A tale of two precincts: a phenomenological analysis

Abstract

An examination of the extant literature relating to urban tourism in general highlights the predominantly structural and functional nature of existing research. Issues such as spatial form, land-use mix, development processes, management, marketing, economic impact and accommodation are recurring themes. While such studies have made a substantial contribution to our understanding of many utilitarian themes surrounding tourism precinct development and management, there is a dearth of material as to how such places are experienced by tourists. This study sought to redress the above and applied a phenomenological framework to investigate the nature of the tourist experience in two Sydney, Australia, precincts: The Rocks historic precinct adjacent to the Sydney Opera House; and Darling Harbour, a festival marketplace development built on a reclaimed dockland site. The precincts are approximately two kilometres apart. The outcomes from the first precinct examined, The Rocks, have been reported elsewhere (Hayllar & Griffin, 2005). In that study, 21 in-depth interview sessions, comprising a total of 31 participants, were undertaken with visitors to The Rocks over a three-day period in March 2001. The second study, at Darling Harbour, sought to understand the experience of tourists within the festival market place setting. A total of 36 in-depth interviews with 59 participants were conducted over a similar period in October 2002. This paper compared and contrasted the experience of visitors to both precincts with a view to determining the essential characteristic or phenomenological essence of the experience. In both precincts the phenomenon of place was identified as the essence of experience. The analysis and interpretation highlights how the physical and social attributes of a precinct shape the experience of visitors. Importantly it is argued that while a precinct may be outwardly dissimilar such differences don't of themselves produce different phenomenological outcomes for visitors.