Urban Tourism and Evolutionary Economic Geography: Complexity and Co-evolution in Contested Spaces

Abstract

Urban tourism is an important research topic whether in mass tourism resort areas where tourism is the economic staple or in metropolitan areas where it is one (or more) development path(s) among many. Urban areas are dynamic and fast-paced environments but are also places where social and economic inequalities are most stark. Economic geography is one theoretical perspective through which researchers address urban tourism. The recent "evolutionary turn" in economic geography is finding its way to tourism studies but has only been applied to a few urban tourism cases. This paper sets out the potential of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) as a conceptual framework for urban tourism studies. The analysis draws on recent studies of urban tourism from an evolutionary perspective to highlight the strengths of taking such an approach and a number of avenues yet to be explored are put forward. Urban tourism affects large numbers of residents and businesses as well as influencing labour flows, and so understanding the dynamic nature of its development paths is vital. Tourism development does not occur in a vacuum, and urban tourism is one area where the complexity of the tourism economy and its place within broader regional development strategies is most obvious. Under recent neoliberal policies of urban development, tourism has become closely associated with place-based competition and large capital investments. Urban tourism also enters the fray in matters of contested urban spaces with issues of local governance, such as privatisation of public space, moving increasingly to the fore. The paper concludes with a list of future approaches to evolutionary studies of urban tourism to broaden the scope beyond the dominant financial metrics of tourism success.

Interpreting Sustainability through Co-Evolution: Evidence from Religious Accommodations in Rome

“…In fact, currently, there is only one other academic management study on the topic i.e., [58], but it is focused on the analysis of internal business processes and refers to a specific type of religious accommodation (i.e., retreat houses). Moreover, the results of this investigation confirm that religious accommodations can contribute incisively to the sustainable development and competitiveness of a tourism destination [15,44,67,79,81,105,126,131,138,139]-such as the city of Rome-because they are able to establish dynamic relationships over time with their territories and tourists, generating effective co-evolutionary adaptations. These synergies positively affect all the three sustainability dimensions [19,20,31].…”

“…This sharing implies slow and gradual processes of mutual adaptations [67,111,141] at multiple levels. In this vein, the territory (meso) becomes a key factor in both the creation and development of religious accommodations, because it allows connecting firms (micro) with destinations (macro), and with the supra-system of economy and society, to realize a tourist offering able to respond to a tourism demand that requires ever more cultural variety [38,137,138,[142][143][144][145].…”

Towards Socially Sustainable Tourism in Cities: Local Community Perceptions and Development Guidelines

“…Many urban tourism projects are funded by private sector or promoted by public sector with the support of private firms (Brouder & Ioannides, 2014) which limits opportunities and may exclude access to locals. It is thus important to determine what approaches will be most beneficial to the general public, both residents and visitors (Wise, 2016).…”

A New Measure of the Quality of Tourism Product

“…'It has good road access' and factor 3, meaning that this item contributes little to the explanation of this construct (see Figure 1). In summary, tourism infrastructures and airways are the most important elements in attractiveness of the tourism product at the international level because they allow tourists to reach the destination and increase their stay rate (Brouder & Ioannides, 2014, Leiper, 1979, 2004. In other words, it is the infrastructures and attractions that allow carrying out a set of activities that fix the tourists in the territories.…”