Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Plate 5.1/5.2:
Margate, Kent. A
Regency period seaside resort which
has passed through a series of stages of
development and is now mainly a day
trip and low-price holiday destination.
Once one of the major tourist resorts in
England, the town is now trying to
rejuvenate itself through heritage
tourism, such as the development of
the Turner Gallery.
perceive these places and learn about the spatial attributes of the locality, and how is this
reflected in their patterns of behaviour? Having reviewed these features, the chapter
concludes with a discussion of service quality issues for urban tourism.
UNDERSTANDING THE NEGLECT OF URBAN TOURISM BY
RESEARCHERS
Ashworth's (1989) seminal study of urban tourism acknowledges that a double neglect
has occurred. Those interested in the study of tourism 'have tended to neglect the urban
context in which much of it is set, while those interested in urban studies …have been
equally neglectful of the importance of the tourist function of cities' (Ashworth 1989:33).
While some tourism textbooks (e.g. Shaw and Williams 1994) have expanded upon
earlier syntheses of urban tourism research in a spatial context (e.g. D.G.Pearce 1987a), it
still remains a comparatively unresearched area despite the growing interest in the
relationship between urban regeneration and tourism (for a detailed review of the
relationship of tourism and urban regeneration, see Page 2000; Page and Hall 2002). The
problem is also reiterated in a number of studies as one explanation of the neglect of
urban tourism (see Vetter 1985; Page and Sinclair 1989). Despite this problem, which is
more a function of perceived rather than real difficulties in understanding urban tourism
phenomena, a range of studies now provide evidence of a growing body of literature on
the topic (see Vetter 1985; Ashworth 1989, 1992a, 1992b; Ashworth and Tunbridge
1990; Page 1995a, 1995b, 2000; Law 1996; P.E.Murphy 1997; D.G.Pearce 1998, 1999b).
