Atlantic City entered a period of stagnation, where the infrastructure deteriorated and the physical resources were degraded and polluted. Then, it finally entered decline with reduced visitor numbers. Given high vacancy rates, capacities were reduced as older hotels were demolished. With rising levels of unemployment—20 percent on average—residents who had the ability to look for new opportunities elsewhere did, and the city lost a quarter of its population. The remaining population typically consisted of minorities and the elderly; in some neighborhoods, as much as 80 percent of the population was over the age of 65. Poverty levels averaged nearly 10 percent for the county, with some of the hardest-hit areas seeing figures as high as 46 percent. The economy, social conditions, and the environment reached dismal conditions.
By the 1960s, Atlantic City desperately needed revitalization. Casino gambling was proposed as a last-ditch effort for what many considered to be a hopeless situation. While it was a highly contested issue, in 1976 New Jersey became only the second state to legalize gambling. It was hoped that the casino hotel industry would bring new capital to the resort, generate tax revenues for the state, create jobs, attract new tourists, revitalize the economy, and create a base for urban redevelopment. However, in two years’ time, the city had only one casino license application. It appeared that other companies were waiting to see if the experiment would be successful. In an analysis of the resort’s life cycle in 1978, geographer Charles Stansfield wrote, “Gambling may fail to be the universal panacea which its champions asserted it would offer.”1
Yet, within fourteen years, twelve casinos accounting for a $5.3 billion investment had been developed. Whereas Atlantic City had once been seen as a summer destination, gambling increased visits year-round. This significantly reduced seasonal employment variations. An estimated fifty thousand jobs were created in the casinos and another fifty thousand in related industries. Income levels increased, and additional redevelopment efforts were undertaken. For a short time in the 1990s, Atlantic City reached a new high and was ranked as the country’s most popular destination based on tourist visits. Receiving over 30 million visitors, it outstripped Las Vegas and Orlando. Over the past decade, several failed development projects and economic recession have indicated that the resort has entered another period of stagnation and uncertainty. Nonetheless, the redevelopment of Atlantic City has been considered one of the most successful examples of rejuvenation that few resorts could replicate.
Discussion topic: Why do you think gambling was such a successful rejuvenation strategy for Atlantic City? Do you think that other destinations would experience similar levels of success?
Map 11.1. Atlantic City, New Jersey. The success of this rejuvenated destination has primarily been based on casino development. (Source: XNR Productions)
Note
1. Charles Stansfield, “Atlantic City and the Resort Cycle: Background to the Legalization of Gambling,” Annals of Tourism Research 5, no. 2 (1978): 250.
Sources
Braunlich, Carl G. “Lessons from the Atlantic City Casino Experience.” Journal of Travel Research 34 (1996): 46–56.
Butler, Richard. “The Tourist Area Life Cycle in the Twenty-First Century.” In A Companion to Tourism, edited by Alan A. Lew, C. Michael Hall, and Allan M. Williams, 159–69. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Stansfield, Charles. “The Rejuvenation of Atlantic City: The Resort Cycle Recycles.” In The Tourism Area Life Cycle, vol. 1, Applications and Modifications, edited by Richard W. Butler, 287–305. Clevedon, UK: Channel View Publications, 2006.
Key Terms
back region
code of conduct
enclave tourism
front region
preferred sites
spatial zoning
sustainable development
sustainable tourism
tourist area life cycle
Notes
1. Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Schocken Books, 1976; reprinted with foreword by Lucy R. Lippard, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
2. Simone Borelli and Stefania Minestrini, “WWF Mediterranean Programme,” accessed February 24, 2011, http://www.monachus-guardian.org/library/medpro01.pdf.
3. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, accessed February 24, 2011, http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm.
4. R. W. Butler, “The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle Evolution: Implications for Management of Resources,” Canadian Geographer 24, no. 1 (1980).
5. Richard Butler, “The Resort Cycle Two Decades On,” in Tourism in the 21st Century: Lessons from Experience, edited by Bill Faulkner, Gianna Moscardo, and Eric Laws (London: Continuum, 2000), 288.
Sources
Butler, R. W. “The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle Evolution: Implications for Management of Resources.” Canadian Geographer 24, no. 1 (1980): 5–12.
Butler, Richard. “The Resort Cycle Two Decades On.” In Tourism in the 21st Century: Lessons from Experience, edited by Bill Faulkner, Gianna Moscardo, and Eric Laws, 284–299. London: Continuum, 2000.
———. “The Tourist Area Life Cycle in the Twenty-First Century.” In A Companion to Tourism, edited by Alan A. Lew, C. Michael Hall, and Allan M. Williams, 159–169. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Dove, Jane. Access to Geography: Tourism and Recreation. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004.
Lew, Alan, and Bob McKercher. “Modeling Tourist Movements: A Local Destination Analysis.” Annals of Tourism Research 33 (2006): 403–23.
MacCannell, Dean. “Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings.” American Journal of Sociology 79, no. 3 (1973): 589–603.
———. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken Books, 1976. Reprinted with foreword by Lucy R. Lippard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Chapter 12
Tourism Representations of Place
“Beautiful beaches,” “Spectacular sunsets,” “Majestic mountains,” “Fragrant flowers,” “Colorful costumes”—clichéd though they are, these are frequently used tourism terminology to evoke vivid images of places in our minds. These ideas and images play an important role in shaping both our demand for and our experience of tourism destinations. In tourism studies, these issues are frequently approached from a marketing perspective. However, as places are the product to be sold in tourism, the geography of tourism is an equally relevant framework.
Place is a way of understanding the world. It refers to the parts of the earth that have been given meaning. These meanings come from a variety of sources. For example, they can be a product of the cultural preferences and values of a particular group of people at a specific point in time. In the historical geography of tourism (chapter 4), we saw that early generations of tourists perceived mountains as dark and dangerous places, to be feared and avoided if possible. Yet, as pervasive and enduring as the meanings associated with places can be, they do change over time. In this case, ideas about mountainous environments were gradually revised, partially as a result of technological advances that made travel in these places easier and safer. Equally as important, however, was the popularization of new aesthetic concepts, such as the sublime, that allowed people to appreciate these places in different ways. As such, media representations can be extraordinarily important in shaping the meanings associated with places. While these meanings are often created indirectly through media (e.g., popular literature or film), they may also be explicitly produced through the practice of place promotion.
In this chapter, we will examine the representation of places. This describes the ways places are summarized and portrayed to an audience that then creates ideas and images about those places. This has implications for our discussion of the geography of tourism, as these ideas and images factor into tourists’ decisions to visit a place and shape their expectations for their experiences there. The first part of the chapter introduces concepts assoc
iated with the representation of places in tourism, while the second part provides a brief discussion of the types of media that contribute to our ideas about places and our expectations for tourism experiences in those places. Finally, the chapter concludes by examining some of the consequences of representations of place in tourism.
Representations of Place and Place Promotion
Our understanding of places to which we have never been is shaped by the ways they are represented through media. The proliferation of media allows more places to be “experienced” than ever before. In fact, there are few parts of the world that we have not been exposed to in one form or another and therefore have an impression of what we think that place is like. Yet, representations cannot replace direct experience. It may be easy to take these representations at face value as accurate portrayals of reality, especially visual representations such as photographs and videos. However, as vivid as these images may be, they are nonetheless partial and selective. The audience becomes a passive observer who sees only what someone else has chosen.
One of the most prominent scholars on the geography of place, Edward Relph, criticized media representations of place, particularly advertising and promotion. He argued that these representations create superficial ideas of places based on simplified, recognizable, perhaps even exaggerated concepts that may be readily accepted by an external audience; they do little to convey the sense of place that can only be obtained through direct experience.1 Yet, representations of place are recognized to be extraordinarily important in tourism. As put by tourism scholar Dean MacCannell, “Usually, the first contact a sightseer has with a sight is not the sight itself but with some representation thereof.”2
Not all representations of place are innocent or incidental. Some are deliberately created with specific meanings to “sell” a place to potential tourists. Tourism is a highly competitive global industry; therefore, the success of modern tourism destinations depends on the creation and promotion of clear and ultimately distinctive ideas. Place promotion is the deliberate use of marketing tools to communicate specific and selective ideas and images about a place to a target audience for the purpose of shaping perceptions of that place and ultimately influencing decisions. It is a form of advertising and can be deceptive. Because place promotion draws selectively upon the real nature of places and presents only those elements that will appeal to the target market segment, there may be many different representations of a destination. Each representation will highlight a different aspect of the destination, draw upon a different theme, and utilize different images to attract specific types of tourists.
Not all destinations use place promotion in the same way. For many of the world’s largest tourism destinations—such as France, the United States, or Australia—there is little need to promote the destination as a whole. Ideas about these places already abound in representations, and there is a preexisting suppressed demand (i.e., many people already believe they want to visit these places if/when they have the opportunity). It may be more important that these destinations promote specific regions or places, as tourists are likely to only visit a part of the country during their trip. This can help provide more detailed information about the unique resources and experiences available in different places. In contrast, place promotion is especially important for those destinations about which little is known, those that might have a less-than-favorable reputation, or those that are perceived to be similar to other destinations. In these cases, place promotion becomes the primary means of shaping what is known and perceived to be important about the destination.
Poorly known destinations—often new or remote destinations—are perhaps the easiest to promote. Essentially, potential tourists have few ideas about these places to begin with, and therefore there is greater leverage for creativity in crafting promotional strategies that will shape tourists’ ideas about a place. In contrast, destinations that have a negative image are the hardest to promote. Deserved or not, a poor reputation in the minds of potential tourists can be extraordinarily hard to overcome. A poor reputation may be based on serious past or present issues or events in the country or region of the country, including conflicts, political upheaval, acts of terrorism, human rights violations and/or atrocities, problems associated with the drug trade, crimes against tourists, and so on. Likewise, a poor reputation may be based on the destination’s tourism industry, such as a poorly developed infrastructure, an unfriendly or hostile local population, and even an overdevelopment of tourism in which mass commercialization supplants the local character of the place or the sheer volume of tourists overwhelms the experience of place. Some destinations attempt to ignore the issue entirely in the creation of a new identity, while others choose to address it head-on in their promotions to show that it has been resolved.
Destinations perceived to be similar to others present a challenge for place promotion, but this problem can be more easily overcome. The Caribbean is one such example. People often see the islands of the region as a collective, and the fact that they have at times acted cooperatively to strengthen their position on the global market contributes to this perception. However, this becomes a problem when potential tourists think one island is the same as another. This not only affects the choice of specific destination but may also serve to discourage these tourists from returning and visiting another island because they think they have already had the “Caribbean experience.” Consequently, each island tries to create and promote a distinctive place identity that plays up the resources that make them unique. Grenada has drawn upon its long-standing agricultural industry that produces nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon to identify itself as “the spice isle.” Trinidad is known for hosting the biggest annual party in the region: its Carnival. One of the islands containing two countries—Dutch St. Maarten and French St. Martin—capitalizes on the idea of two destinations in one with the slogan “twice the vacation, twice the fun.”
Box 12.1. Case Study: The Re-Creation of Croatia’s Tourism Industry
Croatia’s long Adriatic coast has an extensive history of tourism, from the development of fashionable seaside resorts in the mid-nineteenth century to the rise of mass 3S tourism in the mid-twentieth. During the late Yugoslav era, Croatia was inundated with over 10 million tourists a year, primarily from the other countries of Europe. However, the industry was devastated by the outbreak of war following Croatia’s declaration of independence in 1991.
Despite any lingering effects of travel advisories and a “war-torn” image, the Croatian tourism industry made a complete recovery in ten years’ time. By 2005, the number of international tourist arrivals once again reached 10 million. In the following year, National Geographic Adventure Magazine named Croatia “Destination of the Year.” This exceptional recovery is at least partially attributable to a strategic and aggressive postwar promotional campaign to re-create the country’s international image and identity. Given Croatia’s legacy of tourism, the first step was to recapture the European market. Already familiar with the destination, these tourists just needed to be reassured that security had been restored and the quality of the tourism product had not been diminished.
The second step was to target new markets. This required creating distance from the Eastern European and Balkans regions, which were considered backward and unstable; this was achieved by disengaging from conflict and emphasizing historical connections and similarities to the countries of Western Europe. These efforts were aided by poor geographic literacy and a poor understanding of the Yugoslav conflicts in much of the world. Specifically, the Mediterranean became the focal point of the country’s place promotion. Not only have Croatia’s tourism offerings long been concentrated along the coast, but the Mediterranean is considered a “known quantity” with positive connotations. Based on this, the Croatian National Tourist Board created the tourism slogan “The Mediterranean As It Once Was.”
Discussion topic: What are the strengths and weaknesses of “The Mediterranean As It Once Was�
�� as a slogan for place promotion?
Tourism on the web: Croatian National Tourist Board, “Croatia,” at http://croatia.hr/en-GB/Homepage
Figure 12.1. The seaside town of Opatija in Croatia’s Istrian Peninsula was once a popular tourist resort for the nobility in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is part of the legacy that the country draws on in its tourism industry today. (Source: Renata Grbac Žikovic´)
Map 12.1. Croatia. This European destination promotes itself as “the Mediterranean as it once was.” (Source: Gang Gong)
Sources
Hall, Derek. “Brand Development, Tourism, and National Identity: The Re-Imaging of Former Yugoslavia.” Brand Management 9 (2002): 323–34.
Rivera, Lauren A. “Managing ‘Spoiled’ National Identity: War, Tourism, and Memory in Croatia.” American Sociological Review 73 (2008): 613–34.
Destination slogans or “taglines” such as these are used to condense the idea of the place represented to tourists into a short, memorable phrase. While these might be easily dismissed as superficial marketing ploys, they play a role in the promotion of a place identity. In fact, the ideas conveyed in a slogan can be so important that they may become controversial. For example, in 1991, the newly created country of Slovenia was relatively unknown and needed to create a place identity for the purpose of stimulating tourism. Not only did Slovenia need to create a positive place identity for itself, but the country also needed to distance itself from the violence of the independence wars among the other Yugoslav states. As such, Slovenia adopted the slogan “The sunny side of the Alps” to capitalize on both the country’s physical resources for tourism—particularly the attractive destinations in the Julian Alps—and the preexisting positive tourism imagery associated with the larger Alpine region. However, Italy objected to this slogan and the perceived implication that, as Slovenia’s neighbor, it was not physically and/or metaphorically “sunny.” Consequently, Slovenia was forced to abandon the slogan.
An Introduction to the Geography of Tourism Page 35
