunities. After a clear and conspicuously well-written introduction, which sketches the wider context, the five cases are treated individually using a uniform framework. The case of New York is presented through a well-structured argument with a clear time-line dominated by before and after the attack on the world trade centre and by a useful counterpoise of the global and the local. Personally I found the Paris case the least revealing, perhaps just because I happen to know that city better than many of the others. The new tourism developments of Belleville, Bercy and the Viaduc des Arts were described without sufficient context of explanation. The London case was well and succinctly presented, focussing on the discovery by tourists of Islington and the extended South Bank, although the track has been pretty well beaten by the feet of tourists for some years. There is an unexpressed but ever present sub-text, namely how did London beat Paris in the 1990s? The interesting corollary, however, of was this because of or despite the efforts of government and other public agencies remains unasked let alone answered. The case of Berlin is a competent and engaging vignette of the development of Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg. The Sydney case is to me the least convincing but then it is merely used as a peg on which to hang a much wider discussion about senses of place and what the authors call tourism precincts. The value of the book and the justification for its focus hangs very largely upon the concluding chapter written by the editors. They must make the comparisons between cities that validates and makes relevant the individual descriptions. This they indeed attempt in a thoughtful and clearly expressed chapter that uses the neighbourhoods described in various cities to illustrate a number of useful generalisations about tourism and neighbourhoods. Whether a clear and potentially useful cross-national
Book reviews / Tourism Management 31 (2010) 691–697
typology of tourism districts, tourism development paths or tourism impacts emerges is uncertain. The task is daunting and this book is not the last word on the topic but at the very least is a valuable contribution to it.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2009.07.009
697
G.J. Ashworth University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected]