Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5.6b:
Tourism, leisure and the
postmodern city: the inner city
dimension
urban tourism', based on the consumption of places in a post-industrial society, which
Meethan (1996) points to as
Tourism involves the visual consumption of signs and increasingly,
simulacra and staged events in which urban townscapes are transformed
into aestheticised spaces of entertainment and pleasure…within these
places of consumption…a variety of activities can be pursued, such as
promenading, eating, drinking, watching staged events and street
entertainment and visually appreciating heritage and culture of place.
(Meethan 1996:324)
For this reason, it is pertinent to focus on the concept of the 'tourist experience of urban
tourism' as a framework to assess some of the experiential aspects of this phenomenon.
THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE OF URBAN TOURISM
There is a growing literature on tourist satisfaction (e.g. Ryan 1995), and what constitutes
the experiential aspects of a tourist visit to a locality. In the context of urban tourism, the
innovative research by Graefe and Vaske (1987) offers a number of important insights as
well as a useful framework. Graefe and Vaske (1987) acknowledge that the 'tourist
experience' is a useful term to identify the experience of an individual which may be
affected 'by individual, environmental, situational and personality-related factors as well
as the degree of communication with other people. It is the outcome which researchers
and the tourism industry constantly evaluate to establish if the actual experience met the
tourist's expectations' (Page 1995a:24). Operationalising such a concept may prove
difficult in view of the complex array of factors which may affect the visitor experience
(Figure 5.7). For example, where levels of overcrowding occur at major tourist sites (e.g.
