Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
competencies are often unrealistically produced for political and economic reasons. Destinations,
for example, may market their distinction and differentiation through their subcultural life
(i.e. gay districts in Manchester - Hughes 2003) to tourists as a signal of its uniqueness.
Grazian (2003) argues that Chicago, for example, invented and marketed its status as the blues
capital of the world by creating commercialized niche tourist attractions for those seeking
authentic black blues culture.
Challenges
Certain late twentieth-century niche practices have expanded to impact society at large, having
becoming embedded in new processes, spaces and places of regeneration and even post-confl ict
resolution (i.e. Cambodia), its practitioners often using innovative customer-centric niche
marketing strategies to attract tourists, creating both opportunities and challenges. Mass niches
remain burdened with the cultural, political, social, economic and environmental baggage
of 'tourism' since niche tourism remains linked to a spatial logic and tourist consumption.
While smaller businesses, volunteer groups and local communities may offer disassociation
from a tourist industrial complex and grant more agency, choice and inventiveness, they too
manufacture and trade in experiences and exploit the demand for emotional involvement and
authenticity. While often innovative, fl exible and responsive to emerging niche market needs,
niche businesses are subject to the 'coercive laws of competition' that may eventually force such
independent efforts to behave like capitalist enterprises, even when their product is politically,
socially, environmentally or culturally sensitive (safari tourism, pro-poor tourism, slum tourism,
gay tourism, dark tourism). As niches impact on the centre, they are often subject to the attention
of larger fi rms looking to grow or change and driven by competitive reasons to pursue leadership
positions by expanding each niche to its full potential by whatever (exploitative) means. Since
small businesses are often under-capitalized and business fragile, when combined with weak
regulatory checks, low barriers to entry, competitive intensity and diffi culty of supervision, a
short-term profi t focus may emerge.
New challenges emerge when niche practices and the infrastructure that surrounds them
become popular and fundamental to the mainstream tourism industry. They may create their
own issues, controversies and challenges, with tourism marketers often struggling to manage the
messages around changing processes, spaces and places of transition when 'success' strikes the
spaces, systems, processes, communities that originally made development appropriate for a
destination. There is also the risk that niche tourism makes fragile communities and destinations
visible in a global context, reducing people and places into something only important as
marketing attributes appealing to a mid- to upscale niche market interest and taste. The activities
and practices that attract tourists may also become magnifi ed, distorted, lost, or refuted in the
process of growth and transition. Gallipoli, often associated with battlefi eld tourism through its
Anzac day commemorations, has become associated with backpacker tourism and educational
tourism after niche growth and commercial cross sell.
Marketers have also struggled to deal with the fall-out-of niche tourism practices which are
found to under-deliver in terms of expected economic benefi ts (i.e. job creation), sustainability
and when niche development and management have adverse impacts on the sustainable
development of destinations (e.g. small cruises to Antarctica). While many niches, when developed
appropriately, can enhance the local economy, preserve a destination for future generations and
cultivate ethnical tourists, certain niche activities may not be suitable for some destinations
and their communities. The development of niche tourism in communities is also challenging,
since those involved in tourism, while enthusiastic, often lack the professional skills and
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