NS34 Session 4

 

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Title: City tourism destination – using a development potential in a changing world

Organisers: Göran Andersson

Affiliation: Södertörn University

 

Description

Urban areas are very important in our modern societies, since it is there that most of the population lives and a significant proportion of the GDP is produced. In addition, urban tourism has probably still a development potential.

It will be even more important to understand the city structure in the future. Especially concerning the borders and functions for regional centres and city centres.

New forms of destination governance are emerging, beginning with the quadruple-helix model involving various actors. These actors will also work with thematic destination questions such as transport planning and digital place marketing. An important question is how this kind of institutional governance can contribute to the common welfare of both tourists and society.

Depending on the city destination’s character and the city’s industry in general, different destination management organisations (DMO) can be organised. Besides, what new roles will organisations working with destination development have in securing the tourist function in a network of social and economic realities?

Regarding a new mode of urban place transformation, the concept of Smart city destination can be discussed. Especially the digital technology, such as social media and mobile phones, can transform urban planning in general and tourism in specific.

Although increased city tourism in a changing world has created new opportunities and prosperity for locals and tourists, it has also given rise to negative impacts. A series of psychosocial and ecological environmental problems can be studied when developing city tourism, such as air pollution and overtourism. It is worth considering whether city tourism development could mitigate some of these problems.

Finally, this session will examine how urban destinations can be developed in ways that benefit all stakeholders equitably without compromising the environment. However, we also welcome abstracts with related questions, such as urban event planning and destination marketing.

Abstracts

Title: Contested Urban Tourism Space: Heritage Struggles in Cape Town's Bo-Kaap
Author: Jayne Rogerson, University of Johannesburg

Following South Africa’s post-1994 reintegration in the global economy, urban governance in Cape Town experienced a neoliberal shift prioritizing private investment, public-private partnerships, and consumption-driven development. Over the past three decades Cape Town has emerged as a leading iconic destination for international tourism, competing with other global urban tourism destination. Currently, the city manifests skyrocketing property values, deepening inequality, and exacerbated displacement pressures particularly upon inner-city spaces. The novel contribution of this paper is to analyse the impact of tourism gentrification on the inner-city heritage precinct of the Bo-Kaap in Cape Town. Bo-Kaap is a historic inner-city neighbourhood situated above the linear city grid on the slopes of Table Mountain and distinguished by its vibrant coloured houses, anachronistic cobblestone streets, and demonstrable socio-religious culture. The neighbourhood is acknowledged as Cape Town’s foremost cultural heritage asset and represents a major attraction for international visitors. This analysis seeks to understand the challenges confronting heritage-rich communities in a post-colonial, developing-world context as a result of dual processes of touristification and urban redevelopment. Urban tourism space in Cape Town is increasingly contested with struggles around the conservation and management of the cultural heritage assets of Bo-Kaap. Arguably, for tourism to be an agent for good for the Bo-Kaap residents a rethinking is recommended in the current directions of heritage planning and management of the tourism sector. Current conditions can be described as chaotic, with residents experiencing many hallmarks of ‘overtourism’.

Keywords: neighbourhood change; heritage; tourism gentrification; Cape Town inner-city

 

Title: Using Hackathons to Investigate How Visitor Attractions at the Perimeter of City Tourism Destinations Can Adapt to AI as Main Tourist Guide – A Research Idea?
Author: Gustaf Onn, Södertörn University

It has long been known that visitor attractions are the main reason for going to a city destination (Leiper 1990), and that they are an empirical relation between a tourist, a place and a guide marking (MacCannel 1976). This guide marking, for the part that is not taken from word of mouth, now usually from social media, there is anecdotal evidence of a shift going on from formerly using guidebooks, to for the past decades using search engines to now start to use generative artificial intelligence to search for information on visitor attractions. In the EU-university KreativEU a hackathon is launched in May 2026, where students shall deal with the question of how visitor attractions in a suburb to Stockholm can adapt their facilities and communication in order to get AI-visible, i.e. what measures need to be taken to be part of the tourism information picked up by AI-agents. The hackathon will have participants from eleven universities around Europe with teams of diverse student backgrounds, who are to delve into this task. Expectations are 8-11 teams competing for the award of best idea, as assessed by a jury. The results from the hackathon are then to be used as input to an investigation with visitor attractions on how they actually do adapt to AI as part of the tourism ecosystem.

References

MacCannell, D. (1976). The tourist. A New Theory o the Leisure Class. New Yorj, N.Y.: Schocken Books.

Leiper, N- (1990). Tourism Attraction Systems. Annals of Tourism Research, 17(3), 367-384.

 

Title: Transnational Gentrifiers and Urban Transformation: The Case Study of Barcelona
Authors: Montserrat Crespi Vallbona, University of Barcelona, and Oscar Mascarilla Miró

Currently, some trendy destinations are gaining popularity among academic tourism (topuniversities.com), expats (expat.com), and digital nomads (nomadlist.com), becoming the best place to settle. The academia has analyzed the factors that determine the election of the destination to study and work –physically and/or remotely- and has also studied individuals’ characteristics that move them to go abroad to live, study, and (or) work. Although some works have addressed the impact of tourism in the city, very few studies analyze the consequences of these new migrations that have gained great momentum after the pandemic, such as academic tourism and digital nomads. The international tourist attraction of Barcelona is not new, since 1992, when the city hosted the Olympic Games, the number of tourists and accommodations has not stopped increasing. Online marketplaces such as Airbnb have revolutionized this growth and contributed to the so-called “airbnbfication” process that has come into conflict with residential housing. To these international tourists, we have to add international student, expats, and digital nomads who look for a new experience in the city, which entails staying in a neighborhood and living it intensely. This ongoing research analyzes 1) the housing effects of this intense accommodation demand (short-term and mid-term rentals) in urban destinations that are touristically consolidated with high airbnbfication density, 2) the changes and transformations that neighborhoods are suffering regarding commerce, social interaction, and public space caused by these new international lifestyles, and 3) the public policies to manage these flux of population. Methodologically, it is analyzed the grey literature and secondary data related to tourists, foreigner entries and their sociodemographic characteristics published by INE and those provided by Barcelona City Council and Catalan Universities. It also uses primary data collected from a survey with 150 respondents (ex-pats, acadèmic tourists and digital nomads), which has led to some preliminary results about the changes and new lifestyles in the day-to-day life of cities according to this transnacional gaze, and the challenges and concerns for the local administration management.

Keywords: academic tourism, digital nomad, ex-pats, Barcelona, touristification

 

Title: The Development Potential of Informal Business Tourism in the Urban Global South: Insights from Harare, Zimbabwe
Authors: Christian Rogerson, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and Logistic Makoni

Mainstream international scholarship in urban tourism overwhelmingly concentrates on Northern city destinations. This paper interrogates urban tourism development in the resource-constrained environment of the Global South, the ’other half of urban tourism’, where one of the most distinguishing characteristics is informality. Arguably, informality represents a defining feature of everyday life and existence across the African continent, most especially in its rapidly urbanising cities. Informality is a defining element also for much tourism development occurring in Africa. For sustainable development futures in sub-Saharan Africa the importance of the informal economy of tourism must not be overlooked. The analysis centres on business tourism. The most distinctive dimension of business tourism in sub-Saharan Africa relates to the economy of informal business tourism. As stressed by Cohen and Cohen (2015), the concept of informal business tourism builds upon the mobilities approach to tourism from ‘emerging world regions’. The mobilities of only a small segment of Africa’s business travellers are structured by corporate and formalised procedures similar to those in the Global North. The majority of business travel links to the mostly unregulated, flexible and improvised activities of informal actors and of informal business tourism. The novel contribution of this paper is moving beyond a Northern lens of what constitutes ‘business tourism’ and instead to profile the distinctive organization and characteristics of informal business tourism in African cities. Insights are provided from modern-day Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city. Research findings are anchored upon 700 research interviews undertaken of informal business tourists visiting the city.

 

Title: Recommend or Not? A Conative Analysis of TripAdvisor Reviews on Finnish City Destinations
Author: Peng Yang, University of Eastern Finland

This study investigates the drivers of tourist recommendation behaviors by analyzing TripAdvisor review data for two major Finnish destinations: Rovaniemi and Helsinki. While recommendation intentions are a staple of tourism research, this paper specifically focuses on detecting “non-recommendation” reviewers, those who actively discourage visitation. Grounding the analysis in the framework of rethinking conative image, this research positions non-recommendation detection as a vital supplement to traditional conative image measurement. By identifying travelers who deviate from typical “intent to return” metrics, we gain a more nuanced understanding of the behavioral components of destination image.

The analysis explores specific patterns within non-recommendation reviews, evaluating whether low ratings (Rate 1), reviewer origin (local versus international), and linguistic depth (longer sentence structures) serve as reliable predictors of negative word-of-mouth. Patterns suggest that dissatisfied reviewers often utilize more complex, descriptive language to articulate specific grievances compared to the concise praise of recommenders. By comparing these thematic patterns, the study reveals critical friction points in the tourist journey. For destination managers in Rovaniemi and Helsinki, these insights provide a strategic roadmap to mitigate negative feedback. Ultimately, understanding why tourists do or do not recommend a location allows stakeholders to refine service delivery and manage expectations, making a significant contribution to the improvement of the overall tourist experience and long-term destination loyalty.

 

Title: City Tourism Destination – A Development Project in the Stockholm Region
Author: Göran Andersson, Södertörn University

There is an ongoing debate in Stockholm about how urban areas should be planned in relation to future societal developments. An important starting point is that city destinations are highly attractive to visitors. (Maitland & Ritchie, 2009)

In the development project “Besökskraft” in Stockholm a new sort of destination organisation and governance is discussed at the regional level, led by “Region Stockholm”. As a companion researcher I am conducting a case study based on action research 2022 – 2026.

The research purpose is to investigate how institutional governance, Destination Management Organisations (DMO) and development initiatives can support the development of city destinations based on visitors’ reasons for travel.

The destination organisation in Stockholm use the quadruple-helix method (Popa, 2021). The Destination Management Organisation (DMO) needs to embrace and engage all public and private organisations concerned with actions that engage the industry to develop and to improve supply (Spyriadis, Fletcher & Fyall, 2013).

There are several levels of the region’s destination. Starting with several local destination organisations, which have a physical representation and working with concrete business products. There is also a regional destination organisation with a digital presence focusing on support activities for tourism.

The organisation “Region Stockholm” has identified three initial development areas: competence, infrastructure and positioning. Furthermore, tentative conclusions of the project highlight the importance of network building - using formal urban destination networks and the Regular Destination Day, which addresses key themes such as attraction. The question of sustainability has also been debated in this development project.

Keywords: Institutional governance; Destination Management Organisation; City tourism, Regional development