City neighbourhood branding and new urban tourism

ABSTRACT

City authorities worldwide have sought to rejuvenate and diversify their tourism product offerings by dispersing visitors into less familiar and frequented locales. Despite calls to understand such ‘new tourism areas’ (NTAs) in urban areas, few researchers have examined visitor responses to the implementation of NTA strategies, particularly outside Europe. This quantitative approach considers the profiles, attitudes and behaviours of NTA visitors in an Asian city that was undertaking dispersal efforts pre-pandemic in the context of mass inbound Chinese visitation. Distinct profiles are found for NTA visitors relative to other city arrivals in response to Hong Kong’s branding propositions. It is found that NTAs appeal to repeat visitors seeking cosmopolitan experiences and may help tourist dispersal and product differentiation, though the proposition that NTA visitors are more highly educated was not supported.

KEYWORDS:

• New Tourist Areas
• brand identification
• visitor dispersal
• new urban tourism
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was part funded by the Hospitality and Tourism Research Centre (Grant ZVBU) of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.