World tourism cities: developing tourism off the beaten track

摘要

The introductory chapter written by the editors states the aim of the book as to explore 'themes in tourism research about the discovery and creation of new urban places and the intersecting mobilities and urban preferences that may be shared between different groups' (p. 1). An underlying part of this aim, as the editors pinpoint, is that visitors, as well as other city users including residents and workers, help creating new tourism localities outside well-known tourist districts in city destinations. Against this background, the editors then attempt to challenge and clarify two 'themes' shaping the structure of the book. The first of these themes is related to drawing boundaries on city destination categories and to select those that would fit well into the concept of the book. The so-called 'world cities' are selected, since such cities are arguably stabilised places and mature destinations in the international tourism market, offering substantial opportunities to investigate what may be termed as product diversification through shifting tourism movement from traditional tourist zones towards new localities. Another theme is associated with the emphasis on demand-driven establishment of new tourism localities. Given that most existing urban research relies on supply-side analysis mainly due to the difficulties of investigating the variety of city-users, who are also difficult to identify within urban environments, the book, with its emphasis on how demand characteristics help form the tourism type emerging in new tourism localities, seeks to provide a new perspective to the fast growing 'urban tourism' research field. To this end, the cases of gentrification through tourism are offered in chapters, and indeed in five world cities, namely London, Sydney, New York, Paris, and Berlin.