The Economy of Urban Tourism - Essay Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 The Economy of Urban Tourism 3 3 Marketing Management 4 3 Paris 7 3.2 Dubai 8 4 Conclusion 10 References 11 1 Introduction Increasing worldwide visitation and foreign travel has given tourism a unique status as, not only an extremely lucrative industry, but one with continued growth potential. It possesses almost limitless growth potential, both as an income and a job generator. Accordingly, many countries, both developing and developed, are actively engaged in the integration of the tourism industry in their socio-economic development projects and in the promotion and support of their tourism industry. World Tourism Organisation facts and figures are strongly supportive of the viability and the validity of the aforementioned approach. In 2004, the industry grew by 10% and in 2005 by 5%, far more than the 1.5% long-term average for any other industry. Last year there were 800 million worldwide tourists and the industry generated US$680 billion. Added to that, the sector employed (and continues to employ) 10% of the global labour force (WTO, 2006). These figures quite clearly underscore the importance of the tourism industry and the reason why countries are both promoting it and integrating it into their national socio-economic development plans. The tourism sector is an expansive one, in the sense that there are various forms and types of tourism. When explaining the aforementioned, Hall and Page (2000) clarify that the different types of tourism are determined by vista/destination, intent and activities. It is, thus, that urban tourism, rural tourism, safari tourism, and seaside tourism, among others, have emerged (Hall and Page, 2000). Of these variant forms of tourism, urban tourism is particularly important. This is not simply because, as Hall and Page (2000) point out, because it is one of the oldest types of tourism but because it is one of the most economically lucrative, insofar as it involves comparatively significant volumes of tourist expenditure within major cosmopolitan cities. Given the stated, this paper will focus on urban tourism in two major cities, Paris and Dubai, comparatively outlining the strategies by which these cities attract tourists and sustain tourism and the ways in which the cities themselves are marketed and managed as tourist destinations. The characteristics of urban tourists will also be explored. 2 The Economy of Urban Tourism The economic importance of urban tourism stems from the fact that it improves the quality of life for an urban city's residents, boosts the city's vitality, and improves its economic position (Hall & Page, 2000). Accordingly, many urban governments and policy makers are now relying on tourism for economic regeneration and for strategic local development (Rogerson, 2004). According to Jurowski and Brown (2001), "When attempting to maximize the benefits for a specific community, planners should gather information about individuals who stand to gain economically from the development, those who are currently using the resource to be developed, those who are attached to their community and those with a strong environmental attitude" (p. 9). As may be inferred from the preceding, tourism has become an important and essential element of urban area economics and can significantly contribute to a city's revitalization or recovery (Haywood & Muller, 1988). According to Sirgy and Su (2000), tourism had grown into the "largest industry surpassing automobiles, steel, electronics and agriculture" (p. 342). As such, the industry has become an important part of global economics and tourism research is being centered on direct, indirect, and total effects of visitor spending, which affects jobs, regional output, and taxes (McHone & Rungeling, 2000). The economic impact of tourism is driving researchers to explore several aspects of this industry, including consumer satisfaction, travel behaviour, hospitality opportunities, leisure measurement, and recreation interests (Kozak & Rimmington, 2000). The said researches are driven by the assumption that a more informed and thorough understanding of the management of urban tourist centres and the characteristics of urban tourists will lead to the maximisation of its economic returns. 3 City Marketing Management According to Hannerz (1993), a Swedish anthropologist, metropolises create their identity by producing a continuous array of new cultural forms, models, and meanings which carry a global significance while, at the same time, mediating between local and transnational culture. The most important task for a metropolis, as Law (2002) points out, is to create and support its own symbolic economy. This notion refers to the complex interaction between cultural signs and economic capital that many cities rely on in order to attract tourists and to create and maintain tourist flows, which in today's world, are the engines fueling many urban (and national) economies (Law, 2002). Indeed, as Scott (2000, p. 14) emphasizes, a specificity of the modem world is that "the cultural geography of place and the economic geography of production are intertwined," their intertwining allowing for the birth of a space related and consumption-based symbolic economy. Moreover, with the spread of global capitalism, "the culture-generating capabilities of cities are being harnessed to productive purposes, creating new kinds of localized competitive advantages with major employment and income enhancing effect " (Scott, 2000, p. 14). As analysts of the contemporary urban environment point out, "many cities utilize culture for economic gains," as part of a general process leading to the "rapid rise of aesthetic, cultural and symbolic landscapes in the city, the growing contribution of cultural industries to the urban economy and the importance of spectacle" (Short and Kim, 1999, p. 89). On an economic level, cities are "growth machines" driven by local boosters, while on a cultural level they are made legible for their inhabitants and visitors through the constant production of urban representations (Molotch, 1976, p. 309). "The naming of cities, the mapping of cities, [including] the written and spoken description of cities all constitute acts of urban representation" (Short, 1999, p. 38). As Short (1999, p. 38) claims "urban representation and urban boosterism [go] hand in hand." A commonality shared by every booster campaign is that they all emphasize the city "as a place to do good business" (Short, 1999, p. 38). Urban boosters are "in fact, urban imaginers who give shape and substance and imagery to the city and seek to influence the (re)presentation of the city" (Short, 1999, p. 40). Given that urban tourism is geared towards the consumption of culture, the effective marketing and management of an urban tourist locus is dependant upon a network of cooperative relationships. Government officials, shop keepers, retailers, service sector businesses (hotels, restaurants and transportation among others), cultural figures, as in musicians, artists and literary figures and tourism planners, among others, must all cooperate together in the implementation of a city marketing plan (Rogerson, 2004). The successful marketing of a city for touristic purposes, as Rogerson (2004) points out, is contingent upon the aforementioned adhering to the city marketing plan and in their working towards the projection of the city image outlined in these plans. In other words, the city must unite in its own marketing. At the same time it is necessary to point out that the successful marketing of a certain image of a specific city is dependant on the existence of tourists and their willingness to visit and consume urban vistas, cultural and entertainment opportunities, found in a city (Berghoff, 2002). As Zukin (1995, p. 2) explains, "the growth of cultural consumption (of art, food, fashion, music, tourism) and the industries that cater to it fuels the city's symbolic economy, its visible ability to produce both symbols and space." Proceeding from the above stated, several things are evident. The first is that urban tourism is a cultural form of tourism, embracing a wide range and variety of activities, from restaurant to museum visitation, from shopping to walking through the city's traditional quarters. Indeed, it is almost impossible to comprehensively enumerate urban tourism's range of activities. The second is that the management and marketing of a city for touristic purposes necessitates a complex network of cooperation among the city's various groups. The third is that the urban tourist is, in essence, a cultural tourist with various interests and hobbies. The extent to which Paris and Dubai exhibit an awareness of the points outlined in the above and integrate them into their city tourism management and marketing plans will now be overviewed. 3.1 Paris Paris has been engaged in the marketing of itself since the eighteenth century. As Ward (1998), few cities have the history of urban tourism which Paris possesses and hardly any are as adept at marketing themselves as Paris is. Even prior to the advent of modern marketing techniques and communication technologies, Paris had successfully established itself as an international urban tourist destination. As a testament to its success, by the early twentieth century, Walter Benjamin had termed Paris both the "capital of the nineteenth century" and the "capital of the world" (Ward, 1998, p. 9). Tourism figures evidence the fact that the named city was deserving of these titles. In 1789, the city had 5000 recorded tourists/visitors and in 1867, at the time of the Universal Exhibition, several hundred thousand (Ward, 1998). The fact that Paris has been able to sustain itself as a major urban tourist centre is evidenced in the fact that in 2005, it received 26 million tourist visitors (Office du Tourisme, 2006). The reason for its sustainability, as Jennings and Nickerson (2005) point out, lies in the fact that the city is constantly engaged in the definition and redefinition of its image in direct correspondence with, or reaction to, the demands of the urban tourist market. The fact is that Paris is not only adept at marketing itself but at marketing itself in terms which have, quite effectively, elevated the city to near-mythical status, fuelling perceptions of it as a city which fulfills all fantasies, satisfies all interests and hobbies and whose primary objective is the catering to the needs, even whims, of tourists (Jennings and Nickerson, 2005). Within the context of the stated, it is hardly surprising that not only do tourism statistics indicate that Paris is the number one tourist destination in the world but, that the majority of would-be tourists have Paris at the top of their list of places they want to visit (Jennings and Nickerson, 2005). This amply evidences the extent to which the city has successfully marketed itself, not only as a fashion centre, the world's premier shopping centre and a prime cultural spot but as a city which offers an expansive range of entertainment options. 3.2 Dubai Quite unlike Paris, Dubai has only very recently emerged as an urban tourism destination. As Carter and Dunston (2006) emphasise, a decade ago Dubai was virtually unheard of and, in fact, was little other than a desert city in a Middle Eastern oil-rich principality. Realising, however, that oil was a finite source of wealth while tourism was a comparatively stable and infinitely more lucrative one, officials engaged in the rebuilding of Dubai as a tourist destination, following from which it commenced to market it as such (Carter and Dunston, 2006). Even though, unlike Paris, the city has few natural attractions, possesses an extremely unfriendly climate, has little experience in urban centre tourism management and, indeed, can hardly be categorised as an international fashion centre, Dubai has been reinvented so that its tourism push factors have been discounted and its tourism pull factors have been accentuated (Carter and Dunston, 2006). Despite the fact that it has no natural attractions, Dubai has transformed itself into a modern architectural wonders. Not only does it possess the world's only undersea hotel but it has, through the use of cutting edge technology, constructed indoor ski slopes which vie with some of the world's best skiing venues (Jennings and Nickerson, 2005). Added to that, it has emerged as one of the world's leading shopping and entertainment destinations. Its newly constructed Media City continually hosts concerts featuring some of the world's top entertainers and the city, as in Dubai, often emerges as a sponsor of leading international entertainment events as a strategy for both hosting those events in its Media City and of marketing the city itself (Jennings and Nickerson, 2005). Apart from the fact that it literally constructed itself as a tourist attraction, Dubai has engaged in the successful marketing of itself as a cosmopolitan, multicultural urban centre. On the one hand, it holds the promise of an exotic adventure into a Middle Eastern desert kingdom and, on the other, it reassures tourists that it is sufficiently Western and cosmopolitan so as to ensure that they are not alienated by its foreign-ness (Jennings and Nickerson, 2005). In other words, it is marketed as an urban tourist destination which stands as a bridge between the East and the West and, as such, appeals to both the Western tourist and the Arab, Middle Eastern one. Unlike Paris, however, which is suited to almost every urban tourism budget, Dubai appeals only to the wealthy. It is, as Carter and Dunston (2006) point out, an inordinately expensive tourist destination and, accordingly, its market is somewhat limited by that fact. Paris' tourism planners, on the other hand, have fashioned the city in such a way so as to ensure that its market does not suffer from the same limitation. This difference, as Jennings and Nickerson (2005) point out, has contributed to Paris' ability to sustain itself as the world's leading urban tourism destination. 4 Conclusion As has been argued throughout the research, not only is tourism an extremely lucrative industry but urban tourism is a highly profitable sector within. It has the potential to contribute, not only to the economic generation and vitalisation of cities but to national socio-economic development. As such, countries are increasingly focusing on the promotion of their cities as urban tourist centres. This last indicates that the industry is a highly competitive one, imposing upon city and tourism planners, the imperatives of managing the city in question for the explicit purpose of attracting tourists. In this, Paris and Dubai have proven highly successful. Both cities, not withstanding Paris' greater popularity, have popularised and marketed images of themselves as cultural tourism destinations and, given the volume of tourists they attract, can function as case studies in the successful marketing and management of urban tourism destinations. References Berghoff, H. (2002) From privilege to commodity Modern tourism and the rise of consumer society.' in H. Berghoff et al. (eds.), The Making of Modern Tourism. 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