ABSTRACT
The city is a product for residents, tourists, and investors (Ashworth and Voogd 1990). Although a city can be a common product for these three agents, each of them may have various demands and interests as to what that product should be. Sometimes, tensions arise in their rival demands regarding the city product. For example, tourists may demand that a city be a site of heritage and authenticity, with a distinctive identity. However, as will be shown in the following pages, such a tourist demand may come into conflict with local residents’ demands for a modernized city to live in. In many aspects, tourists’ demands are in congruence with local residents’ demands with respect to a city as a product. For example, both of them want the city to be beautiful. However, tensions between a city as a dwelling place and a city as a tourist destination may exist, for local residents may want the city to favor residents rather than tourists. Thus, for a city that aims to develop tourism, urban planning would involve political and social contests between the agents of local residents in favor of
tourism (including local stakeholders of the tourism industry as well as investors) and the agents of local residents against tourism. Therefore, urban planning in general, and tourism planning in particular, is not merely a scientific process but is also intertwined with social, political, and cultural processes.
