This is an unusual book in many ways. Firstly, it is a book by a practitioner, and secondly, it is by a practitioner with a grounding in the academic. Thirdly, it draws on those many years of direct experience in city tourism marketing. This is a powerful combination and makes for a very interesting book, which is both autobiographical and analytical.
Formally the book is divided into three parts – City Tourism, City Tourism Organisation and City Branding. What we get is a categorisation of city tourism organisations and then a view about how these organisations can present city tourism more effectively. All nine chapters are liberally illustrated with case studies of what Heeley takes to be successful examples of city tourism from Vienna to Dublin, Glasgow to Gothenburg and many others. This will be a major bonus for our students and some practitioners who will no doubt enjoy the somewhat voyeuristic views of their fellows’ activities. The examples presented use official sources extensively and present convincing cases of the value of the cities’ activities. Informally the book can be read as the quest of a city tourism practitioner seeking the holy grail of what makes city tourism succeed or fail – and Heeley is to be credited for also recognising that not all attempts to develop city tourism are successful.
I should declare an interest, as I have worked in three of the same cities as the author and we support the same football team. I have also worked on city tourism for nearly as long as well. However I come from a different analytical background, based in concerns about policy and planning, sustainable development and concerns with stakeholder involvement/exclusion. This may be considered as the ‘dark side’ of understanding city tourism but it leads to several questions of this book, including the title and the back cover blurb promising to tell it like it is.
The claim to be ‘inside city tourism’ could be challenged as the book could also be called ‘outside city tourism’ – a far better title would be ‘Inside City Tourism Marketing’. The book is actually about city tourism marketing and does not address the articulation of marketing with city policy making, development and investment in infrastructure which are crucial to a holistic understanding of the development of tourism in this case in cities. We are presented with a classification of city tourism organisations in Chapter 1, but it is clear that these are marketing organisations rather than management organisations. There has been some confusion which this text attempts to avoid by introducing the new classifications about what is meant by the term DMO. In America, these organisations have principally been abbreviations of Destination Marketing Organisations, with a heavy private sector influence and an early construction in the form of conference and conventions bureaux. In Central and Eastern Europe, we have even taken to renaming DMOs as TDMOs (Tourism Destination Management Organisations to emphasise the role in tourism management, policy making, product development, training and marketing.
The problem can be illustrated with the example of Valencia cited by Heeley ‘Growth on such a scale was made possible by renovating the city's historic heritage, making accessible its adjacent beach area, and by developing a clutch of fine conference venues as well as a sensationally iconic complex – the City of Arts and Science – complete with a viewing point, opera house, interactive science museum and Europe's largest aquarium’ (p. 13). The role of the Valencia Tourism and Convention Bureau must have been important in raising the profile of these developments but it was not a player in the determination of the policies and plans which facilitated and supported these developments. If we are to truly operate ‘inside city tourism’, we should be elaborating an understanding of these processes as well as the marketing of the results. Our understanding of the role of stakeholders, their areas of influence, the construction of pathways of power, the inclusion and exclusion of stakeholders from parts or the whole of these processes is essential to unpacking city tourism. Even within the consideration of marketing organisations, it is not clear from these accounts which voices are heard and which are not, which are given value and which are not.
The conclusions offer a view towards 2020, strongly endorsing public–private partnerships as the way forward as Heeley sees the future being financed by those who benefit most directly. As he argues, ‘Financial gearing dominated by earned and private sector monies will mean governance by the private sector and a preoccupation with ensuring appropriate rates of return on marketing investment. He who pays the piper calls the tune’ (p. 158). This is worrying as it is possible to see city tourism constructed and evaluated by different criteria to those suggested by current models of private sector rates of return. The definition of appropriate must be the product of a public–private debate which allows the partnerships to identify different rates for different types and levels of investments – the rebuilding of a city centre into a shopping mall suggests one model whilst the restoration of a historic city with due consideration of authenticity, ‘feel’ and experience may suggest a different one.
There is much to reflect on here from the experiences of a high profile city marketer, who has spent his working life driving city marketing. However inside the cities, there may be room for more than one piper and in the celebration of local diversity more than one tune. With the development of active and vibrant partnerships, it may even be possible to recognise that she who pays is never working alone in the management and marketing of city tourism.