Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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GEOGRAPHIES OF TOURISM
AND THE CITY
Martin Selby
Introduction
Although there has been a long-standing interest in urban tourism amongst geographers,
contributions have tended to be rather partial and limited by prevailing epistemological
concerns. Early urban tourism geographers were mainly concerned with functional issues,
such as transport networks, docklands, tourism districts or tourist-historic cities. This was
complemented by a behavioural genre engaging with mental maps, perceptions and images,
and drawing upon authors such as Lynch (1960). Around three decades ago, cultural geog-
raphy began to convincingly challenge universal and deterministic conceptualisations,
emphasising the contested representations and landscapes of urban tourism. More recently, it
has become apparent that rather too much emphasis has been placed on the visual and repre-
sentational, leading to a re-conceptualisation under the banner of 'non-representational
geography'. This recent genre of urban tourism research emphasises the performative and
embodied experience of urban tourism.
In this chapter, it is argued that, despite the signifi cant progress that has been made in
understanding urban tourism from a geographical perspective, the endeavour remains rather
partial and dominated by the prevailing metaphor of choice. This chapter, therefore, reviews
contributions from functional approaches, representational/textual perspectives and non-
representational geography. As it is argued that our understanding has remained rather partial,
the fi nal sections outline a more holistic approach, which is consistent with contemporary
cultural geography, yet drawing more on phenomenology.
Functional approaches
Tourism districts - clusters of facilities and attractions - have been of interest to human geog-
raphers for some time. As Pearce (2001: 933-5) points out, these have included historic
districts, redevelopment zones, sacred spaces, entertainment spaces and functional tourist
districts. Getz (1993) evaluated tourism shopping villages, whilst the concept of the 'recrea-
tional business district' was developed by Stansfi eld and Rickert (1970) and later by Meyer-
Arendt (1990). Travis (1994) discussed 'tourism destination zones' characterised by
concentrations of attractions, services, facilities, transport and communication. The 'Tourist
