ABSTRACT
Towns and cities hold a special fascination for the geographer, since their evolution as places where people live, work, shop and engage in leisure has resulted from the process of urbanisation (see Johnston et al. 1994 and Pacione 2001 for more detail). Since classical times, towns and cities have performed tourism and leisure functions (Page 2003a) and therefore, such places have a long history as places where tourism and leisure experiences have been produced and consumed. In recreational terms, town and city dwellers traditionally consumed their leisure time in the areas where they lived, with the exception of the wealthy elites who were able to afford properties in the country, and up to the mid-nineteenth century mass forms of urban leisure and recreation were undertaken in close proximity to the home and local family and kinship networks and local pastimes and holidays. In the case of nineteenth century Warsaw, Olkusnik (2001) documents the process of change in urban recreation. Therefore, urbanisation is a major force contributing to the development of towns and cities, where people live, work and shop (see Johnston et al. 1994 for a definition of the term ‘urbanisation’). Towns and cities function as places where the population is concentrated in a defined area, and economic activities locate in the same area or nearby, to provide the opportunity for the production and consumption of goods and services in capitalist societies. Consequently, towns and cities provide the context for a diverse range of social, cultural and economic activities which the population engage in, and where tourism, leisure and entertainment form major service activities. These environments also function as meeting places, major tourist gateways, accommodation and transportation hubs, and as central places to service the needs of visitors. Most tourist trips will contain some experience of an urban area; for example, when an urban dweller departs from a major gateway in a city, arrives at a gateway in another city-region and stays in accommodation in an urban area. Within cities, however, the line between tourism and recreation blurs to the extent that at times one is indistinguishable from the other, with tourists and recreationalists using the same facilities, resources and environments although some notable differences exist. Therefore, many tourists and recreationalists will intermingle in many urban contexts. While most tourists will experience urban tourism in some form during their holiday, visits to friends and relatives, business trips or visits for other reasons (e.g. a pilgrimage to a religious shrine such as Lourdes in an urban area), recreationalists will not use the accommodation but frequent many similar places as tourists. This chapter seeks to examine some of the ways geographers conceptualise, analyse and research urban recreation and tourism,
emphasising their contribution to understanding the wider context in which such activities take place. One key feature of the chapter is the emphasis on five specific aspects of geographical inquiry:
• description • classification • analysis • explanation • application of theoretical and conceptual issues to practical problem-solving contexts.
