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Durham E-Theses Tourism development in rural and urban North Yorkshire : a geography of social relations. Mordue, Thomas James How to cite: Mordue, Thomas James (1999) Tourism development in rural and urban North Yorkshire : a geography of social relations., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1447/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Tourism Development in Rural and Urban North Yorkshire: a geography of social relations Thomas James Mordue The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author an information derived from it should be acknowledged. Submitted in partial fulfillment for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography, University of Durham, August 1998 2 4 AUG 1999 Abstract This work is a critical analysis of tourism development in Goathland village, North Yorkshire, and York city centre. Although these two places are very different - one is a small rural village and the other is a city - they share a common characteristic in that both are increasingly popular heritage sites. In the case of Goathland, besides its 'traditional' rural appeal, it has become the filming location for the Yorkshire Television series 'Heartbeat', which has instigated a manifold increase in tourist numbers to the village, and heralded a marked shift in the way the local environment is consumed by them. And since the early 1980s, York has seen a substantial increase in the number of heritage attractions it offers to an expanding amount of visitors. In short, heritage presentation, and representation in the form of nostalgia themes, have become so commercial and popular in both places that many local people believe their 'real' traditions and identities are being either threatened or compromised. Drawing primarily on the results of qualitative research, in which interviews were held with tourists, residents and key informants, the thesis analyses the changes that tourism has brought about in Goathland and York. However, the study is not a straight forward assessment of tourism impacts. Rather, the focus is on the changing social and economic relations at the local, national and international scales which are embroiled in the way both Goathland and York have developed as tourist attractions in recent years. In this, tourism impacts are seen as local expressions of dynamic social, political and economic processes. This also means that respondents' views on tourism development and management are treated as arbitrary claims which can reveal the vested interests and value judgments contained within them. Furthermore, the research findings are linked to other socio-geographic concerns, such as the construction and consumption of Englishness, heritage, nostalgia, postmodern leisure space, rural and urban lifestyle identities, and so on, to illustrate how these can inflect the local tourism process and influence the way so-called costs and benefits are evaluated, managed and negotiated by different interest groups and agents. Contents LIST OF FIGURES 4 LIST OF TABLES 5 LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS 6 DECLARATION 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 1 INTRODUCTION 9 Rationale 9 Methodology 15 The research design framework 19 Goathland 19 York 19 Doing the research 20 Thesis structure 22 PART ONE Introduction 24 2 TOURISM, THE RURAL AND WIDER SOCIETY 26 Tourism, commodification, political economy and culture 26 Tourism and commodification 26 Politics and ideology in tourism 31 Habitus and cultural capital 38 Tourism, postmodernity and 'the tourist gaze' 45 Time-space compression 48 Consuming rural England 51 Staged authenticity 54 The postmodern tourist or post-tourist 55 Valuing the 'rural myth' 57 North and south 61 The country village 65 Contextualising rural tourism impacts 67 3 GOATHLAND AND HEARTBEAT 69 Goathland 69 Goathland and Heartbeat Country 72 1 4 RECENT CHANGES AND RESIDENTS' DILEMMAS 78 From quality to quantity 79 Politics, values and symbols in 'the parking problem' 89 Other symbolic impacts, resident responses and avoidance strategies 96 Goathland as two places 99 5 VISITORS' WAYS OF SEEING GOATHLAND 102 Town and country 102 Symbolic and 'real' conflicts between public and private rural heritage space 109 The Goathland 'experience' 112 6 KEY INFORMANT RESPONSES 117 The politics of tourism impacts and tourism management 117 Interpretation as management 124 7 CONCLUDING COMMENTS ON GOATHLAND 128 Reflexive visitors and gazing tourists 128 Signs of authenticity and legitimacy: and private versus public space 129 Class 132 PART TWO Introduction 135 8 DEVELOPMENT, HERITAGE AND TOURISM IN THE CITY 138 Shifts in capitalist society and the restructuring of urban space 139 From Fordism to post-Fordism: the implications for place competition 139 Cultural industries as aids to development and regeneration in cities 145 Heritage, art and culture as resources for economic regeneration in British cities 150 History and heritage 150 British politics and heritage over the last three decades 152 The arts as an economic resource in contemporary Britain 154 The heritage city and cultural tourism 155 Producing and consuming the heritage city 156 Heritage and museums 161 The authenticity ofplace, and the conversion of symbolic to 'real' cultural capital 169 Cultural and economic risks of heritage tourism development 173 9 THE DEVELOPMENT OF YORK AS A TOURIST CITY 176 Background 176 Three stages of tourism development 181 10 THE 'FIRST STOP YORK' TOURISM STRATEGY 190 First Stop York 190 Tourism employment and training 198 Tourism and other investment 200 2 11 HERITAGE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION IN YORK 207 The Jorvik Viking Centre 207 The Archeological Resources Centre (ARC) 217 The impact of Jorvik and the YAT's other activities on the historic core 220 Retailing and tourism in York 225 12 LIVING WITH TOURISM IN YORK 228 Retailing and tourism 228 Authenticity, difference and the development of tourist space 232 Tourism jobs and class of tourists 238 13 VISITORS' CONSUMPTION OF YORK 247 Preservation, heritage and tourists' impacts 247 Authenticity and the historic core 252 Shopping and heritage 259 14 CONCLUDING COMMENTS ON YORK 267 Tourism development, promotion and management 267 Tourism costs and benefits in York 269 Consumer issues 271 PART THREE 15 COMPARISONS AND GENERALISATIONS 275 New urbanity, new rurality 275 Politicising tourism impacts and tourism management 279 'Inclusive' tourism development in heritage space 284 Critical tourists and heritage space 286 APPENDIX NOTES ON THE RESEARCH METHODS, RESEARCH PROCESS, DATA ANALYSIS AND THE INTERVIEWEES 1 1. The justification and implementation of the research methods 1 Touris/visitor interviews 1 Focus groups with residents 1V Key informant interviews V1 2. The analysis and interpretation of the data V11 3 Background information on the interviewees and focus group members Vii The Goathland case study respondents VIII The York case study respondents X111 3 List of Figures Figure 1. North Yorkshire 10 Figure 2. Tourist Image of England and Wales 52 Figure 3. Heartbeat Country 70 Figure 4. The cover of a Heartbeat Country guide book 73 Figure 5. York city centre 178 4 List of Tables Table 1. Sayer's Summary of Intensive and Extensive Research 16 Table 2. The Age Ranges of Household Occupants in Goathland 72 Table 3. Post-Fordism and Tourism 141 Table 4. The Growth of Tourism Employment in Relation to Manufacturing and Total Employment in York Between 1981- 1996 176 Table 5. Top Five Visitor Attractions in York, 1990-1991 177 Table 6. Part Time and Full Time Tourism-related Employment in York 1991-1996 238 5 List of Photographs Photograph 1. Aidensfield Stores 75 Photograph 2. The Goathland/Mostyn's Garage 75 Photograph 3. The Goathland/Aidensfield Arms/Hotel 76 Photograph 4. Cars parking on the common outside the Goathland Exhibition Centre 76 Photograph 5. The Shambles 179 Photograph 6. The York Minster 179 Photograph 7. Petergate 180 Photograph 8. Queuing for the Jorvik Viking Centre 186 Photograph 9. A Viking street scene from inside Jorvik 186 Photograph 10. A scene from York's Viking Festival 188 Photograph 11. York City's town crier 188 6 Declaration I declare that this thesis, and the research behind it, is the work of no one else but myself and that it, or a part of it, has not been submitted for a degree at this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 7 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank both of my supervisors, Mr. Alan Townsend and Doctor Mike Crang, for their support, advice and critical input during both the research process and the writing up of this thesis. Professor Ray Hudson was also of great help with suggestions in the early stages when I was trying to decide on the type and number of case studies to include in the research. While I feel it is important to thank all the respondents who took part in this research, a special thank you must go to Bill Breakall, the North Yorkshire Moors National Park Tourism Officer, for his enthusiasm and help in providing me not only with his personal opinions but with various tourism reports and publications.