The Geography of the Experience Economy in Denmark: Employment Change and Location Dynamics in Attendance-based Experience Industries

Abstract

Recently the “experience economy” has been promoted as a vehicle for urban and regional growth, also in peripheral cities and regions. Little evidence is, however, provided to sustain this claim. To inform the discussion of the experience economy as a potential for urban and regional growth, the article provides an analysis of location dynamics and employment growth of a specific segment of the experience economy, the attendance-based experience industries, in Danish municipalities from 1993 to 2006. Based on the analysis, it is concluded that the emerging experience economy in the Danish context produces new forms of uneven geographies: first, employment growth is significantly higher in large cities compared with that in small- and medium-sized cities, and second, the level of education for persons employed in the experience economy is higher in the largest cities compared with that in small- and medium-sized cities. Hence, the potential of the experience economy as a vehicle for growth even in peripheral cities and regions has in many cases (not yet) been fulfilled. Thus, using the experience economy as a lever to obtain future prosperity may be a very fragile strategy for the majority of cities and municipalities outside the main growth centres and classic tourist destinations.

Notes

The data are workplace based, meaning that the persons are registered according to the municipality in which they work.

NACE (Nomenclature generale des Activités economiques dans les Communautes Européennes) is the common nomenclature of economic sectors in the European Union. NACE 55 consists of hotel, conference centres, camp sites, holiday centres, restaurants, discotheques, cafés, canteens and catering.

NACE 92: Entertainment, film and video production, cinemas, television and radio broadcasting, performing arts (theatre, concerts), artists, management of cultural institutions, amusement parks, press agencies, libraries and archives (public and research), museums, botanical gardens, zoos, sports (sport clubs, sport facilities, marinas, lottery and gambling). Although NACE 92 comprises industries that cannot be categorized as AEPS (film and video production, television and radio broadcasting entertainment, film and video production, cinemas, television and radio broadcasting and press agencies), they are included because the majority of NACE 92 can be attributed to AEPS (approximately 80–85% of which 70–75% is located in the municipalities of the Greater Copenhagen Region).