TOURISM IN PERIPHERAL AREAS: PLACE COMPETITION, ACCESSIBILITY AND DEVELOPMENT

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TOURISM IN PERIPHERAL AREAS PLACE COMPETITION,
ACCESSIBILITY AND DEVELOPMENT

• C.Michael Hall
• University of Otago, New Zealand
• cmhall_at_business.otago.ac.nz

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Place Competition

• Place marketing (eg. Madsen 1992 Kotler et al.
  1993)
• Selling places' (eg. Burgess 1982 Kearns
  Philo 1993)
• Geographical marketing' (eg. Ashworth Voogd
  1988)
• Imaging/Reimaging strategies' (Roche 1992 Hall
  1994)
• Cities of spectacle (Ley 1988)
• Voodoo cities (Harvey 1988)
• Place branding
• HOWEVER the primary focus has been on urban
  regions rather than the periphery with
  accessibility and centrality of placing being an
  important selling point

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'place wars'

• 'In a borderless economy, places will emerge as
  the new actors on the world scene All places are
  in trouble now, or will be in the near future.
  The globalization of the world's economy and the
  accelerating pace of technological changes are
  two forces that require all places to learn how
  to compete. Places must learn how to think more
  like businesses, developing products, markets,
  and customers' (Kotler et al. 1993 346).

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So Why Are We Fighting?

• The search for competitive advantage
• Changed trade regimes
• New terrains of thinking regarding the role of
  the state
• Shifts in regulatory structures
• New technologies affecting transport and
  communicative mobility
• Economic restructuring and shifts in employment
• Globalisation-Localisation

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What are we fighting for?

• Capital
• Firms economic capital, intellectual capital
• People (of the right kind) human and
  intellectual capital
• Opportunities for place promotion, including
  hallmark events, e.g. cultural capital
• But who is the we? - role of growth coalitions

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Neoliberalism

• General tag used to describe some of the changes
  in political economy in recent years
  (post-Keynesian/post-Fordist/post-modern?)
• neoliberalism seems to be everywhere. This mode
  of free-market economic theory, manufactured in
  Chicago and vigorously marketed through principle
  sales offices in Washington DC, New York and
  London, has become the dominant ideological
  rationalization for globalization and
  contemporary state reform (Peck Tickell 2002
  380).

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What is it?

• Neoliberalism demands the ascendancy of markets
  as societys prime distributional tool
  controlling the allocation of resources on the
  basis of competition and placing responsibility
  for well-being on the shoulders of the
  individual
• Winding back of Keynesian-welfare state
  institutions
• Erosion of spatial distribution devices
• Dismantling of social arrangements relating to
  working conditions and social services
• (Geographical Review 2005)

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Changing the rules of the game for places

• Yet neoliberalism is like globalisation - its
  occurrence is uneven
• complex, chaotic, multiscalar, multitemporal and
  multicentric series of processes operating in
  particular structural and spatial contexts
• But also like globalisation it serves to change
  the rules of the game in the struggle for
  competitive advantage among firms, destinations
  and places within, as well as between, countries
  and regions
• It also means we need to reconsider how places
  compete

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Why tourism?

• Tourism is integral to issues of place
  competition and for peripheral areas in
  particular because it is seen as one of the few
  development options
• Role in imaging
• Potential role in environmental scanning
• Means of economic development and employment that
  is perceived as being low skilled and requiring
  little investment, especially in peripheral areas
  that have been subject to economic change and
  restructuring
• Leisure consumption as an element in the
  attractiveness of locations
• Yet tourism is not well understood

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Temporary mobility in space and time
Extended working holidays Sojourning Study/Worki
ng abroad
Temporal dimension
Years
Educational travel/exchanges
6/12 MONTHS
Months
Seasonal travel for work or by retirees to a
second home
Travel to vacation homes
Weeks
International vacations International business
travel
Domestic vacations
Travel to second homes (weekenders)
Weekends
Day / 24 hours / Overnight
Intra-national Business travel
Daytripping / Excursions
Hours
Shopping
HOME
International
Local
National
Regional
CROSSING NATIONAL BORDER
Spatial Dimension
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Fluidity of time and space

• Of significance to all definitions of tourism are
  concepts of space, i.e. travel away from a home
  area, and time, i.e. the time spent away from a
  home area. Yet the boundaries which are selected
  as determinants of what constitutes tourism are
  increasingly fluid.
• HOW FAST YOU CAN TRAVEL DETERMINES HOW FAR YOU
  CAN TRAVEL (AND ACTIVITIES YOU CAN UNDERTAKE) IN
  A GIVEN PERIOD OF TIME - ECONOMIC AND TIME BUDGETS

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Growth in world population vs growth in
international arrivals
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(No Transcript)
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Figure Mobility in Time and Space
NUMBER OF TRIPS
DISTANCE DECAY TRIPS IN TIME AND SPACE
TIME
Shopping
YEARS
Commuting
Migration
Business travel
MONTHS
Routinisation
Vacations
Extended working holidays Sojourning Study/Worki
ng abroad
WEEKS
Educational travel
Visits Daytripping/Excursions
pilgrimage
WEEKEND
'Short breaks'
The OE
DAYS
Seasonal travel for work or by retirees to a
second home
Return migration
HOURS
Travel to second homes (weekenders)
Travel to vacation homes
Long distance commuting
ORIGIN (HOME)
Educational travel
DISTANCE DECAY TRIPS IN TIME AND SPACE
DISTANCE
15
YEARS
WEEKS
TIME
MONTHS
HOURS
DAYS
Shopping
NUMBER OF TRIPS
Commuting
Visits Daytripping/Excursions
Business travel
Travel to second homes (weekenders)
'Short breaks'
Routinisation
Long distance commuting
Vacations
Travel to vacation homes
Seasonal travel for work or by retirees to a
second home
DISTANCE DECAY TRIPS IN TIME AND SPACE
Educational travel
pilgrimage
Extended working holidays Study/Working
abroad
The OE Sojourning
ORIGIN (HOME)
Migration
Retirement migration Return migration
DISTANCE
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Space-time prism
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Travel speeds and accessible resources in space
from an urban centre
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Accessibility related to overnight stays
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Wave Analogue implication of changed
accessibility
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• Tourism is increasingly being interpreted as but
  one, albeit highly significant, dimension of
  mobility and circulation
• Tourism is seen as being related to other forms
  of mobility voluntary migration, educational
  travel, health, work related mobility -
  particularly if one adopts a lifecourse approach
• Understanding temporal and spatial constraints is
  critical - economic, socio-cultural, and
  political dimensions
• Human movement generates human movement
• But tourism demonstrates an enormous amount of
  inertia at the aggregate level

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Implications

• The study of tourism must be willing to formulate
  a coherent approach to understanding the meaning
  behind the range of mobilities undertaken by
  individuals, not just tourists - and the
  implications that this has for places
• Emphasis on the interrelationship between
  mobility, accessibility and the attraction of
  places for people and firms as well as those
  factors that limit mobility and accessibility

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1. Geographically remote from mass markets

• Spatial distance
• Communicative distance
• Outside of the day-trip zone of major population
  centres

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2. Lack of effective economic and political
control over major decisions that affect
well-being

• Issues of economic restructuring
• Globalisation
• Political institutions elsewhere

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3. Relatively weak internal economic linkages

• High degree of importation
• Inter-firm relations often weak within region
• Often industries based on resource extraction /
  natural resources

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4. Relatively weak internal communication
transport linkages

• Links often from periphery to core rather than
  between peripheries
• Intra-firm relations

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5. Often high aesthetic / natural amenity values

• Sign of lack of development or even economic
  restructuring
• Relationship to high biophysical values of
  naturalness and remoteness - wilderness
• Cultural heritage is often the thing which hasnt
  changed because there wasnt the money to update

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Mobility, accessibility and relative naturalness
Naturalness increases as a function of the
distance from human settlement and access
Number of trips
Trip distance decay
Relative naturalness
Peripheral / Wilderness
Rural
Periurban
urban
Urban centre
TYPICAL LAND USE DESCRIPTIONS
Accessibility
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6. Migration outflows

• Younger people for education and employment
  opportunities
• Families with respect to better schooling and
  employment opportunities
• Some retirement outmigration
• BUT for a few peripheral locations there is
  migration inflow - amenity, seasonal, retirement
  and lifestyle migration

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7. Comparative lack of innovation

• Argued by Botterill et al. (1997) BUT this point
  is highly debatable
• High rates of innovation may be one of the few
  points of comparative competitive advantage - but
  this is related to what underlies the capacity to
  innovate in terms of intellectual and social
  cultural

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8. Interventionist role of local, national
supranational state

• Occurs because of economic difficulties of the
  periphery
• It is very hard for governments to refuse to
  assist peripheral regions in some way - national
  myths of the rural and peripheral
• Significance of changing political philosophies
  regarding the role of the state - move from the
  welfare to the entrepreneurial/neo-liberal state
• EU budget debate re CAP

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Tourism in the peripheral economy

• Peripheral economies tend to be dependent on one
  or two industries
• Industries are often resource-based such as
  mining, power generation, forestry, fishing or
  extensive grazing - these industries are highly
  subject to economic change and restructuring
• Tourism therefore seen as a means of
  diversification and a response to restructuring
• Some industries may also be tourist attractions
• (picture near Corner Brook, Newfoundland)

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But can peripheral places succeed with tourism?

• Some places obviously are better positioned than
  others for reasons of accessibility as well as
  capital - economic, intellectual and social
• But what are we wanting in economic terms
• - People travelling through?
• People stopping?
• People stopping and spending?
• People stopping/staying longer and therefore
  spending more?

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Getting people to stop and spend

• The reality is that for many peripheral locations
  your doing well if you can just get people to
  stop and spend - even just a small amount of
  money may be enough to keep a store going and
  help retain jobs
• Implications of space-time prism and constraints
• Importance of the toilet stop

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Short-term Retaining the spend

• How do businesses/firms cooperate?
• To what extent does expenditure circulate through
  the local economy?
• Emphasising local purchase
• - Good for local business, eg tourism - food
  links, tourism - construction, tourism - existing
  industry links very important
• Good for reinforcing the local brand

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Medium term Develop networks and relationships

• Network relations economic - communication -
  mobility networks/paths all interrelated
• Focus on creating understanding and trust not
  producing pieces of paper
• cross-sectoral relations require meeting spaces
• role of champions and keystone individuals/firms
• But they will take some time to develop and some
  efforts will not work

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Longer term Develop capital

• Intellectual capital is critical
• knowledge base/people
• protection of innovation issues
• Develop complex networks - related to both
  economic and social capital
• Danger of swapping dependencies
• BEYOND TOURISM?
• Importance of broader government policies with
  respect to education, service provision
• Tourism must be a means to an end, not an end in
  itself

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The Answer? The Question?

• To be a successful contributor to peripheral
  regions
• expectations must be realistic for tourism,
  e.g. seasonality issues, how many people can you
  really attract?
• tourism must be integrated in with wider
  regional development strategies
• social and intellectual capital is as important
  than infrastructure - in same cases more
  important
• its about getting people to stay as long as
  possible

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Unless places are accessible to the mobilities
they are trying to attract they cannot compete

• In the 19th century places competed for the
  railroad and/or the steamship to stop
• In the 20th century places competed for cars to
  stop
• In the 21st century places compete for planes to
  stop
• Over time all places have competed to be
  accessible by communications technology

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However, accessibility creates new issues

• Local control of the development process
• How many people do you actually want given
  desired quality of life and environment goals
• External firms are more likely to move in and
  out-compete local firms
• Place-owned firms are an appropriate response of
  peripheral regions

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So its about people

• Its about developing and retaining intellectual,
  social, natural and economic capital
• Public-private partnerships essential
• Champions and keystone firms
• Co-preneurship/lifestyle entrepreneurship and
  second homes extremely significant
• Place based firms
• Strategic incremental investment rather than the
  mega-project is the most successful in the
  long-run
• If we practice sustained yield in forest
  management in peripheral areas why dont we
  expect the same in tourism management?

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From knowledge to?

• Tourism needs to be placed within a wider context
  of human mobility - and understood as movement in
  space and time (not just studies at the
  destination)
• A lifecourse approach is required to understand
  different mobilities (and therefore potential to
  be located at a place) at different times
• Tourism knowledge needs to be effectively
  developed, argued and communicated to those that
  need it, and particularly policy makers who often
  have little idea of what tourism is and what its
  limitations are

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And if your interested

• Hall, C.M. 2005, Tourism Rethinking the Social
  Science of Mobility, Prentice-Hall, Harlow.
• Hall, C.M. Boyd, S. (eds) 2005, Nature-based
  Tourism in Peripheral Areas Development or
  Disaster, Channelview Publications, Clevedon.
• Hall, C.M. Härkönen, T. (eds) 2006, Lake
  Tourism An Integrated Approach to Lacustrine
  Tourism Systems, Channelview Press, Clevedon.
• Hall, C.M. Müller, D. (eds) 2004, Tourism,
  Mobility and Second Homes Between Elite
  Landscape and Common Ground, Channelview
  Publications, Clevedon.
• Jansson, B. Müller, D. (eds) 2005, Tourism in
  High Latitude Peripheries Space, Place and
  Environment, CABI, Wallingford,