Title: New Scripts for Urban Tourism:A Sustainable Way of Revalorising Cultural Resources
Abstract: The research field of urban tourism already has a long tradition and is characterised by a strong specialisation in the last decennia.An important evolution in the social values of leisure,culture,and heritage has created the basis for a new cultural economy in which cities play a key role.The multifunctional characteristics of urban spaces and the dynamics of urban communities explain the rapidly changing face of many cities;leisure,culture,heritage,entertainment,and events became the core elements of multiple urban revitalisation projects,and even new cities built on new concepts.The way new functions and activities entered the urban scene and developed into alternative economic resource is a most challenging research track.The interaction between place,people,products,and policies has been studied from very different points of view and disciplinary background.This resulted in a fragmented vision on urban tourism scapes,where an integrated approach would be expected.In addition,the knowledge building on urban tourism is mainly based on numerous case studies,by definition focused on a specific time and space context.Eventually this led to a comprehensive and coherent framework for urban tourism studies.The red line through this review article is the need to develop new and creative scripts to tell the story of the urban ‘perpetuum mobile’.The main objective is to develop tools and concepts that allow analysing the vectors of change in the urban tourism landscape.Gradually the research focus in urban studies has moved towards transformation processes induced by tourism-‘tourismification’-and to define strategically the critical success factors for a sustainable tourism destination.Assessing the growing impact of tourism on the urban system requires a consensus about multidimensional indicators and a valid monitoring system.Registration of data in a reliable way,in addition comparable over time,is a huge challenge for many public authorities.Building an efficient database requires a coherent vision and the professional and technical capacity to understand the complexity of urban space uses and users.Many transformations in urban tourism destinations can be described as the local reactions to forces of globalisation.It is the uniqueness of a place,its history and heritage,and the cultural values expression of the present urban communities that determine in the global competition to attract visitors and tourists.Not only the cultural capital of the place,but increasingly the capacity to manage the resources of the place will affect the competitiveness of tourist destinations;‘how’ assets of the place are being(re)-organised and managed for the purpose of tourism based economy. After 90s of 20th century,China's urban tourism study prompted with the city development and urban planning,and with the contribution of many scholars especially geographers.The research mainly focuses on the relationship between urban tourism and regional development,dynamic and development mechanism of urban tourism,sustainable development of urban tourism,etc.The problems appeared in Western world of urban tourism also affect the urban tourism development in China,e.g.the crowed problem,copy and paste model,etc.This study proves that the Western experience could help China be aware of the consequences of urban tourism development and take proper measures to cope with them. This short excursion in urban tourism landscapes allows us to conclude that in the 21st century city tourism has become an important icon for many destinations,morphologically and functionally,and a key player in urban life,politically,socially,culturally and economically.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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