The Role of Niche Tourism Products in Destination - Repository ...

urden to the tax payer (Jones and Wilks-Heeg, 2004); loss of the city as a source of personal identity; diversion of public money
away from more urgent areas such as education and housing (Garcia, 2003); and, the lack of thorough, rigorous post event impact
studies and evaluation (Higham, 1999; Crompton, 2001).
Finally, events can be used as catalysts, particularly in urban physical and cultural regeneration. Weiler and Hall (1992) discuss
how events are attractive to industrial, entrepreneurial cities keen to rid themselves of their industrial heritage and to signal to
potential tourists, investors and residents that the city is undergoing a vibrant transformation. The examination by Kokosalakis et al.
(2006) of place image and urban regeneration in Liverpool is another example of the above, as after a long period of industrial
decline, Liverpool, like other UK cities, saw investment in event tourism and its cultural heritage as a means to facilitate the
economic and social regeneration of the city. Through their successful acquisition of the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) 2008
status they strove to reconstruct an image of the city as a place of cultural consumption (Bourdieu, 1984). Jones and Wilks-Heeg
(2004) highlight how they saw it as a means to replicate the ‘Glasgow’ effect of using the ECOC brand as a part of wider urban
regeneration. It was hoped that it would result in 12,000 new jobs, increase visitor numbers and generate £2bn of additional
spending to the local economy. The city’s marketing strategy, although placing an emphasis on their cultural and heritage offerings,
also aimed to attract higher yield visitors and the affluent short break market (Bramwell and Rawding, 1996). The problem with this
approach though is that images are often taken out of context and become mainstream and standardised, projecting an image
similar to other cities and resulting in the creation of placeless generic festival forms to attract tourism audiences (Robinson, Picard
and Long, 2004). Larger scale events and their tourism potential can often provide a good justification for the allocation of
resources to areas that would otherwise struggle to receive funding. Carlsen and Taylor’s (2003) work on the regeneration of
Manchester through the hosting of the 2002 Commonwealth Games is a pertinent example of this. There is potential for mega