Blackwell Reference Online

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Urban tourism refers to the consumption of city spectacles (such as architecture, monuments, and parks) and cultural amenities (such as museums, restaurants, and performances) by visitors. Studying urban tourism requires taking seriously leisure activities and transient populations, features of the city that much of past urban theory declines to address. However, a number of developments in recent decades have led tourism to assume a larger place in urban scholarship. As industrial manufacturing deserts dense urban areas, entertainment plays an expanded role in many city economies. Leisure and consumption for some means work and profits for others. The attraction and accommodation of visitors has become a central concern for public and private city elites. The sizable but fleeting population of visitors to the city has a surprising influence over local politics, investment choices, and the built environment. The label “tourist” frequently evokes pejorative connotations, which color not only popular but also scholarly representations. While crude stereotypes of the tourist suggest a plodding brute oblivious to all but the most obvious and pre-packaged attractions of the urban landscape, the leisure activity of tourism in fact contains a wide range of consumption activities and orientations towards the city. Moreover, the “business or pleasure” distinction obscures the fact that many ... log in or subscribe to read full text