Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
competition they pose for established destinations. The difficulty with most existing
studies of leisure shopping is that they fail to disentangle the relationships between the
actual activity tourists undertake and their perception of the environment. For this reason,
Jansen-Verbeke (1991) distinguishes between intentional shopping and intentional leisure
shopping in a preliminary attempt to explain how and why tourists engage in this activity;
she also suggests that several criteria need to be considered to distinguish between
intentional shopping and intentional leisure and tourism (Table 3.8).
Many successful cities in western Europe have used tourism and leisure shopping to
establish their popularity as destinations as a gradual process of evolution. For example,
research by Page and Hardyman (1996) examines the concept of town centre
management as one attempt to address the impact of out-of-town shopping malls and
complexes as a threat to tourism and leisure spending in town centres. Their research
found that based on concepts developed in North America, town centres can identify their
users more closely and undertake
Table 3.8:
Criteria to be considered in
distinguishing between intentional shopping and
intentional leisure and tourism
Behaviour pattern of visitors
• trip length—short, possibly longer
• length of stay—limited or rather unplanned
• time of stay—a few hours during the day, an evening, a full day
• kinds of activity—window shopping, intentional buying, drinking, eating, various leisure
activities, cultural activities, sightseeing
• expenditure—goods, possibly some souvenirs, drinks, meals, entrance fees to leisure facilities
Functional characteristics of the environment
• wide range of retail shops, department stores, catering, leisure and other facilities, tourist
attractions, spatial clustering of facilities
• parking space and easy access
• street retailing, pedestrian priority in open spaces
Quality of the environment
• image of the place, leisure setting, display of goods on the street, street musicians and artists
• accessibility during leisure time, including weekends and evenings
• aesthetic value, image of maintenance and safety
• architectural design of buildings, streets, shops, windows, sign boards, lighting
• social effective value, liveliness of the open space
• animation, entertainment, amusement and surprise
Hospitableness of the environment
• social, visual, physical
•
orientation, information, symbolism, identification
Source:
Jansen-Verbeke (1991:9-10)
in-town improvements to attract the user as a means of developing leisure shopping. In
particular, improvements to town centres by city authorities have acted as catalysts to this
process by
