WHAT IS PERIPHERY???

Merriam-Websters Dictionary: the outward bounds of something as distinguished from its internal regions or center Brown and Hall (2000: 1) add a social component to the term periphery: to be peripheral is to be marginalised, to lack power and influence and it therefore carries social, political and economic implications

DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISM IN THE EUROPEAN NORTHERN PERIPHERY

Dr Jan Mosedale

WHAT IS PERIPHERY???
Geographic isolation (distance, poor access to and from markets) Economic marginalisation (lack of resources, decline of traditional industries) Lack of infrastructure Reliance on imports -> economic leakage Generally a rural setting Low and declining (or ageing) population

WHAT IS PERIPHERY???
Despite the previous list of characteristics that define periphery, it is a subjective concept. It depends on ones perception of place.

Can anyone give me an example of a peripheral community in the UK?

WHAT IS PERIPHERY???
Paradoxes of peripheries:
1.

WHAT IS PERIPHERY???
Paradoxes of peripheries: 2. If tourism is not planned or managed

Isolation and remoteness (two key characteristics of the periphery) can be desirable to some tourists.
Nature, Heritage, slower pace of life, being away from the grid

adequately, it might just destroy the remoteness or tradition that the early tourists were coming for -> change in tourism product.

In tourism, it is the very symptoms of peripherality (Brown and Hall, 2000: 3) that have become desirable and drive new economic growth and social development.

2. LACK OF EFFECTIVE

1. GEOGRAPHICALLY REMOTE
FROM MASS MARKETS

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONTROL OVER MAJOR

DECISIONS THAT AFFECT WELL-BEING

Spatial distance Communicative distance Outside of the day-trip zone of major population centres

Issues of economic restructuring Globalisation Political institutions elsewhere

4. RELATIVELY

3. RELATIVELY WEAK INTERNAL

ECONOMIC LINKAGES

WEAK INTERNAL COMMUNICATION & TRANSPORT LINKAGES

High degree of importation Inter-firm relations often weak within region Often industries based on resource extraction / natural resources

Links often from periphery to core rather than between peripheries Intra-firm relations

5. OFTEN HIGH AESTHETIC /

NATURAL AMENITY VALUES

6. MIGRATION OUTFLOWS
Younger people for education and employment opportunities Families with respect to better schooling and employment opportunities Some retirement outmigration BUT for a few peripheral locations there is migration inflow - amenity, seasonal, retirement and lifestyle migration

Sign of lack of development or even economic restructuring Relationship to high biophysical values of naturalness and remoteness - wilderness Cultural heritage is often the thing which hasnt changed because there wasnt the money to update

7. COMPARATIVE LACK OF
INNOVATION

8. INTERVENTIONIST ROLE OF LOCAL, NATIONAL & SUPRANATIONAL STATE

Occurs because of economic difficulties of the periphery It is very hard for governments to refuse to assist peripheral regions in some way - national myths of the rural and peripheral Significance of changing political philosophies regarding the role of the state - move from the welfare to the entrepreneurial/neo-liberal state

Argued by Botterill et al. (1997) BUT this point is highly debatable High rates of innovation may be one of the few points of comparative competitive advantage but this is related to what underlies the capacity to innovate in terms of intellectual and social cultural

BUT CAN PERIPHERAL PLACES SUCCEED WITH TOURISM?

Some places obviously are better positioned than others for reasons of accessibility as well as capital - economic, intellectual and social But what are we wanting in economic terms
People travelling through? People stopping? People stopping and spending? People stopping/staying longer and therefore spending more?

THE NORTHERN PERIPHERY

SCANDINAVIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtLseO3U9Oo Huge land areas with a relatively small population Many of the typical Scandinavian features are situated in Norway: combination of sea and mountains. North Cape and Lofoten Islands offer fishing, whale watching and other nature-based activities

PROBLEMS

ASSOCIATED WITH TOURISM IN THE NORTHERN PERIPHERY

Accessibility especially outside of the core region of Scandinavia (Denmark is the only Scandinavian country with a land link to western Europe; the rest are reliant on air and sea links) High cost of living = expensive areas to visit Short summer season due to climate (lasts from late June to the middle of August resulting in many destinations relying on imported seasonal foreign labour, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe, resulting in leakage of profits)

Winter is too extreme, particularly in the northern part of the region, to enable mass winter sports tourism Nothing geographically comparable to the Alps to enable mass downhill ski/snowboarding tourism Lack of sunshine in the winter months in the most northern parts of Scandinavia Potential growth types of tourism (i.e., wilderness tourism) cannot be major generators of tourists if they are to survive

COMPARING THE NORTHERN EUROPEAN

PERIPHERY WITH DEFINITIONS OF PERIPHERY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUiR7fhIIBI

Yes, it is geographically remote Yes, it is dominated by rural/wilderness areas Yes, it has relatively small and highly distributed populations No, it is not always dependent on imports and is, in actual fact in many ways economically independent with access to abundant natural resources (especially Norway) No, standards of living in the northern periphery are amongst some of the highest in the world

THE PERIPHERY OF THE NORTHERN EUROPEAN PERIPHERY

Yes, it is geographically remote Yes, it is dominated by rural/wilderness areas Yes, it has relatively small and highly distributed populations Yes, it is dependent on imports Whilst in global terms living standards are high they are lower than in the rest of Scandinavia and are heavily state subsidised

SAMI: THE PEOPLE

POTENTIAL OF TOURISM IN THE

NORTHERN PERIPHERY

Winter sports Wilderness/eco/adventure tourism Heritage tourism Urban and cultural tourism Health tourism Santa Claus Legoland Northern Lights Land of the midnight sun

TOURISM IN THE EUROPEAN NORTHERN PERIPHERY

Dominated by domestic (excluding Denmark) and intra-regional tourism (sun and sports)

Core regions of Scandinavia tend to gain most from tourism No passport or visa requirements historically for cross border travel Accurate statistics for tourism in this region are very hard to calculate Traditionally a source rather than a destination of international tourism

skiing in the winter and a reverse flow to the coast in the summer

Main type of tourism is VFR Main mode of transport for tourism is the private car Second home tourism very popular The capitals of each country tend to be the dominant tourism destination for all seasons

SCANDINAVIANS AS A SOURCE OF
INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS The aims of developing tourism in the European northern periphery in general and the peripheral segment of the region in particular are to:

Maintain settlement patterns (a long term governmental policy) Ensure long-term opportunities for employment and services

As a result of the high standards of living and liberal governments the Nordic countries represent a lucrative, though relatively small, market for the international tourism industry Historically the prime destinations for these tourists is the southwest of Europe, particularly Spain Overall, tourism has a significant negative impact on the Scandinavian economies

SUGGESTED READINGS

Boniface, B. & Cooper, C. 2005. Worldwide destinations casebook: the geography of travel and tourism. Elsevier: Amsterdam. Case 15. Horner, S. & Swarbrooke, J. 2004. International cases in tourism management. Elsevier: Amsterdam. Case Study 10 Brown, F. and Hall, D. (2000) Introduction: the paradox of peripherality. In: F. Brown and D. Hall (eds) Tourism in peripheral areas. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. pp. 1-6.