Abstract:
Urban tourism has been a relatively neglected field of research, both in Australia and elsewhere, in spite of the significance of cities as a location for tourism activities. This paper seeks to redress this deficiency by reporting on the results of a recent initiative to formulate an Australian urban tourism research agenda. This involved consulting with both the academic research community and the tourism industry with a view to identifying the priority research issues in this field. Academic opinions were sought through a workshop conducted at the 2006 Council of Australian Universities in Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE) Conference, which employed a nominal group technique, and a subsequent Delphi exercise. For industry, three focus groups were conducted, involving a broad range of sectors and government agencies with an interest in urban tourism. The study revealed some similarities but also some key differences between academia and industry. Generally, academics were most concerned with issues of how tourists experienced and behaved in cities, and how their activities impacted on the urban environment and communities. Industry were concerned with a far broader range of sector-specific issues but placed most emphasis on destination development and management issues and identifying or understanding the benefits of tourism for the urban economy. Both groups, however, acknowledged the requirement to understand tourist patterns of use, needs, expectations and experiences of cities as a foundation for subsequent research and subsequently improving the performance of Australia’s cities as tourist destinations.
