Tourism policy, spatial justice and COVID-19: lessons from a tourist-historic city

Abstract

In many historic and post-industrial cities, tourism is often positioned as an important component for urban regeneration. Yet, the promise of sustainability and social transformation is often empty as policymakers focus on sustaining tourism over supporting greater social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the pandemic has drawn attention to the unsustainable nature of the neoliberal model of tourism engagement. Due to the paucity of research exploring spatial injustice in urban tourism, this study examines the impact policymaking and governance structures have on urban destinations and the potential inequalities this creates. Drawing on Edward Soja's approach to Lefebvre’s The Right to the City (1968), this research explores how lessons learned during the pandemic in the tourist-historic city of York, UK, could transform tourism in historic urban spaces. Taking an interpretive case study approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with leading stakeholders to understand the spatial dimensions of the lived experiences of policymaking. The hopeful signs emerging from York’s response to the pandemic demonstrate how communities can reclaim voice to build sustainable and purposeful models of engagement. This paper contributes to our understanding by demonstrating the transformative potential that future policymaking could have for reducing the negative impacts of tourism.

Keywords:

• Historic cities
• tourism
• governance
• policy
• spatial (in)justice
• stakeholders

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all the respondents their time, insightful comments and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brendan Paddison

Brendan Paddison is Associate Dean at York Business School, York St John University. Brendan’s main research interests include destination management, governance and development. Brendan co-chairs the Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI).

Jenny Hall

Jenny Hall is a cultural geographer interested in embodied experiences within tourism, adventure and heritage in the context of politics, gender, emotion and affect. Jenny has professional experience managing cultural regeneration projects in the public sector founding and leading major venues, festivals, and cultural development programmes. She is Treasurer of the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group.