The Concept of Street Art in London - Essay Example

? STREET ART IN LONDON Task: Street art is a collective word defining all forms of visual arts that are created in public locations (Hammond, C. 2012, 121). It mainly consists of the unsanctioned artwork that is executed outside the context of venues of traditional art. Street art gained popularity during the 1980s, a time when there was the graffiti art boom and it is still applied to subsequent incarnations. Popular forms of modern street artworks include wheat pasted poster art and sticker art, stencil graffiti and sculpture. Art forms that became popularized in the 21st century include yarn bombing, lock on sculpture and video projection. Artists under the gallery of street artworks use their creativity to paint on street walls with the aim of communicating messages to the public directly, without being restricted by the perceived confines created by the formal art world. Sometimes, street art presents content that is socially relevant and infused with aesthetic value that attracts attention from society members. A photo showing street art in London Street art has become part of the London culture, making the street artists to run street art tours that provide fascinating insights into art and the culture of the city (Biron, R. 2009, 132). The local council of the city of London takes a schizophrenic view to street art since they are aware that it can be used in promoting tourism which would, in turn, lead to development of the edgy side of the city. Street art in London can be transformed into a touristic product to attract tourist interested in cultural tourism (Arreola, D. 2009, 95). The most remarkable area in London, in regard to street artwork, is the eastern part of the city. Near Liverpool Street, there are lots of trendy bars, vintage shops and clearly visible street art. The pieces are not simply paintings, but signs of political and cultural statements that are part of the youth culture in London (Weiser, B. 2012, 91). Street art is not allowed in many cities across the world, but in London it is accepted by the government. This shows that the inhabitants of the city have embraced art and self-expression. London city views street art as an added value to the aesthetic nature of the city. The street artwork can become one of the important elements in London if it is transformed into a tourist attraction product because by becoming one, it will generate foreign exchange to the city. The modern London culture has fully integrated street art. This will continue as long as the government keeps supporting the culture and the hipsters accept it to appear on their streets. Since the artworks show environmental and political messages and are used to express the voice of the modern culture of London, they can be developed into a cultural touristic product. Street art tourism forms a prerequisite for satisfying the changing demands of cultural tourists and ensuring a long-term profitability of the tourism industry in London. As a touristic product, street art is capable of meeting the demands of its marketplace because it is produced cost-efficiently, and it is based on the wise use of cultural and natural resources found in the city of London. A photo of street art communicating the culture of London A clear and explicit concept of street art as a potential touristic product provides precision in discussions related to the tourism nature and the planning, management, development and delivery of the product. Improved understanding of the structure and functioning of street art will assist entrepreneurs, developers and planners in creating more successful products in London for the market place. In the long run, the product will help researchers in measuring, analyzing and modeling the impact brought about by street art tourism in the tourism industry of London. However, before presenting the concept, there is need of summarizing the existing literature on street art product development. This is done by reviewing the concepts of street art product development from demand supply perspectives. The success of street art, as a touristic product in London, in meeting the needs of tourists depends on how each of its specific elements; physical plant, service, hospitality, freedom of choice and involvement, will be designed and integrated with the others. The core of street art as a new touristic product is the physical plant, which refers to the physical environment and the condition of tourism infrastructure in surrounding the street artworks in London city. The buildings, equipment, infrastructure and land in London city provide the cultural and natural resources on which street art tourism is based. Their physical design will have a major impact on the experience of the tourists who will visit the area (Jafari, J. 2013, 217). The quality of the physical plant of street tourism in London can be assessed by whether their design protects the environment, enhances the experience of the tourists and makes the product accessible to tourists having a wide range of physical limitations or abilities. The physical plant of street art product will require service input in order to make it useful to the targeted tourists. Service is the performance of specific tasks required to meet the demands of tourists (Smit, J. 2010, 2). The quality of service will be measured by observing the employees’ performance against object criteria that will specify the type and level of technical knowledge that the employees must have to perform their jobs. Whereas service is the technically competent performance of a task in street art tourism, hospitality is the style or attitude in which the task will be performed. Hospitality will act as an encouragement to observe for street art tourism travelers (Nickson, D. 2013, 9). Hospitality will be the expression and welcome by London residents to the street art tourists, who will be arriving in the city. Hospitality in street tourism will be more to assess and manage because it is more subjective than service. One way of developing a sense of hospitality in the street tourism will be through solicited and unsolicited customer feedback. Managers and stakeholders in street art tourism will be required to hire consultants to play the role of tourists to assess the quality of hospitality in the industry. Hospitality will set the stage and facilitate the addition of freedom of choice and involvement as elements in street tourism. The two elements may be more controversial aspects of this model since they represent the inclusion of the tourist as part of the street art product. However, the notion of including the tourist to be part of service delivery is not unique to this model or street art tourism. The inclusion of the tourist as part of product production will be essential if the stake holders in street tourism will comprehend and accept the notion that tourism is an experience. Street art tourism will involve freedom of choice as an element, whereby it will be necessary for the tourists to have some acceptable range of options for the purpose of making their experience to be satisfactory (Batta, N. 2000, 37). The degree of freedom of choice will vary depending on whether the street art tourism will be for pleasure, knowledge or a combination of the two. It will vary depending on the budget of the traveler, knowledge, previous experience and reliance to travel agents or packaged tours. Despite this variation, for street art tourism product to become satisfactory, it must include some element of freedom of choice (Page, S. & Ryan, C. 2000, 406). Since street art tourism can serve as recreational and pleasure cultural tourism product, freedom of choice will be clear in this sector. Without the sense that a tourists are permitted to play or choose their own activities, it will be difficult to fully relax or participate wholeheartedly in street art tourism as a recreational activity. Even the most comprehensive and tightly packaged inclusive tour for street art tourism will offer choice. The most basic choice in street art tourism will be the freedom to purchase or not. Freedom in street art tourism will not imply just choice, but also the potential for happy surprises and spontaneity. Spontaneity will range from a tourist deciding when to view street art. Involvement in street art tourism in the city of London will base on the fact that targeted tourists will participate in the service delivery (Seba, J. 2011, 12). For successful participation by tourists in producing street art as a product for cultural tourism, there will be combination of good service, acceptable physical plant, freedom of choice and hospitality. These elements will set the stage for intellectual, emotional and physical involvement in the services to be offered in street art tourism. This is due to the fact that street art tourism will not only involve physical participation, but also a sense of engagement, of focusing on the activity. In extreme circumstances, involvement in the services in street art tourism in London will take the quality of flow, in which the participants will lose themselves in the activity. This implies that they will be able to concentrate the activities that will be important to street art tourism product. Involvement for cultural pleasure tourists will mean relaxing in a way that will be personally satisfying, feeling sufficiently safe and secure, strolling on the streets of London and striking up conversations with other tourists or the locals of the city. Street art will provide the targeted tourists with access to activities and programs that will capture their interest, imagination, enthusiasm and imagination. The sense of involvement in street tourism will cause time to pass without notice, because tourists will be exploring the world around them, other people and their own mental and emotional response to the street artworks in London. Involvement, combined with warm hospitality, freedom of choice, a good physical plant and competent services will guarantee quality and satisfying street art as a product under cultural tourism. Street art in London as a cultural tourism product will result in a complex production process. The process will begin with primary inputs of raw materials, resources, and other components like construction materials to create facilities and equipment required by the tourism industry. These will then be converted through additional processing, manufacturing into immediate inputs or tourism facilities. Intermediate inputs will include street art attractions as well as tourism facilitators such as restaurants, hotels and car rental companies. The intermediate inputs will then be further refined through managerial expertise, scheduling, technical services and packaging into intermediate outputs. Intermediate outputs in street art tourism will be services associated with the tourism industry such as tour services, commercial accommodation, festivals and food services. At this stage, street art as a touristic product will still be effective as potential commodity. If transformed into a touristic product, street art will become an essential component for cultural tourism since a set of touristic attracting enterprises can be built around it. As a touristic product, street art should be examined from three major perspectives, which include street art designers, tourism agencies and the viewers. Understanding the behavior of the viewers of street art in London city is vital in achieving marketing benefits of the touristic product. Towards this direction, market segmentation is significant for street art operators in terms of product development in the city of London and marketing purposes since it provides an understanding of street art tourists and their behavior. Market segmentation of street art in London will be based on socio-economic variables such as age, gender, educational level and income. However, there will be need of considering the use psychographic variables as criteria for segmenting. Therefore, lifestyle, motivations, values, personality and interests of the targeted tourists for street art as a touristic product will provide useful information that will lead to acquiring a better insight of understanding the meaning of street art tourism. Tourists with similar demographics may present considerable differences concerning their lifestyle, attitudes and street art viewing behavior (Pearce, L. 2005, 40). There are high chances of street art lovers visiting the streets of London with their friends, or family, who do not share the same interest in street art. Moreover, there are varieties of reasons for visiting London to view street art as a cultural touristic product. Such reasons include the modernism and urban setting of London city, which may be directly and exclusively related to street artworks. All these considerations call for both academics and stakeholders in street art tourism to engage in further research. Approximately two thirds of literature and research on street art comes from London. Research in relation to street art tourism is well developed, despite the fact that studies on street tourism policy and economics are still in their early stages. Street art visitors are more likely to be of higher educational level and income compared to average travelers. Street tourism appeals all kinds of tourists, interested in cultural tourism, ranging from children to adults. Since cultural tourism is the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry (Ivanovic, M. 2008, 72), there is a high probability of street art tourism becoming successful. The growth is due to the fact that there is a trend towards an increased specialization among tourists. This trend is evident in the increase in the number of tourists seeking adventure, history, culture, archaeology and interaction with the local people. This implies that street art as a cultural tourism product is bound to meet the expectations of many tourists. Street art tourism in London will also attract local tourists since Americans’ interest in travelling to cultural destinations has increased recently and it is expected to continue rising. Being a cultural tourism product, street art will be among the most preferred touristic destinations in London. Street art tourism will be a rapidly growing niche market in the city of London. The market will be fuelled by an increase in the number domestic and international tourists, and by the increasing availability of global communication. The travel behavior of targeted tourists for street art tourism include whether or not they travelled as part of a group, length of stay, past experience, source of information about the destination and time spent in deciding to visit the cultural destination. The demographics of the targeted tourists include gender, age, education level and total household incomes of the tourists. For the purpose of satisfying the targeted tourists in street art tourisms, expectancy-disconfirmation theory will be used as one of one of the approaches to examine the satisfaction of consumers (Decrop, A. 2006, 131). Expectancy-disconfirmation theory dominates the study of consumer satisfaction. The theory holds that the targeted tourists first form expectations of street art as a cultural product in London and the services that will be offered before touring the area. Subsequent touring of London will contribute to the belief of tourists about the actual or perceived attractiveness of the street art product and the services offered under the product. The tourists then will compare the perceived attractiveness of street art product to their prior expectations. Street art will become a sector of major economic importance (Davila, M. 2004, 183). The large number of domestic and international tourists will generate income to the city of London. The earned income can be used to develop other sectors like music and general development of the city. The intangible expression of the history and modernism revealed by street artwork in the city of London are widely acknowledged to be of immeasurable value to the local residents of the city. The heritage of London and the political messages revealed by street artwork is of immense interest and will be appealing to the targeted tourists. It is on the basis of this appeal that street tourism will flourish in London city. At its best, street tourism will generate financial resources that are needed to invest in the rehabilitation of historic buildings and conservation areas in the city of London (Gossling, S. 2003, 197). Street tourism will be of great help in reviving the dying traditions, cultural practices and art and will provide the impetus for artisans to continue with their traditional crafts. Street art tourism will also provide new livelihood opportunities for many people in the local communities of London (Holden, A. 2013, 71). Unfortunately, the positive impacts are often negated by the unintentional destructive impacts of tourism that undermine the traditional cultural values of the local community. The negative impacts also alter the physical character of a tourism destination through inappropriate development and infrastructure. In order to ensure that the future generations of London are able to access their authentic heritage through street tourism, while at the same time providing motivation for the targeted tourists to continue wanting to visit London city, all stakeholders must work together to safeguard the existence of street art. Street art tourism has the capability of becoming a partner and a driving force for the conservation of the tangible and intangible culture and natural heritage of the city of London. If street art tourism fails to contribute to the preservation of London’s cultures, environments and traditions, then there will be no place for such tourism in the future development of the city. References: HAMMOND, C. I. (2012). Architects, angels, activists and the city of Bath, 1765-1965: engaging with women's spatial interventions in buildings and landscape. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate. BIRON, R. E. (2009). City/art: the urban scene in Latin America. Durham: Duke University Press. ARREOLA, D. D. (2004). Hispanic spaces, Latino places: community and cultural diversity in contemporary America. Austin: University of Texas Press. BANET-WEISER, S. (2012). Authentic TM the politics and ambivalence in a brand culture. New York, NY: New York University Press. JAFARI, J. (2013). 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