Session 5 Place Marketing and Regeneration RDI Management Learning Urban Tourism Session 5 Place Marketing and Regeneration RDI Management Learning
Seminar Objectives To look at how cities can be viewed as products To look at the importance of place-image To view how tourism and leisure interacts with urban regeneration agendas in post-industrial cities Asking – whose city?
Place-Marketing Development of the place as a product (developing existing attractions & creating new attractions) Development of the place-image (creating a distinctive & positive image of place) Market segmentation (promoting product and image to certain visitor types)
The City as a Product A product: “Anything having the ability to satisfy human needs or wants capable of being traded for some other commodity – or a price” Kotler (1986) A product must be created from resources
The City as a Product The city product is a mix of: Public Goods Private Goods
The City as a Product Tourist products are socially constructed: “The value of the resource is defined by the demand for it not the intrinsic qualities of the resource itself” Ashworth and Voogd (1990)
The City as a Product Modern Products Post-Modern Products Modern and Post-Modern Products Modern Products Little Variation Utility Value inherent Post-Modern Products Much Variation Symbol Value socially produced
The City as a Product Core Product: “The core product is what motivates the consumer to actually make the purchase” (Kolb 2006) Cities have multiple core products, dependent on the visitor What about the post-tourist?
The Importance of Place-Image The place-product has to be marketed through interpretation, selection and the creation of a favourable and differentiated image Cities in general are often viewed negatively Image rich and image poor
The Importance of Place-Image The Image Formation Process
The Importance of Place-Image Post Industrial Cities and Image Problems Manufacturing and industrial decline The inner city Historical legacy
The Importance of Place-Image Combating Negative Place Images Overt Induced I – Traditional forms of blatant advertising. The use of television, radio, brochures, billboards and print media advertising by destination area promoters in direct attempts to form particular images in the minds of prospective visitors. Overt Induced II – Information received from tour operators, wholesalers and organisations which have a vested interest in the travel decision process but which are not associated with a particular destination area. Covert Induced I – The use of a recognizable spokesperson in an attempt to overcome the credibility problem inherent in overt induced image formation. Covert Induced II – This aspect of induced image takes the form of articles reports or stories about a particular place that have no obvious vested interest in promoting the place such as travel writers, magazine and newspaper articles. The reader of the article is rarely informed that the author’s travel expenses were covered by his or her hosts in the destination area. (Gartner 1993)
Place-Marketing: From The Horse’s Mouth I think the Council is very committed to developing the city itself for both local people and to raise the image of the city…. We are trying to change the image of Sunderland as the grimy Northern town which some people still think we are…We’re trying to change (the image) from this horrible industrial region, and saying that we’re not like that anymore, and that involves showing people what we’ve got - the beach, the Glass Centre, the shopping, the theatre, and the fact that we’ve done all this development work (in the city) (Interview with Sunderland tourism officer 2001) “A big problem is that the image of the city is still very much based on people’s perceptions of the city in the ‘60s and ‘70s, so if you ask people ‘what is Hull famous for now?’ they still say ‘fishing’ but we haven’t got a fishing industry now….so that’s where we are at the moment – trying to get the image of the city across to people as being a modern, vibrant and quite dynamic place”. (Interview with Hull Tourism Officer 2001)
Urban Tourism and Urban Regeneration Flagship regeneration projects: Top down (UDCs) Large scale National/international aims (image) Community based regeneration projects: More Grounded Partnership working Community aims/benefits
Urban Tourism and Regeneration In Theory…
Place-Marketing, Regeneration and Sociological Issues Place-Marketing as a reaction to globalized production The need to attract: Investment Workers Tourists Diverse or standardised spaces?
Place-Marketing: Winners and Losers? -Whose City Do images projected reflect real life in cities? Do flagship regeneration projects create oases of affluence?
Place-Marketing Some Extra Reading Burgess, J, A. (1982). Selling Places: Environmental Images for the Executive. Regional Studies. 16(1). 1 – 17. Chon, Kye-Sung. (1990). The Role of Destination Image in Tourism: A Review and Discussion. The Tourist Review. 45(2). 2-9. Harcup, T. (2000). Re-imaging a Post-Industrial City: The Leeds St. Valentine’s Fair as a Civic Spectacle. City. Vol 4 (2). pp 215-231. Law, C. M. (1992). Urban Tourism and its Contribution to Economic Regeneration. Urban Studies. (29). 599-618. Madsen, H. (1992). Place Marketing in Liverpool: A Review. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Vol 16: (4). 633 – 40. Wilkinson, S. (1992). Towards a New City? A Case Study of Image-Improvement Initiatives in Newcastle upon Tyne. In Healey, P. et al. Rebuilding the City: Property Led Urban Regeneration. London: Spon.