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Franco Bianchini CULTURAL TOURISM

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CULTURAL RESOURCES AND URBAN TOURISM POLICIES: ISSUES FROM EUROPEAN DEBATES Introduction This short paper examines some aspects of the role of cultural resources and cultural policies in the development of urban tourism in Western Europe since the Second World War, with particular reference to contemporary debates. It is difficult to generalise about the evolution of urban cultural policies in Western Europe because of the scarcity of comparative research and standardised data, the diversity in the definitions of 'culture' adopted by policy-makers, and other important variations in different national contexts - for instance, in the levels of local political and fiscal autonomy, the size and nature of local markets for cultural activity, and the involvement of the private sector in the policy-making process. That being said, despite significant differences both between and within countries, it is possible to outline a common trajectory in the evolution of the arguments used by the politicians and policy-makers to justify expenditure on urban cultural policies from the late 1940s to present day. There are some differences also in terms of periodization between different countries, but three broad phases can be identified: from the late 1940s to the late 1960s ('age of reconstruction'); the 1970s and early '80s ('age of participation'), and from the mid-'80s to the late '90s ('age of city marketing'). It is important to emphasize, however, that a policy rationale does not neatly replace the previous one with the passage from one historical period to the next. The process is more one of accumulation, with the - often uneasy - coexistence of old and new rationales. [This seminar paper deals only with the latter phase]. The 'age of city marketing': from the mid-'80s to present day From the early 1980s there was a clear shift away from the socio-political concerns prevailing during the 1970s, and

towards economic development and urban regeneration priorities. The pressure by national governments on city governments to reduce expenditure initially produced defensive strategies, aimed at preserving existing levels of cultural provision, often by encouraging private sector support for events and activities, and by improving the administration, management, marketing and delivery of services. Later, however, many city politicians and policy-makers began to realise that the process of urban economic restructuring of the early and late 1970s provided opportunities to forge more positive arguments for expanding cultural expenditure. The emphasis of the '70s and early '80s on personal and community development, participation, egalitarianism, neighbourhood decentralisation, the democratisation of urban space and the revitalisation of public social life was gradually replaced by arguments highlighting cultural policy's potential contribution to urban economic and physical regeneration. The language of 'subsidy' was gradually replaced by the language of 'investment', and new economic justifications for cultural policy-making emerged in many cities. City decision-makers saw cultural policy as a valuable tool in diversifying the local economic base and in attempting to compensate for jobs lost in traditional industrial and services sectors. A lively, cosmopolitan cultural life was increasingly seen as a crucial ingredient of city marketing and internationalization strategies, designed to attract tourists, mobile international capital and specialized personnel. The focus of cultural policy-making shifted once again to city centres, which were seen as showcases for the local economy in the emerging inter-urban competition game, and as engines for economic growth. Peripheral neighbourhoods tended to suffer from the re-orientation towards city centres of the bulk of the resources available for the provision of cultural services. In some cases they also suffered because city governments, in order to finance city centre-based cultural flagship projects, cut expenditure on neighbourhod-based schools, libraries, housing, transport and other services. The direct impact of this type of urban cultural policies on the creation of wealth and employment was relatively small. The main contribution of cultural policies to urban regeneration was probably in the construction of urban images able to attract visitors. As a complementary factor in the competition between cities possessing similar advantages, cultural policies were also important to appeal to investors and skilled personnel. Prestigious cultural projects acted as symbols of rebirth, renewed confidence and dynamism in cities like Glasgow, Bradford, Sheffield and Rotterdam, which had been severely hit

by the decline of manufacturing industry during the recessions of the '70s and early '80s. The city centre of Glasgow benefitted substantially from environmental improvements, the opening of the Burrell Collection in 1983, and the organization of a lively annual programme of cultural festivals, culminating in the varied programme of events for the 'European City of Culture' year in 1990. In Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, the city marketing campaigns co-ordinated by the city council's Economic Development Unit, known as 'the Mythbreakers', were crucial for the success of a strategy linking tourism policies with cultural flagship projects. The most important of these was the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television, opened in 1983 in a converted, redundant theatre building. The museum attracted 3 million visitors in its first 5 years of existence (Hunter, 1988) and contributed to improving the overall appeal of Bradford as a tourist destination. Rotterdam similarly improved its image, traditionally that of a dull industrial centre dominated by petrochemical works and the port, through cultural initiatives, including the organization of new jazz and film festivals and the development of a cultural district in the area around its main museum for contemporary art, the Boymans-Van Beuningen, and the new National Institute for Architecture. Wealthier cities like Frankfurt used cultural policies to consolidate their competitive advantages, by filling the gap between their high economic status and their relatively low cultural standing. Cultural spending in Frankfurt increased from 6% of total municipal expenditure in 1970 to 11% in 1990. In the 1980s, about 1 billion DM was invested in high quality cultural buildings, converting a derelict opera house into a concert hall and creating a new Museums Quarter on the banks of the River Main. Dynamic architectural, telecommunication and festivals policies were used as symbols of modernity and innovation in cities like Montpellier, Nmes, Grenoble, Rennes, Hamburg, Cologne, Barcelona and Bologna, to help develop sectors of the economy such as high tech industry and design-based manufacturing, which depend for their success on cultural inputs. Montpellier, for example, invested heavily in architectural projects, and launched festivals of music, dance, photography, video and cinema. These initiatives were combined with an aggressive city marketing campaign to appeal to mover firms and skilled personnel to locate and work in four technology parks in the fields of agro-industry, pharmaceuticals, computing, robotics and artificial intelligence. Cultural 'flagship projects' like the Burrell Collection in

Glasgow, the Albert Dock in Liverpool, Centenary Square in Birmingham, the Antigone district in Montpellier, and the extensive system of new public squares and urban parks punctuated by sculptures, mosaics and other artworks - created in Barcelona in the build-up to the 1992 Olympics all became powerful physical symbols of urban renaissance. Strategic Dilemmas in Cultural Policy-Led Urban Regeneration The use of cultural policy in urban regeneration during the '80s and '90s increasingly became an uncontested issue. Yet this consensus masks serious dilemmas regarding strategic choices in economic, cultural and community development. Urban cultural policies aimed at developing tourism gave rise to conflicts. Examples include the tensions between cultural provision in the city centre and in peripheral neighbourhoods, between consumption-oriented strategies and support for local cultural production, and between investment in buildings and expenditure on events and activities. Economic inequities have clear spatial manifestations in many major European cities. New conflicts emerged in the last decade between affluent city centre and suburban residents, and low income citizens living in run-down inner city areas and outer housing estates, whose opportunities for participation in the city centre's cultural renaissance were undermined by a number of factors. These social groups were the main victims of the growth in long-term unemployment and of the deskilling process related to economic restructuring. Rising fear of crime, and the rapid escalation in the cost of out-of home leisure compared with its domestic equivalents contributed to reducing participation by low income groups in more 'public' forms of cultural activities. These problems applied also to those cities which had most imaginatively and successfully used cultural policy as a strategy for urban regeneration. The quality of life of the residents in the Glasgow's peripheral and severely deprived housing estates of Pollok, Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Castlemilk, for example, continued to deteriorate at the same time as the city centre was being transformed into an important tourist destination through a variety of environmental improvements and cultural initiatives. This fuelled frustration with, and instances of protest against, the 1990 'European City of Culture' celebrations, by groups such as "Workers' City" (Boyle and Hughes, 1991). More generally, it has even been argued that tourism and city marketing policies based on the strategic use of cultural resources have been used as a 'carnival mask' to divert attention away from the growing economic, social and racial polarisation within cities (Harvey, 1989). A second type of spatial dilemma in urban cultural policymaking is the need to respond to the fact that, as one graffiti in

Montreal proclaimed, in many cases "artists are the stormtroopers of gentrification" (Toronto Arts Council, 1988). The establishment of certain areas of cities as 'cultural districts' in some cases - as in Frankfurt's new Museum Quarter (Simor, 1988) - has generated gentrification, displaced local residents and facilities, and increased land values, rents, and the local cost of living, as measured - for example - by the prices charged by local shops. These processes can drive out of the district artists and other cultural producers who survive on relatively low incomes. Such cases clearly demonstrate the limits of unrestrained property-led urban regeneration strategies focused on cultural tourism. In the cultural policies of many cities there was also a clear separation, which can generate tensions and conflicts, between consumption and production-oriented strategies. The first develop and promote urban cultural attractions and activities as magnets for tourism, retailing, hotel and catering. The second provide strategic support for publishing, film, TV, electronic music, design, fashion and other cultural industries which require specialized skills and infrastructures. It can be risky in the long-term for cities to rely on consumption-oriented models, even if they may be profitable in the short term, by creating visibility and political returns. The success of consumption-oriented strategies often depends on factors over which cities have very limited control, ranging from airfare prices to changes in the level of the residents' and visitors' disposable income. A related problem concerns the quality of the jobs generated by this type of cultural policies, which are frequently low-paid, part-time, and characterized by deskilling and poor levels of employee satisfaction, legal rights and working conditions. It is therefore important for cities to combine consumption-oriented policies with local cultural industries strategies, which have the potential of creating skilled jobs in high value-added sectors of the economy. Another contentious issue concerns the extent to which cultural policy-makers must choose between 'ephemeral' programmes of events and activities - like festivals and other cultural animation initiatives - and investment in 'permanent' facilities such as concert halls, libraries, museums and arts centres. This juxtaposition is in many ways artificial. Apparently 'ephemeral' events - the Edinburgh Festival, for example - if coherently organized and repeated, can become 'permanent' features of a city's cultural landscape, producing long-term benefits in terms of image, tourism and support for local cultural production. The 'ephemeral-permanent' dichotomy, however, does allow us to focus on the problem that maintenance costs and loan charges on cultural buildings such as museums, art galleries,

libraries, concert halls, opera houses and theatres - the overwhelming majority of which are concentrated in city centres - are often so high that they absorb most of the resources available. In times of financial stringency city administrations are more likely to curtail revenue funding for those activities which are seen as 'marginal', often aimed at disadvantaged social groups or innovative and experimental in character, than to withdraw money invested in theatres, concert halls and other building-based, traditional arts institutions. In this context, greater use of public and open spaces, temporary structures and buildings combining culture with other types of uses could liberate resources to fund more innovative, participatory and neighbourhood-based cultural activities and projects. Towards a 'cultural planning' approach to linking cultural resources with urban tourism policies The recognition of the strategic dilemmas raised by the experience of the last two decades should inform the process of urban cultural policy-making in Europe today. During the '80s and the '90s urban cultures were energetically exploited by politicians and policy-makers to enhance the reputation of their cities, contribute to the physical regeneration of city centres, boost tourism and other 'sunrise' service industries and soften the social impacts of economic restructuring. There is no doubt that the use of culture for city marketing and tourism strategies was an important addition to the battery of arguments for urban cultural policy-making. The perspective of the '80s and '90s, however, is too narrow to provide a sound basis for policy development today. City governments should move towards a more holistic 'cultural planning' approach, intended not as an attempt to plan culture (an impossible, undesirable and dangerous undertaking), but rather as a culturally sensitive approach to urban planning and policy. The notion of 'cultural planning', already widely used in the USA and Australia (McNulty, 1991; Mercer, 1991), is still relatively uncommon among West European policy-makers. It rests on a very broad, anthropological definition of 'culture' as 'a way of life', and it integrates the arts into other aspects of local culture. Its field of action ranges from the arts, the media, the crafts, fashion and design to sports, recreation, architecture and townscape, heritage, tourism, eating and entertainment, local history, the characteristics of the city's public realm and social life, its identity and external image. Cultural planning can help urban governments identify a city's cultural resources and think strategically about their applications, in areas as diverse as physical planning, townscape design, tourism, industrial development, retailing,

place marketing, community development, education and training. Policy-makers in West European cities are still not sufficiently aware of the potential of their cultural resources. Aesthetic definitions of 'culture' as 'art' still tend to prevail, and policies for the arts are rarely co-ordinated with policies on sports, the media and other elements of local culture. Cultural planning cuts across the divides between the public, private and voluntary sectors, different institutional concerns, and different professional disciplines. To implement cultural planning strategies, city governments will have to move towards a more corporate approach to policy-making. The cultural planning approach also reveals the inadequacy of narrowly-based professional specializations, which may make it more difficult for cities to capitalize creatively on their cultural resources. At present formal training is basically rooted in the traditions of arts administration for arts policy-makers, of marketing studies for tourism development officers and city marketers, and of land use planning for physical planners. There is a clear need for more broadly-based and shared forms of training, which should provide knowledge of urban and regional economics, history, sociology, politics, geography and planning, as well as of European Union institutions and of models of urban cultural policy in different European countries. The aim of this type of training would be to create a shared language to enable policy-makers to make imaginative connections between their respective areas of work, thereby producing richer and more effective urban development strategies. More specifically, the approach to city marketing and tourism development I would like to propose starts from the assumption that it is impossible directly to transfer to a city approaches used for marketing products like cars, cheese or mineral water. A city cannot be reduced to 'a product', as it often happens in discussions about urban marketing. A city is a complex and multi-faceted entity, which can be described as: a) an area defined by clear geographical boundaries, and endowed with certain natural characteristics; b) an environment shaped by human intervention, comprising infrastructures, buildings, and a designed layout of streets, squares, public and open spaces; c) a community of people, with particular social networks and dynamics (a society); d) a system of economic activities and relationships (an economy); e) a natural environment, a built form, a society and an economy governed by an agreed set of principles and

regulations resulting from the interaction between different political actors (a polity). It is thus essential that city marketing and tourism strategies touch all these dimensions. This can only happen if city marketing and tourism strategies are seen as truly creative rather than mechanical, formulaic processes. Policy-makers should not simply be exploiting cultural resources as tools for achieving non-cultural goals, but should let their own mindsets and assumptions be transformed by contact with local culture. This could be achieved by learning from five key sets of attributes of the types of thinking characterising processes of cultural production. This thinking tends to be: a) holistic, interdisciplinary, lateral, flexible and networking; b) innovation-oriented, original and experimental; c) critical, inquiring, challenging and questioning; d) people-centred, humanistic and non-deterministic; e) 'cultured' and informed by critical knowledge of traditions of cultural expression. Let us consider briefly how city marketing and urban tourism strategies might develop by taking on board this approach, by looking in more detail at the implications of each of the five sets of attributes: 1) city marketing and tourism strategies should be more holistic, interdisciplinary and lateral. This proposition suggests the need for greater collaboration between the policy-makers in our field and a range of other disciplines and skills, including those of urban historians, sociologists, anthropologists, environmentalists, artists, political scientists, and psychologists, for example. In other words, effective city marketing and tourism strategies require regular teamwork and, as suggested earlier, the overcoming of boundaries, both across different academic disciplines, and across the divides between the private, public and voluntary sectors. 2) City marketing and tourism strategies should be more innovative, original and experimental. This suggests the need for a R&D approach, with a more extensive use of pilot projects, and greater consultation on the possible strategies to be developed, through workshops, ideas competitions and exhibitions, fora and discussion groups. 3) City marketing and tourism strategies should be more critical, challenging and questioning. The objective of these strategies should not be to construct a fake consensus by glossing over or denying the existence of real conflicts. Policies in our field can be much more effective when they openly acknowledge conflicts, divisions and problems and explore and problematize them further, in an attempt to find a real solution. One example of good practice is the Berlin Multikulti campaign

against racism and xenophobia recently organized by the Berlin Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs, which provides interesting and innovative examples of how city government can develop intercultural projects for civic spaces and foster an intercultural mentality in the city. The Berlin policy-makers in 1993 launched poster campaigns playing on the multifarious definitions, solicited from the public, of being German and a resident of Berlin. In the same year, they opened the Werkstatt der Kulturen ('Workshop of Cultures'), a complex including a concert hall, an auditorium, laboratories and studios, run jointly by representatives of German and migrant organizations for young people to meet and engage in intercultural exchange and production projects, and from 1994 they supported Radio Multikulti, a local public radio station run mainly by nonGerman DJs, broadcasting world music and debate in sixteen languages (Vertovec, 1995; Soysal, 1996). 4) City marketing and tourism strategies should be more people-centred and humanistic, by celebrating and giving voice to the imagination and the desires of different individuals and communities of interest within the city. 5) City marketing and tourism strategies should be more 'cultured', knowledgeable and critically aware of traditions of cultural expression, by being rooted in research on the history, on the socio-economic realities, on the internal and external image, and on the cultural life and cultural representations of a particular locality. There also should be regular exchanges between policy-makers about the theoretical and practical approaches used in city marketing in different countries. In short, adopting a cultural planning perspective would involve reconsidering many of the assumptions upon which the policymaking process was based during the last two decades. City marketing and urban tourism development strategies in the future could be a celebration of local cultural production and of its applications to the development of a modern economy. This potential can already be glimpsed in initiatives like the Biennale of Young Artists from Mediterranean Countries (which has taken place in cities including Marseille, Bologna and Turin), the International Festival of Science and Technology in Edinburgh, and the Cultural Industries Quarter in Sheffield, featuring a recently opened new visitor attraction, the National Centre for Popular Music. In conclusion, a cultural planning perspective rooted in an understanding of local cultural resources and of cities as cultural entities - as places where people meet talk, share ideas and desires, and where identities and lifestyles are formed could help planners assess the needs of the community, ensure cultural pluralism and conceptualize essential strategic

questions about the city's future. According to this perspective, an explicit commitment to revitalise the cultural, social and political life of local residents should precede and sustain the formulation of city marketing and tourism strategies aimed at the outside world. The relative depoliticisation of the debate about urban cultural policies over the last decade has led in many cases to a loss of political imagination. Innovative strategies for city marketing and tourism are more likely to emerge if cultural policies can contribute to revitalising an inclusive, local sphere of democratic debate, by opening up the local media, encouraging innovation through intercultural dialogue and exploring the potential of cultural projects to visualize the balanced, civilised and sustainable city of the future. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is based in part on Bianchini and Parkinson (1993) and on Bianchini (1996). REFERENCES Amery, C. and Cruickshank, D. (1975) The Rape of Britain London, Paul Elek. Bianchini, F. (1988) 'The city a s a stage: popular culture and the revitalisation of urban life in Italy', in Boden (1988). (1996) '"Cultural planning": an innovative approach to urban development', in Verwijnen and Lehtovuori (1996). Bianchini, F. and Parkinson, M. (1993) Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration: the West European Experience, Manchester, Manchester University Press. Boden, T. (ed.) (1988) Cities and City Cultures, Birmingham, Birmingham Film and Television Festival. Boyle, M. and Hughes, G. (1991) 'The politics of representation of the "real": discourses from the Left on Glasgow's role as European City of Culture', Area, vol. 2, n. 3. De Varine, H. (1988) 'Rethinking the museum concept', in Gjestrum, J. A. and Maure, M. (eds.) Okomuseumsboka, n.p. Frith, S. (1991) 'Popular culture', in National Arts and Media Strategy Discussion Documents, 17, London, Arts Council of Great Britain. Garnham, N. (1983) 'Concepts of culture, public policy and the cultural industries', paper presented at the conference Cultural Industries and Cultural Policy in London, London, GLC. Girouard, M. (1990) The English Town New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Harvey, D. (1989) 'Down towns', Marxism Today, January. Hunter, J. (1988) 'A national museum in an inner city role', in Boden (1988).

McNulty, R. (1991) 'Cultural planning: a movement for civic progress', in The Cultural Planning Conference, Mornington, Victoria, Australia, EIT. Mercer, C. (1991) 'Brisbane's cultural development strategy: the process, the politics and the products', in The Cultural Planning Conference, op. cit.. Simor, A. (ed.) (1988) The Role of the Arts in Urban Regeneration, proceedings of a symposium organized by the America-European Community Association Trust and held at Leeds Castle, Kent, 28-30 October. Soysal, Y. (1996) 'Boundaries and identity: immigrants in Europe', Florence, European Forum, European University Institute, EUI Working Papers EUF, 3. Toronto Arts Council (1988) No Vacancy. A Cultural Facilities Policy for the City of Toronto, Toronto, Toronto Arts Council. Vertovec, S. (1995) 'Berlin Multikulti: towards world openness', working paper, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick. Verwijnen, J. and Lehtovuori, P. (1996) Managing Urban Change, Helsinki, University of Art and Design Helsinki. Seminar paper prepared for the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, June 25 2001 at the University of Glasgow Dr FRANCO BIANCHINI, DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY Panel Session 2, Cultural Tourism FRANCO BIANCHINI is Director of the Cultural Planning Research Unit at De Montfort University, Leicester. His books include The Creative City (with Charles Landry, Demos 1995) and Cultural Policy and Regeneration: The West European Experience (with M. Parkinson, Manchester University Press 1993). He has worked as a researcher on a variety of urban and cultural planning projects in different European countries.
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