Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and
environmental perception
(Garling and Golledge, 1989; Mullins, 2009). Tourism becomes
an identity-infl uencing experience, which includes bragging rights to having been to a place,
but it can also be much more signifi cant and long term.
Traditional marketing studies that focus on tourist behaviour and experiences are
conducted through surveys, focus groups and other methods to determine how tourists use
and value products, which include destination places and consumed experiences (Morgan,
2004). Some of the major types of traditional marketing studies are those that focus on tourist
motivations (a type of decision-making study), tourist expenditure studies (a type of behav-
ioural study) and tourist assessments of a destination (a type of experience study). The exam-
ples below identify the special perspective that a geographic awareness brings to marketing
research.
Place as a product: destination location and development
Places are a type of product for the tourism industry. Given the geographer's fascination with
the defi nition and evolution of places, this is one of the major areas of geographic marketing
research in tourism. Place-based marketing research includes both the physical planning and
design of places and their regional and global images, both of which are infl uenced by history,
evolve over time, are often contested by different interest groups, and offer opportunities for
the future. The most prominent examples of this type of tourism marketing are found in
thematic landscapes, ranging from the false extravagance of Las Vegas casinos to repurposed
heritage warehouse districts found in most of the larger cities of the more developed industrial
world (Gottdiener, 1997; Mair, 2009; Paradis, 2004).
The theming of places is a major form of market positioning used by communities to
differentiate themselves from the crowd (see also Chang,
Chapter 17
in this volume). In some
instances this involves the development of an iconic image or historical event that is associated
with a place (see Timothy,
Chapter 20)
. These may be represented in the urban fabric, mostly
associated with heritage retail districts (Ashworth and Tunbridge, 2000), or through special
events (Getz, 2004; Prentice and Andersen, 2003). While such themes are sometimes fantas-
tical, others involve more subtle elements of urban design that support the social identity and
character of a place. This may include public art, unique street furniture and coordinated
business signage (Hall, 2008c). A major issue faced by many communities, however, is that of
contested histories in multi-ethnic places and dark heritage, such as war and slavery (Alderman
and Modlin, 2008). Despite the fact that tourism marketing for most places tends to gloss over
more controversial and troubling histories, new media outlets are providing increasing oppor-
tunities to present a more complete picture of the true complexity that makes destination
places so interesting (Nielsen and Liburd, 2008).
Space as a product: destination accessibility and knowledge
Despite the increasing ease of travel to the furthest reaches of the planet, geographic distance
and accessibility barriers remain challenges for every destination. There are always some people
who can more easily get to a destination than others, depending on their location, intervening
borders, or because they are members of a particular group. Research in this area focuses on
how the location of a destination shapes its development through relationships to visitor source
markets, as well as to other destinations. Distance, for example, is a signifi cant variable in
market segmentation that is refl ected in the common differentiation of domestic tourists and
international tourists and of short- and long-haul travel (Mckercher, 2008a). For both, the basic
