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The notion that locals make places while tourists unmake them is thus reconsidered. With
the rise in special interest travellers, visitors come to destination sites with knowledge and
understanding that often rival and even surpass that of the residents. As Ashworth and
Tunbridge (2004: 219) observe, 'The tourist thus becomes the resident on holiday and the
resident just the tourist between trips. The distinctions of knowledge, experience and behav-
iour, notably of heritage, have become blurred.' In a recent overview of tourism trends in
Southeast Asia, Hitchcock
et al.
(2009) similarly argue for a 'de-differentiation' between
tourism and non-tourist practices. They note that local artists, intellectuals and NGO activ-
ists today have become far more infl uential in tourism practices, erasing the boundaries
between what are traditionally regarded as 'tourism' and 'non-tourism' domains. This
de-differentiation between global/tourist and local/non-tourist processes has rendered a
wide range of social and cultural activities such as marketing, urban design and tourism plan-
ning indistinguishable from each other. All of these agents are equally constitutive of local
cultures, identity and place formations (cf. Gotham, 2007a).
The making and unmaking of place identity is therefore the outcome of multiple agencies
and processes, of which tourism is one. Gotham's (2007b) conception of a dynamic tourism
authenticity underscores this point. Rather than
a priori
, tourism and allied practices (such as
marketing, architecture and the arts) should be accepted as a 'structuring element of culture,
identity, and authenticity' (Gotham, 2007b: 321). It is not just producers who contribute to
place identities and authenticities, but consumers whose patronage and practices also deter-
mine the success or failure of a project. Recent literature in architectural geography, for
example, has grappled with the concept of 'affect' to explain the emotions and activities
stirred up by built spaces, including tourist spaces like airports, hotels and heritage centres
(e.g. Chang, 2010; Kraftl and Adey, 2008). It is argued that users - tourists, locals and service
providers - are engaged in a co-creation process in which their collective actions/opinions
constitute the overall production of a place. Certainly, buildings and landscapes have the
ability to affect and also be affected by members of the public. In tourist attractions, users
authenticate the environment through culturally appropriate practices and feedback loops,
co-constructing authentic spaces for themselves.
In what might be termed the 'cultural economy' of urban spaces, socio-cultural practices
such as architecture, building design and lifestyle consumption are conceived as part of a
circuit of culture in which tourism is embedded. Within this circuit, artists, designers,
cultural practitioners and the consuming market, along with tourism planners, are part of a
'network of activities and artefacts that produce place-identity within cities' ( Julier, 2005:
869). The cultural economy perspective of place is insightful because of tourism's ongoing
engagement with place marketing cultural development, and the creative development of
landscapes (Terkenli, 2002; Richards and Wilson, 2007b; Wilson
, Chapter 16 o
f t h i s volu me ).
In urban tourism discourses, one of the most criticised aspects of spatial transformations is the
serialisation of space (see Selby,
Chapter 30).
The quest to be 'world class' is often predicated
on the assemblage of ideas, images and information from around the world. What results is
the formation of environments that are evocative of other international destinations, but
often devoid of the local contingencies of history and geography. These 'otherworldly' sites
are a symptom of the 'unmaking of place'.
Terkenli's (2002) fourfold framework of the new cultural economy of space sounds this
warning clearly. She argues that tourism environments undergo four processes of
enworldment,
unworldment, deworldment
and
transworldment
as they grapple with the homogenising forces of
globalisation. The term 'worldment' was selected to emphasise the 'broad and increasingly
globalised scope of ongoing change' (Terkenli, 2002: 230). The suffi x 'world' is appropriate
