Everyday life as a creative experience in cities

Abstract

Purpose -This paper aims to explore how overseas visitors experience off-the-beaten-track areas and everyday life in London.Design/methodology/approach -Initially scoped through quantitative research using visitor surveys involving some 400 respondents, the study was subsequently developed through qualitative research: 49 semi-structured interviews with visitors from a wide range of countries.Findings -These areas offer city visitors opportunities to create their own narratives and experiences of the city, and to build a cultural capital in a convivial relationship with other city users. At the same time, visitors contribute to the discovery of new areas for tourism -and in some sense the creation of new places to visit.Research limitations/implications -Further research in other areas of London and in other world tourism cities is needed to develop ideas discussed here.Practical implications -Subtler forms of tourism marketing are required to develop the potential of areas like those discussed in the paper.Social implications -Some tourists and residents enjoy a convivial and complementary relationship in area development. Originality/value -The paper focuses on everyday life as an element in the attraction that cities exert for tourists, and on the visitors' contribution to recreating the city.

Regulating Airbnb: how cities deal with perceived negative externalities of short-term rentals

“…Over the last decades, tourism is 'de-differentiated' (Urry & Larsen, 2011) and increasingly intertwined with, rather than opposed to daily practices and the mundane, everyday life. The 'post-tourist' (Feifer, 1985) wants to be regarded as traveller rather than tourist, looking for an authentic experience 'off-the-beaten-track' (Maitland, 2010). This so-called new urban tourism (Füller & Michel, 2014) does not imply that people have diverged from touristic highlights altogether; rather they mix visiting these highlights with performing leisure activities in more local areas (Maitland, 2010).…”

“…The 'post-tourist' (Feifer, 1985) wants to be regarded as traveller rather than tourist, looking for an authentic experience 'off-the-beaten-track' (Maitland, 2010). This so-called new urban tourism (Füller & Michel, 2014) does not imply that people have diverged from touristic highlights altogether; rather they mix visiting these highlights with performing leisure activities in more local areas (Maitland, 2010). In cities, this implies that an increasing share of visitors is moving away from tourist enclaves to find accommodation in residential neighbourhoods located close to the historic centre, but not planned for tourism (Maitland, 2010;Ioannides et al, 2018).…”

“…The representative of Visit Denver also described the increased desire to 'live-like-a-local' (cf. Füller & Michel, 2014;Maitland, 2010), echoed by Airbnb host 2, whose guests are usually looking for a way 'to experience Denver differently than what is a downtown experience'. One respondent confirmed that STRs in Denver are seen as a way to spread tourism income over the city:…”

Resident Perceptions of New Urban Tourism: A Neglected Geography of Prejudice

“…Turning away from the inner city as a classical destination area of urban tourism (Jansen‐Verbeke ; Murphy ) towards gentrified, former working‐class neighbourhoods without any classic touristic offers beside ‘authentic’ everyday life, “changing patterns of urban tourism” (Novy & Huning , p. 88) can be recently observed, which are named “new urban tourism” (Füller & Michel ), a term originally used by Roche () to entitle “a very significant sector and force in the economic regeneration or micro‐modernisation of old industrial cities in western society” (Roche , p. 563). Meanwhile, deeply embedded into global mobilities (Maitland & Newman , p. 1), this new urban tourism is characterised as the search for alternative, authentic, lively, and mundane (Maitland ) urban places “off the beaten track” (Maitland & Newman ) in cities. However, such a pattern of urban tourism is hardly “new”; first indications were explored by tourism geographies as early as the 1970s, in Germany, for instance, in the neighbourhood of Schwabing in Munich (Meier , p. 59), but the current quantitative dimension puts the phenomenon on the agenda of urban and tourism geographies again.…”

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“…There has been a strong focus on recent studies in urban cultural tourism on the creative class and the emergence of new areas and novel developments that appeal to a city's visitors Maitland, 2010;Richards, 2011). Similarly, the topics of urban regeneration and cultural quarters have also proved to be focal in contemporary research related to urban cultural consumption in a tourism context (McManus and Carruthers, 2014;Smith, 2012).…”