(Ebook) Experiencescapes : Tourism, Culture, and Economy

by Tom O'Dell; Peter Biling ISBN 9788763099707,

8763099705 Pdf Download

https://ebooknice.com/product/experiencescapes-tourism-culture-and-
economy-51414062

★★★★★
4.7 out of 5.0 (68 reviews )

DOWNLOAD PDF

ebooknice.com
 (Ebook) Experiencescapes : Tourism, Culture, and Economy by
Tom O'Dell; Peter Biling ISBN 9788763099707, 8763099705 Pdf
Download

EBOOK

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide Ebook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

 We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click
the link to download now, or visit ebooknice.com
to discover even more!

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason; Viles,

James ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571, 9781925268492,
1459699815, 1743365578, 1925268497

https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

(Ebook) Matematik 5000+ Kurs 2c Lärobok by Lena Alfredsson, Hans

Heikne, Sanna Bodemyr ISBN 9789127456600, 9127456609

https://ebooknice.com/product/matematik-5000-kurs-2c-larobok-23848312

(Ebook) SAT II Success MATH 1C and 2C 2002 (Peterson's SAT II

Success) by Peterson's ISBN 9780768906677, 0768906679

https://ebooknice.com/product/sat-ii-success-math-1c-and-2c-2002-peterson-
s-sat-ii-success-1722018

(Ebook) Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth

Study: the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition by Benjamin
Harrison ISBN 9781398375147, 9781398375048, 1398375144,
1398375047
https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-history-
workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-edition-53538044
(Ebook) Master SAT II Math 1c and 2c 4th ed (Arco Master the SAT
Subject Test: Math Levels 1 & 2) by Arco ISBN 9780768923049,
0768923042

https://ebooknice.com/product/master-sat-ii-math-1c-and-2c-4th-ed-arco-
master-the-sat-subject-test-math-levels-1-2-2326094

(Ebook) Advances in Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research,

Volume 1 (Advances in Culture) (Advances in Culture, Tourism and
Hospitality Research) (Advances in Culture, Tourism and
Hospitality Research) by Arch G. Woodside ISBN 9780080471518,
9780762312573, 008047151X, 0762312572
https://ebooknice.com/product/advances-in-culture-tourism-and-hospitality-
research-volume-1-advances-in-culture-advances-in-culture-tourism-and-
hospitality-research-advances-in-culture-tourism-and-hospitality-
research-2137600

(Ebook) Piano adventures Performance 3b by Nancy and Randall

Faber

https://ebooknice.com/product/piano-adventures-performance-3b-52393612

(Ebook) The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture by Peter

Garnsey; Richard P Saller ISBN 9781472524027, 1472524020

https://ebooknice.com/product/the-roman-empire-economy-society-and-
culture-4767670

(Ebook) Tourism and Visual Culture, Volume 1 by Catherine A

Palmer, Jo-Anne M Lester, Peter M Burns ISBN 9781845936099,
1845936094

https://ebooknice.com/product/tourism-and-visual-culture-volume-1-1872868
 EXPERIENCESCAPES:
TOURISM, CULTURE AND
ECONOMY

TOM O’DELL & PETER BILLING

(EDS.)

Copenhagen Business School Press

3
Experiencescapes: Tourism, culture and economy

© Copenhagen Business School Press

Printed in Denmark by Holbæk Amts Bogtrykkeri
Cover design by Morten Højmark
1. edition 2005

e-ISBN 978-87-630-9970-7

Distribution:

Scandinavia
DBK, Mimersvej 4
DK-4600 Køge, Denmark
Phone: +45 3269 7788, fax: +45 3269 7789

North America
International Specialized Book Services
920 NE 58th Ave., Suite 300
Portland, OR 97213, USA
Tel +1 800 944 6190
Fax +1 503 280 8832
Email: [email protected]

Rest of the World

Marston Book Services, P.O. Box 269
Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 4YN, UK
Phone: +44 (0) 1235 465500, fax: +44 (0) 1235 465655
E-mail: [email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any
means - graphic, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, taping or information
storage or retrieval systems - without permission in writing from Copenhagen Business School
Press at www.cbspress.dk
Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors 7
Acknowledgements 9

1 Experiencescapes
Blurring Borders and Testing Connections
TOM O’DELL

Experiencescapes 15 / The Cultural Turn 19 / Identity Production and

the Consequences of Scaping 23 / Marketers, Alchemists, and
Warriors 25 / A Post-Sightseeing Society 27 / The Slower Pulse 30 /
Easy Money, or a Risky Economy? 31

2 Looking With New Eyes at the Old Factory

On the Rise of Industrial Cool
ROBERT WILLIM

Industries Beyond 2000 36 / Early Industrial Experiencescapes 39 /

The Rise of Industrial Cool 41 / Staged Factories – The Transparent
Factory, Dresden, Germany 43 / Recycled Factories – The BALTIC
Art Factory, Gateshead, UK 46 / What’s Cool and Sublime? The
Undertow of Industrial Harshness 48 /

3 A Theory of Tourism Experiences

The Management of Attention
CAN-SENG OOI

The Attention Structure Framework in Context 53 / Attention and

Experience 55 / Attractions and Distractions 58 / Lessons for the
Tourism Industry 64 / Conclusions 68

4 Regional Experiencescapes as Geo-economic Ammunition

RICHARD EK

European Cross-border Regions, Place Marketing and Geo-economic

Warfare 69 / Geo-Economic Warfare, Spatial Play and Regional
Experiencescapes 73 / The Øresund Region 75 / “Scale Wars” 79 /

5
“Sim Wars” 82 / The Exclusive Experiencescape’s Excluding
Tendency 84 / Conclusion 87 /

5 Mobile Dreams
MARIA CHRISTERSDOTTER

An Experiencescape in the Making 92 / A New Malmö 96 / De Signs

98 / A War Between Symbols 100 / Hotales 103 / Transit and Mobility
106 / Conclusion 108

6 Nostalgiascapes
The Renaissance of Danish Countryside Inns
SZILVIA GYIMÓTHY

Outlining the Kro Nostalgiascape 112 / Patriotic Nostalgia: The Kro as

a Representation of Danishness 114 / Popular Culture: The Kro as a
Representation of Lower Class Taste 117 / Ways of Belonging: The
Kro as a Representation of Home 122 / Conclusions 124

7 Management Strategies and the Need For Fun

TOM O’DELL

Making Reservations for Experiences 128 / Techniques of

Experiencescaping 130 / Context over Liminality 132 / Experience as
Gift Exchange 135 / WorkPlay 137 /

8 Promoting the Known and the Unknown of Cities and City

Regions
SØREN HENNING JENSEN

Empirical Data and Analysis 147 / Cities as Known and Unknown

Elements 148 / Exploring the Known and Unknown in the Urban
Experiencescape 150 / Cities as Spatial Entities 153 / The Experience
Economy as a Cognitive Shift 155 / Bringing Experiences into Urban
Competition 158 / Conclusion 159

Bibliography 161
Index 191

6
Notes on Contributors
Maria Christersdotter is a Ph.D. candidate in European Ethnology
who is enrolled at the Department of Service Management, Lund
University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden. Her dissertation project,
finishing in spring 2006, focuses on the intertwining of economic and
cultural processes within the genre of boutique hotels.

Richard Ek is an assistant professor in the Department of Service

Management, Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden.
Previously he has published Öresund Region: Become! The Discursive
Rhythm of Geographical Visions (2003) which is his Ph.D. thesis,
written in Swedish. He has also published extensively on the subject of
place marketing.

Szilvia Gyimóthy is an assistant professor in the Department of Service

Management, Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden. Her
research interest focuses on strengthening a phenomenological focus in
the service marketing and management field. Apart from a number of
journal articles, she has published The Quality of Tourist Experience
(2002) and co-authored The Kro Brand: Brand mythologies of Danish
Inns (Varemærket Kro: Danske Kroers Brand Mytologi (2003).

Søren H. Jensen is an assistant professor at the Copenhagen Business

School, Department of Management, Politics & Philosophy. His Ph.D.
dissertation from 2003 combines strategic management and neo-
institutional theories in an analysis of the role played by occupational
health in connection with the tendering of public services. He has
recently published a book on strategic management and knowledge.
His research interests revolve around the translation and application of
traditional management tools in an experience economy context as it is
linked to the organizing role of concepts.

Tom O’Dell is an associate professor in the Department of Service

Management, Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden.
Previously he has published Culture Unbound: Americanization and
Everyday Life in Sweden (Nordic Academic Press 1997) as well as
having edited two volumes on tourism and the experience economy,

7
Nonstop! Turist i upplevelseindustrialismen (Historiska Media 1999)
and Upplevelsens materialitet (Studentlitteratur 2002).

Can-Seng Ooi is an associate professor in the Department of

International Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business
School. His work focuses on the mediation of experiences, the impact
of tourism and the invention of cultures. He has published in Annals of
Tourism Research, Tourism, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and
Tourism and other journals. Besides contributing chapters to books, he
is also the author of Cultural Tourism and Tourism Cultures
(Copenhagen Business School Press 2002).

Robert Willim, who holds a Ph.D. in European Ethnology, is currently

working as a researcher and lecturer in the Department of European
Ethnology and the Department of Service Management, Lund
University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden. His main research interests
are in the cultural dimensions of digital media. This research has also
led to studies of the relations between traditional manufacturing
industries and the creative industries. Recent publications in English
include, Magic, Culture and The New Economy (Berg, 2005), co-
edited with Orvar Löfgren. For more information see
www.pleazure.org/robert/.

8
 Acknowledgements

The contributions presented in this book are the product of a growing

network of scholars in Sweden and Denmark who are working to
better understand the manner in which tourism, the realm of
experience and everyday life are entangled in one another. The
development of this network has been facilitated by the economic
support it has received from the Committee for Research and
Development of the Öresund Region (Öforsk). I would like to thank
each of the contributors to this volume for their enthusiastic
participation in this research network, as well as for their commitment
to this particular book project.
Along the way a number of people have helped this book see the
light of day. I would like to thank Can-Seng Ooi for introducing me to
the people at the Copenhagen Business School Press, Minna Willim
for doing the book’s lay-out, and Hanne Thorninger Ipsen at CBS
Press for her guidance and support as the text in hand was transformed
from a manuscript to a finished book.
Similarly, a word of thanks must be directed towards Sue Glover of
Word-stugan i Rimbo HB, Sweden for checking and correcting the
language in each of the chapters presented in this book, and for
translating the chapters that were originally written in Swedish.
The work in this book has received financial support from several
sources to which I am indebted. I would like to thank Nordenstedtska
stiftelsen who has funded many of the costs of producing this book,
The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) who has funded my
research, and the Committee for Research and Development of the
Öresund Region who has funded the research of many of the other
authors contributing to this book.

Tom O’Dell
Lund, Sweden, March 8, 2005

9
10
 1

Experiencescapes:
Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

TOM O’DELL

Every visit to Yankee Candle is a wonderful for both the body and
New Experience! Adventure. soul (Varberg Kurort Hotel &
Style. Fun. Taste. There’s always Spa brochure, 2002:46).
something new at the Yankee
Candle Flagship Store in South …fantasy constitutes our desire,
Deerfield, one of Massachusetts’ provides its co-ordinates; that is,
most popular attractions (Yankee it literally ‘teaches us how to
Candle Advertisement). desire’ (Žižek, 1997:7).

The cultural manifestation of Direct from the experience

modernity that appears alongside industry, the Saab 95. (Swedish
the local introduction of TV commercial slogan).
successive forms of industrial
capitalism are in considerable Progress, adjusted to the profit
measure associated with new motive, seemed finally to have
patterns of consumption, with come down to the irruption of a
new ways of interacting with host of machine-toys for adults
merchandise (Pred, 1995:33) who could, with their aid, do
what they had been forbidden to
Give away an experience: A gift do as children… Almost
check from Varberg’s Kurort everything technical change was
Hotel & Spa contains many to force on us would be done in
outstanding experiences and the name of this prohibition to
becomes a personal gift, prohibit… (Virilio, 2002:1-2).

11
Tom O’Dell

Experiences have become the hottest commodities the market has to

offer. Whether we turn on the television at night, read the paper in the
morning, or stroll down a city street at noon, we are inundated by
advertisements promoting products that promise to provide us with
some ephemeral experience that is newer, better, bigger, more
thrilling, more genuine, more flexible, or more fun than anything we
have encountered previously. At the same time, consumers themselves
are increasingly willing to go to greater lengths, invest larger sums of
money, and take greater risks to avoid “the beaten track” and
“experience something new.”
The depth to which this spirit of our times penetrates society was
clearly reflected in the political debates that erupted in Germany on
August 20th 2003. On that day, a plane carrying fourteen tourists who
had been held hostage in Algeria touched down in Köln, Germany.
The diplomats who had labored for several months to negotiate the
release of the hostages had good reason to celebrate. Nonetheless, the
tone of the comments coming from a number of leading German
politicians reflected a deeper concern about the trends they believed
this homecoming reflected. One Christian Democrat summed up the
situation by sternly warning, “A person who lightheartedly exposes
herself or himself to danger solely for the purpose of having a nerve
tickling experience has to be prepared to pay the costs of being
rescued.”1 Only a few years earlier that statement would have been
widely condemned as cold-hearted. But instead of criticism, the
comment received support from several other politicians across party
lines.
From a political perspective, the warning given by this Christian
Democrat reflects an unsettling awareness of the significance that
people attach to the pursuit of new experiences, as well as the lengths
to which they are willing to go to obtain them. In doing so, however, it
highlights an even deeper concern that the search for experiences is
leading a rapidly growing number of ordinary people into a borderland
beyond reason – a borderland in which the state’s control over its
citizens is diminished, and in which the state is not prepared to accept
sole responsibility. In other words, from the perspective of at least a
few politicians, some forms of adventure tourism and the search for
“experiences” are getting out of hand.

1
Quoted in the Swedish National Newspaper, Dagens Nyheter on August 21st
2003, page 11.

12
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

However, the growing interest in adventure tourism represents only

one of the more radical ways in which experiences have gone from
simply being a value adding aspect of more concrete goods and
services, to valued commodities in and of themselves. At the same
time, while extreme sports and adventure tourism (including
everything from base jumping to diving amongst sharks) may offer
some of the most spectacular and risk-filled forms of experiences on
the market today, they are not the mainstays of this market. Less
dramatic, but more prevalent, are the promises of fun, adventure and
relaxation made by amusement parks, IMAX theatres, theme
restaurants, and suburban shopping malls around the world. Even
entire cities, from Las Vegas to Barcelona, are aggressively vying for
consumer attention through beefed up appeals to the realm of
experience. Similar promises are echoed in the promotional campaigns
of smaller communities, such as Freeport, Maine. As Freeport’s
promoters point out:

Our uniqueness lies in the diversity of shopping opportunities,

coupled with adventure experiences galore…. We are fortunate to
be able to offer our visitors a truly one-of-a-kind experience in an
area that is rich with history (Freeport, Maine brochure).

The “adventure experiences” offered by Freeport (ranging from seal-

watching cruises and the celebration of the calving season’s opening to
lobster dinners in the harbor and upscale shopping opportunities in
pricey shops) might not necessarily be as extravagant or glittery as
those being organized and staged in Barcelona and Las Vegas, but they
are nonetheless attracting millions of visitors each year.
Working with an interdisciplinary approach, the objective of this
book is to critically analyze the significance that this market for
experiences (and interest in them) is having as a generative motor of
cultural and socioeconomic change in modern society. The authors
contributing to this book come from the disciplines of anthropology,
business administration, cultural geography, and tourism. The common
factor uniting them lies, in part, in a shared interest in the study of
tourism. This has, however, subsequently led to a more specific
theoretical and empirical focus upon the manner in which experiences
are being produced, packaged, consumed and staged around the world
– a primary theme that is actively pursued throughout this book. At the
same time, this is not a theme that comfortably falls within the folds of
the traditional field of tourism studies. The problem here is that

13
Tom O’Dell

although the search for new experiences is an important aspect of

tourism, it is not a phenomenon limited to tourism. It is also intimately
linked to many other leisure activities, entertainment forms and
consumption practices that people continuously encounter and engage
in as an aspect of their everyday lives.
A realization of this fact forces us to broaden our field of study. If
we are to truly appreciate the role that tourism plays as a force in
society today, then we argue that there is a need to more systematically
place the study of tourism within the larger cultural and economic
context of everyday life in which it is embedded. After all, attractions
and entertainment facilities being constructed in cities around the
world – in the hope that they will help attract tourists – are in many
cases also being extensively used and serviced by the local population.
A seventeen year old high school student may work part-time as a
waitress serving tourists at the Planet Hollywood Restaurant in Miami
during the evenings, only to find herself strolling amongst those very
same tourists in the upscale shopping districts of Miami Beach the
following day. An all too strict focus upon an empirical field defined
as “tourism” is simply not well suited to analytically illuminate and
interrogate the complexity of this phenomenon.2
Others have come to a similar conclusion and worked to broaden our
understanding of tourism and daily life. David Crouch, for example,
points to the fact that we need to consciously work to undermine the
premises upon which any absolute and clear distinction between
tourism and leisure can be maintained (1999). As he argues:

Tourism is often theorised in terms of meetings of cultures, or

one-way exploration, and suggests travel. There is a persistent
confusion of categories between leisure and tourism…. As tourism
and leisure have become less and less functional and increasingly
aestheticised, the differentiation of tourism and leisure is eroded.

2
A realization of the existence of this linkage has not been lost on scholars
studying tourism. A great deal of attention has been paid to the fact that wherever
you have tourists, you have people serving them, and obviously a great deal has
been written about the fact that tourism does affect local as well as national and
regional economies and cultural contexts (cf. Gössling, 2000; Waldren, 1997).
Others have argued for a need to thoroughly deconstruct and problematize the
host/guest dichotomy underlying much of the research on tourism (cf. Abram and
Waldren, 1997:3). We are arguing for a need to broaden this perspective and more
systematically analyze the manner in which tourism intersects with, affects and
cross-fertilizes spheres of daily life that are not otherwise necessarily defined in
terms of tourism.

14
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

Leisure becomes commodified (in places) and tourism is

accompanied by similar commodification, and both have capacity
for reflexivity (1999:1).

Having said this, Crouch then goes on to remind us that tourism and
leisure can work as distinct categories, but also as a dual category in
other contexts.
The selling, packaging, and ultimate consumption of experiences is
perhaps one of the best examples of a phenomenon that can thoroughly
transcend and blur the border between tourism and leisure. Beyond
this, however, as I shall argue momentarily, it is even a phenomenon
that has become a force – and an integrated aspect of modern
management strategies (see for example, Berg, 2003; Peters, 1994;
Riddestråle and Nordström, 2002; Schrage, 1999; Willim, 2002) – to
be reckoned with in places of work, as part of the process of work. In
this sense, the focus upon the realm of experiences moves us beyond
the empirical field of study usually encompassed by tourism and helps
to illuminate some of the complex linkages that exist between such
diverse fields of everyday life as tourism, leisure and work.

Experiencescapes
When movement and circulation are the norm rather than the
exception, when people regularly reside in more than one place. It
is difficult to say which is the everyday place and which is the
extra-ordinary (Williams and Kaltenborn, 1999:228).

Studying experiences, and the market for them, is not a task without
problems of its own. Experiences are highly personal, subjectively
perceived, intangible, ever fleeting and continuously on-going.
Nonetheless, as commodities they are more than randomly occurring
phenomena located entirely in the minds of individuals. The
commodification of and search for experiences has a material base that
is itself anchored in space. They occur in an endless array of specific
places, such as stores, museums, cities, sporting arenas, shopping
centers, neighborhood parks and well-known tourist attractions. At the
same time, they do not need to be limited to any single space.
Experiences can be (and often are) planned in one place, developed in
another, and staged for consumption in a third. Thus, while
experiences may be ephemeral, they are organized spatially, and
generated through the manipulation of the material culture around us.

15
Tom O’Dell

It may be impossible to completely re-present the phenomenological

essence of people’s experiences, but a focus upon the spaces and
materiality of experiences can help us to analytically come to terms
with the cognitive, social and cultural processes that work to define
and frame them. As sites of market production, the spaces in which
experiences are staged and consumed can be likened to stylized
landscapes that are strategically planned, laid out and designed. They
are, in this sense, landscapes of experience – experiencescapes – that
are not only organized by producers (from place marketers and city
planners to local private enterprises), but are also actively sought after
by consumers. They are spaces of pleasure, enjoyment and
entertainment, as well as the meeting grounds in which diverse groups
(with potentially competing as well as overlapping interests and
ideologies) move about and come in contact with one another.
Viewed as landscaped spaces, we refer to these spaces as
“experiencescapes” in order to underline the degree to which the
surroundings we constantly encounter in the course of our everyday
lives can take the form of physical, as well as imagined, landscapes of
experience. Within anthropology, Arjun Appadurai has used the
metaphorical invocation of landscapes in order to illuminate the
manner in which processes of globalization can unite different groups
of people around the world at the same time that they further aggravate
the divisions existing between other groups of people. Referring to
mediascapes, ethnoscapes, ideoscapes, financescapes and
technoscapes, Appadurai outlines the conceptual framework by which
we might better be able to understand the processes and flows through
which transnational communities of people and ideas are organized
(see Appadurai, 1996 for a more complete discussion of these
metaphorical landscapes). These landscapes of shared knowledge that
Appadurai describes can be understood as points of cultural reference,
but as such, they also constitute a series of critical parameters and
linkages around which a larger cultural economy is organized, and
through which power and knowledge are distributed asymmetrically.
Appadurai explains:

The suffix -scape allows us to point to the fluid, irregular shapes

of these landscapes, shapes that characterize international capital
as deeply as they do international clothing styles. These terms
with the common suffix –scape also indicate that these are not
objectively given relations that look the same from every angle of
vision, but rather, they are deeply perspectival constructs,

16
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

inflected by the historical, linguistic, and political situatedness of

different sorts of actors…
These landscapes thus are the building blocks of what
(extending Benedict Anderson) I would call imagined worlds, that
is, the multiple worlds that are constituted by the historically
situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the
globe (1996:33)

While these scapes may be visualized as imagined worlds, they are

more than things of mere fantasy, for along these scapes we find a
growing potential for the realm of imagination to gain relevance as it
develops into new forms of social practice (Appadurai, 1991:198). As
a consequence of the global linkages that these metaphorical
landscapes represent, people around the world are able to imagine
alternative lives and livelihoods than those presented to them in their
immediate local settings. The end result of these imaginations may be
the production of “imagined worlds,” but ultimately the social
practices that they generate have very real consequences (cf. Urry,
2000:36).
Experiencescapes are part of this phenomenon of global
interlinkage. They may be located in specific cultural geographies, but
they are also part of a larger global economy, and take their cues from
the larger transnational flow of culture that is not so easily bound to
any one place, region or nation. In this sense, places such as Colonial
Williamsburg, Skansen, (the open air museum in Stockholm), and the
Docklands project in London, are all part of a larger cultural heritage
industry that has established certain forms of packaged history as
legitimate experience arenas (cf. Lowenthal, 1996; Svensson, 1999).
Similarly, the interior design of the Hard Rock Café, Planet
Hollywood, and the Rainforest Café reflect and follow the
transnational symbolic grammar of “the theme restaurant” as a genre
of dining experience to be found around the world.
However, as I am arguing, experiencescapes involve more than
culturally organized powers of the imagination or globally shared
recipes for the packaging of fun; they also include a spatial component
that should be understood. More specifically, they involve issues of
spatial production that remain underdeveloped in Appadurai’s work,
and that need to be further explored for our purposes here. To this end,
Henri Lefebvre provides us with another important set of conceptual
tools.

17
Tom O’Dell

Lefebvre has argued that space needs to be understood in terms of

the way in which it is perceived, conceived and lived (1991:38ff.).3
That is, it has, in the first place, physical material attributes that are
produced through social activity and that can be measured, quantified,
observed and described. Secondly, however, it is also something that
can be planned, manipulated and designed to influence us in particular
ways. Space can, in other words, be thought about and created – by
architects, urban planners, social scientists, artists, etc. – with specific
ends in mind. In this sense it is a politically charged realm though
which power relations come to expression as actors assert their wills
and ideas over space (and notions of space) and thus affect people who
come in contact with that space. But it is also lived, appropriated and
changed as a part of everyday life. This latter aspect of space,
sometimes referred to as “thirdspace” (See Soja, 1996), is the point
from which powers of domination are both experienced and resisted as
people work and rework the world around them and imbue it with
(new) meaning in the process. It is also at this level that the realm of
imagination (that Appadurai discusses) comes to expression in new
forms of social practice.
In short, Appadurai’s work draws our attention to the manner in
which experiencescapes are linked to larger transnational flows that
distribute knowledge and power in an asymmetrical fashion, and it
underlines the fact that this affects the way in which we think about
ourselves and our immediate local settings. However, Lefebvre (who is
not oblivious to these issues either) provides us with a set of theoretical
tools that focuses our attention more specifically on the complex
manner in which these spaces of production and consumption are
organized in terms of their physical, mental/cognitive and social
elements. The synthetitization of these two scholars’ conceptual work
creates an analytical prism that helps to problematize the fact that
experiencescapes may be places of fun and relaxation, but that they
can also be places in which the local and global are entwined and
where power relations are played out, political interests are
materialized, cultural identities are contested and dreams are redefined.
This is important to bear in mind, because to a large extent, the

3
Lefebvre referred to the perceived, conceived and lived aspects of social space in
terms of: social practice, representations of space, and representational space.
Lefebvre argued for the importance of realizing that all three of these moments are
an integral and ever-present aspect of social space. See Lefebvre, 1991:36ff.;
Merrifield, 2000:174f.; and Soja, 1996:64ff., for a wider discussion of the
trialectics of space.

18
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

offerings of these experiencescapes are as elusive as they are

intangible, even though their cultural, economic and political
consequences are quite real.

The Cultural Turn

…economic and symbolic processes are more than ever interlaced
and interarticulated; that is, (…) the economy is increasingly
culturally inflected and (…) culture is more and more
economically inflected (Lash and Urry, 1994:64).

In our new age, being elusive is good. If you can touch something,
it is probably not worth a great deal (….) What is valuable is the
intangible (Ridderstråle and Nordström, 2002:115).

As tourism continues to grow and people search to find ever more

exotic and “experience-rich” places, it becomes increasingly apparent
that “culture” (and the experiencing of “culture”) is itself an enormous
commodity for sale in different forms in the global market (Ooi, 2002;
Urry, 1995:154ff.).4 As a commodity of tourism, “culture” is
constantly being packaged and sold to us in terms of such things as
difference, otherness, heritage, cultural identity, song, dance, music
and art (cf. Craik, 1997; Clifford, 1997; Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, 1998;
Macdonald, 1997). However, the entanglement of culture and

4
In the popular discourse that focuses upon the potential economic gains that can
be made via the commodification of culture, the term “culture” is used in a very
ambiguous manner. It includes everything from the phenomena usually associated
with the term “high culture,” such as dance, theater, art, music, and museum
exhibitions, to phenomena more usually associated with “low culture,” such as
tourism, a day at an amusement park or the selling of a lifestyle. In this sense,
“culture” stands largely in contrast to traditional mass produced goods; it is
something abstract and ephemeral rather than physical or permanent, potentially
everywhere, but not necessarily in any one place. Nonetheless (and this is
somewhat paradoxical) culture is framed in the popular discourse as a reified thing,
a commodity that can be bought and sold. This popular perception of culture stands
in contrast to the anthropological culture concept that emphasizes the degree to
which culture is a process lacking clear territorial delineation and anchorage. As a
process it includes (among other things) the flow and exchange of ideas, values and
beliefs (cf. Clifford, 1997; Gupta and Ferguson, 1992; Hannerz, 1992 & 1996). In
my discussion of culture as a commodity, I am referring to the popular
representation of “culture”, and not the anthropological concept. In order to
distinguish the anthropological concept from its popular invocation, I will set the
latter concept within quotation marks. Where quotations marks are not used, I am
referring to the process, and not the reified conception of a thing.

19
Tom O’Dell

economy is not a phenomenon limited to the tourist industry. Processes

linked to the economization of “culture” (such as those listed above)
are more broadly spread out in society. Industries such as advertising,
fashion and film are also very active in the commodification and
economization of “culture” (du Gay and Pryke, 2002; Negus, 2002;
Nixon, 2002). These are industries which, at first glance, may seem to
have very little to do with tourism, but like tourism, they work
intensively to sell much more than physical objects – focusing more
intensively than ever upon the creation of pecuniary value through the
commodification of the ephemeral. In so doing, however, they are also
implicated in parallel processes that contribute to the “culturalization
of the economy”, as they increasingly strive to align their own creative
efforts with the production of anything from values, images, lifestyles
and dreams, to vaguely defined experiences and notions of identity
(Lash and Urry, 1994:64; Löfgren, 2001).5 In this sense, the material
commodities of the industrial age, and the services provided under the
guise of post-industrialism, represent only a portion of the
commodities being offered on the market.
Some scholars, such as economists Joseph Pine and James Gilmore,
have gone so far as to argue that we are entering an entirely “new,
emerging economy” (1999:11) in which experiences have attained an
increasingly dominant and central position. It is something that Pine
and Gilmore refer to as “the Experience Economy” (1998 and 1999).
And they explain that, “In the Experience Economy, experiences drive
the economy and therefore generate much of the base demand for
goods and services” (1999:65). Although Pine and Gilmore’s
observations are interesting, their material focuses primarily on places
of business and the question of how enterprises can capitalize on the
current interest in new and diverse forms of experience. Consequently,
their discussion tends to take the form of a cookbook, offering “how
to” recipes that fail to place their object of study in a larger cultural,
social and historic perspective.

5
As Paul du Gay and Michael Pryke argue, the culturalization of the economy
involves processes by which goods and services are “deliberately and
instrumentally inscribed with particular meanings and associations as they are
produced and circulated in a conscious attempt to generate desire for them amongst
end-users” (2002:7). Included here are processes of aestheticization that are used to
provide goods and services with a specific aura that may facilitate the manner in
which they are linked to issues of lifestyle, identity production, image and taste, as
well as intensified feelings of excitement, pleasure, satisfaction, etc.

20
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

Thus, not surprisingly, their analysis downplays the fact that the
selling of experiences is not necessarily a new phenomenon (Löfgren,
1999; O’Dell, 2002). Almost from the start, General Motors, for
example, understood that they were in the business of selling
experiences and not just machines (cf. Gartman, 1994 and 1995;
O’Dell, 1997:119ff.). And While Pine and Gilmore present an
economic model that resonates of economic evolution – a world in
which the economy advances from stage to stage – we argue for a need
to resist any tendency to explain today’s interest in experiences in
terms of unilinear processes of evolution. Instead, it might be more
fruitful to focus our attention upon the different ways in which the
economy has been culturalized at different times, and in different
contexts (cf. Ray and Sayer, 1999:7 & 22). For example, in his
contribution to this volume, Robert Willim describes the way in which
traditional sites of industrial production have long functioned as tourist
attractions and objects of aesthetic beauty. As Willim points out, large
factories, hydroelectric dams, and huge bellowing smoke stacks could,
in the eyes of the nineteenth century tourist, seem awe-inspiring,
majestic and powerful – sites worth viewing just like any other
overwhelming natural landscape. Although most tourists today do not
appreciate bellowing smoke stacks as sites of beauty, Willim describes
the way in which these types of industrial environments are currently
being re-aestheticized and converted into new sources of entertainment
and sites of cultural heritage. In many cases the old assembly lines
have been replaced by art galleries, museum exhibitions and
amusement centers.
This, however, is only one of the shifting ways in which the
economy has been culturalized. This process of culturalization has
even affected the manner in which many of us view our own
relationship to work. For example, in the nineties, in the midst of the
expansive years of the New Economy, managers of many dot.com
enterprises found themselves struggling to attract and hold the best
creative talent their companies could find (Thrift, 2000). According to
the common logic of the time, places of work – as well as the people
working in them – had to be creative, flexible and innovative (cf.
Kelly, 1999; McRobbie, 2002: 106; Schrage, 1999). In order to
achieve this, while simultaneously building loyalty and a sense of
community, it was increasingly believed that work should be fun (cf.
Andersdotter, 2001; Peters, 1994; Jensen, 1999; Willim, 2001).
In his contribution to this volume, O’Dell argues that this manner of
valuing the linkage between work and play has spread to places of

21
Tom O’Dell

work throughout many other sectors of the economy not directly

associated with the dot.com companies of the New Economy. A
conference on a cruise ship or at a health spa, a night of bowling, a day
racing go-karts, are all activities that employers are investing in, in the
hope of reducing stress, improving relations between employees,
making places of work more enjoyable and ultimately, increasing
productivity. As Angela McRobbie critically observes:

Work…incorporates and overtakes everyday life. In exacting new

resources of self-reliance on the part of the working population,
work appears to supplant, indeed hijack, the realm of the social,
readjusting the division between work and leisure, creating new
modes of self-disciplining, producing new forms of identity
(2002:99).

Consequently, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain any

simplistic notion of a clear distinction between work, tourism, leisure
and play (cf. Bassett and Wilbert, 1999:183).
From the perspective of the academy, it has been argued that tourism
research has been assigned a relatively low status (Brown, 1998:13).
As some have pointed out, “there is more than a little suspicion that to
study tourism is to study something frivolous. A job is work, but to be
a tourist is to have fun” (Fainstein and Judd, 1999:271). This is even a
trend that has been identified with regard to play and leisure more
generally (Thrift, 1997). While recognizing that these tendencies do
exist, we argue for a need to move beyond simple dichotomies such as
work and leisure. This is not to say that work and play are one and the
same, but that we need to better understand the manner in which they
bleed into one another, formalizing our private lives in new ways, and
forcing new modes of self-discipline upon us.
Viewed in this way, we find a complex level of interplay between
the economic structures of daily life and the socio-cultural realities in
which people live and work. In short, the shifting dynamics of the
ongoing interest in experiences not only influence the context within
which economic growth takes place, they also affect the conditions
under which people structure their working lives (cf. Peters, 1994;
Thrift, 2000; Willim, 2002), their free time (Crouch, 1999), their
consumption habits (Bjurström, Fornäs and Ganetz, 2001; Miller,
1998a and 1998b; Pine and Gilmore, 1999), their social lives (Putnam,
2000); and their political engagement (Ehrlich and Dreier, 1999).
Against this background, the question becomes one of how all this

22
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

affects the manner in which we perceive ourselves and the world

around us. Phrased slightly differently, if the search for new
experiences is not limited to any single or particular sphere of daily
life, then how might it affect our values and the expectations we place
upon life in general? These are questions that will defy any single or
simple answer and prompt us to remain analytically flexible, while
bearing in mind that experiencescapes come in a variety of shapes and
sizes that can be studied at levels ranging from specific micro-contexts
to entire regions.

Identity Production and the Consequences of Scaping

Thus, while some may find it easy to dismiss the study of tourism,
leisure and the market for experiences as “frivolous”, a number of the
contributions to this volume point to the fact that fundamental issues of
everyday life, such as identity production and identity politics, are of
great importance. At the micro end of the scale we find specific
businesses: such as the Danish roadside inns (called kro in Danish)
described by Szilvia Gyimóthy in her contribution to this volume. At
first glance, these small (often family owned) establishments may
seem rather unassuming, especially in comparison to many of their
high profile brethren in the Experience Economy. However, as
Gyimóthy demonstrates, these are places that intricately pull together,
and play off of, many competing forms of identity that are linked to
issues of class and national belonging, as well as popular perceptions
(and representations) of cultural heritage and notions of “home”. These
are rather special experiencescapes that derive much of their symbolic
power from a series of romanticized images of a bygone era of Danish
rural conviviality and warmth. Gyimóthy calls these “nostalgiascapes”,
and in so doing reminds us of the need to better understand how
multiple forms and interpretations of identity, belonging and history
can affect the cultural organization of experiences.
On a slightly larger scale, many cities actively, and without reserve,
work to cultivate a more unified identity for themselves as exciting
places capable of offering visitors a wealth of activities and
entertainment possibilities. Such is the case for Malmö, a small city in
southern Sweden, where, in 2001, politicians and other civil servants
presented a series of plans and visions for the city’s future. Among the
development projects they had in mind was the creation of a theme
park on the outskirts of the city, the construction of a huge experience
center in the heart of the city, and the production of an event complex

23
Tom O’Dell

that included a hotel (which, according to the plans, was to be northern

Europe’s tallest building), an event stadium, a shopping mall and a
residential neighborhood further south. If these plans are realized, the
hope is that they will help to create new sources of income for the city
and generate new jobs for its inhabitants. However, they also run the
risk of forcing the relocation of many groups of people living in
Malmö, and reshaping the manner in which these (and other) people
move about in the city and feel at home in it.
As John Hannigan has argued (1998), urban renewal projects
designed to attract tourists and make cities into more exciting places of
entertainment and consumption, have an overwhelming tendency to
marginalize politically and economically weaker groups in those cities.
This point was brought home by comments made to me by a leading
strategist from one of Copenhagen’s largest and most influential tourist
organizations. From the perspective of his organization, the
attractiveness of Copenhagen as a destination would be increased if
youths and immigrants could be moved out of the center of town
where tourists tend to congregate. These segments of the local
population simply did not fit in with the image of Copenhagen that his
organization was trying to create. As a consequence, it was with great
approval that they watched as plans were drawn up to convert one of
the larger arcades and entertainment centers in downtown Copenhagen
(a place in which youths and immigrants tended to congregate) into an
expensive luxury hotel.
The situation in Copenhagen illustrates one of the ways in which we
mean that it is important that experiencescapes are viewed as more
than spaces of leisure. Their physical contours also delineate spaces in
which ideologies are materialized, and through which they can be
contested (cf. Lefebvre, 1991). They are, in other words, not politically
neutral arenas, and here there is a need to more vigorously interrogate
the linkage between leisure, identity and the politics of everyday life.
But in addition to very concrete and physical attempts to refurbish
and transform specific cities and regions, a great deal of cultural work
is being invested in redefining these places; creating new images for
them, shifting their identities and linking them to specific lifestyles and
values. This is a phenomenon that Maria Christersdotter clearly
illuminates in her contribution to this volume. Her chapter focuses
upon the plans to build a small exclusive hotel in Malmö, designed by
the world famous architect Frank Gehry. None of the urban planners or
architects whom Christersdotter has talked to during the course of her
research has had a very clear idea of what the hotel might look like, or

24
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

what it could really be used for. More important than the hotel itself
was the fact that Malmö might be able to align itself with Gehry’s
name and his past projects (including the Guggenheim Museum in
Bilbao, Spain). As Christersdotter argues, image is of central
importance here, and a hotel designed by a world famous architect has
(at least in the minds of the men Christersdotter has talked to) a special
potential to help symbolically redefine Malmö and place it on the
world map of attractive tourists sites.

Marketers, Alchemists, and Warriors

Similar attempts to create new, attractive and attention grabbing
identities can be found nearly everywhere as private enterprises,
municipalities, cities and even entire nations endeavor to stake out a
place for themselves in the imagination of tourists. Along these lines
we find such claims as: “Tobago – green, clean & serene,” “Dubai –
expect the world,” and “Øresund – the human capital.” Slogans such as
these are marketing tools, but they are also much more than that. They
are tools that are as vital to the production and conception of space and
cultural identity as the physical materials used in the construction of
those places.
This is all part of a process that ethnologist Orvar Löfgren has
referred to as a “Catwalk Economy” (2001:8ff.). Like models showing-
off clothing on the catwalk of a fashion show, businesses, cities,
regions and nations all have to compete for the attention of the
surrounding world. The goal is to create a cultural package that is both
appealing and believable. In this contemporary context, place
marketers and city-branders might be likened to modern alchemists.
Mixing catchy slogans and airbrushed images with a generous flair of
event-management, and a sense for the hottest coming trend, they
struggle to conjure forth an aura around their cities or regions that will
attract tourists and generate economic prosperity.6 The problem is that
this is a crowded market, and it is not always easy to be heard above
the cacophony created by the multitude of actors competing for
attention.
Focusing upon the role of place marketing as viewed from a regional
perspective, Richard Ek, in his contribution to this volume, likens the
situation to one of warfare in which regions are not only struggling to

6
For more on the conjuring effects of place marketing, see the discussions in Berg,
Linde-Laursen, and Löfgren, 2000 & 2002.

25
Tom O’Dell

win the tourist’s attention, but even using place marketing as a means
of asserting their own legitimacy and strength as spatial entities in
relation to the spatiality of other geographic territorialities such as
cities and nations. The ability to define oneself as a region has been a
particularly important process in the European Union, where large
economic resources have been allocated to promote regional growth.
As a result, place marketing has not only played an important role as
an aspect of tourism, but also as part of a larger political process, in
Europe as well as in other parts of the world.
Bearing this in mind, it is somewhat paradoxical to note that even as
cities, regions and nations all around the world are marketing
themselves on the basis of their uniqueness, the manner in which they
do so follows a well-established pattern (cf. Ek, 2002; Henning Jensen,
in this volume; Åberg, 2002). It includes the assertion of one’s local
history and culture, exciting shopping environments, a “hot” nightlife,
and the right balance between urban pulse and opportunities to slow
down and relax. Pick up a brochure for any destination and you are
bound to find pictures of historic buildings, modern and gleaming
hotels, clean streets, healthy well-dressed people, and if possible, white
sandy beaches. In other words, place marketing, asserts the unique and
novel experiences that travelers can expect to find at any given
destination, although it does so through a fairly standardized global
recipe – that often works (cf. Ehrlich and Dreier, 1999).
At the same time, many of the slogans being launched by place-
marketers may, at first glance, seem rather superficial. They are,
however, part of a larger reserve of cultural tools used to help tourists
come to terms with, frame, and understand the destinations to which
they are traveling. In his contribution to this book, Can-Seng Ooi
problematizes the manner in which this can be accomplished. Ooi
argues that tourists are highly dependent upon what he calls
“mediators” (from guidebooks to tour operators) who help tourists
frame and understand the cultural settings they encounter. In addition
to explaining what it is that tourists should see and do, mediators play
a critical role in explaining why tourists should see specific sites and
engage in particular activities. In a sense they are attention managers
who strive to keep tourists on track and focused on the “right” sights.
In part, the work of mediators might be understood as manipulative,
but in part it is also an essential part of the tourist experience that many
tourists rely upon, and that we need to understand better.
Søren Henning Jensen endeavors to do just that in the study he
presents in this volume. He argues for a need to better appreciate the

26
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

manner in which place marketers and tourist organizations work the

tension between that which is known about a place and that which is
more ambiguous, or “unknown” in the eyes of the tourist. As he points
out, it may be that place marketers work with a rather limited but
globally recognizable set of attributes with which they endeavor to
promote their markets, but equally important, they also have to invoke
ambiguously understood qualities about the places that they are
promoting in order to create an exciting aura around them. They
(cat)walk a fine line between processes of mystification (emphasizing
that which is exotic or different) and banalization (reducing the places
they are marketing to something bland, ordinary and boring). Henning
Jensen argues that, in Copenhagen, place marketers seem to work the
catwalk in a slightly different manner depending upon whom they are
working to attract: tourists or businesses.

A Post-sightseeing Society
Experiences are the best you can receive. Give away a trip. Buy a
gift check for a vacation trip as a Christmas present (Text on a
travel agency’s advertising poster in December 2001).

Images aside, there is more to succeeding in today’s competition for

tourist attention than just Catwalk Economics. It is one thing to conjure
forth an image that attracts tourists, but quite another to be able to
sustain interest. And although a great deal of attention has been given
to the significance of the tourist gaze (Urry, 1990), it is becoming
increasingly apparent that tourists do not simply want to travel around
the world passively observing what lies before them. On the contrary,
a growing number of people want to engage that world and do things.
In this context we find backpackers in Asia who work hard to come in
contact with people in local settings. We also find middle-class
Americans who would rather spend a week in France on wine tasting
tours of the countryside than seeing the Eiffel Tower, and middle-age
Swedes who spend the weekend on City-breaks in Copenhagen
shopping, eating in fine restaurants, drinking coffee in pleasant cafés,
and going to the symphony, rather than taking a look at the Little
Mermaid or the Royal Castle. To some extent it might be said that we
are living in a time in which “seeing the sights” is not enough.
As a result, we have to rethink the manner in which we perceive
tourist destinations and “local culture.” In some cases, as Szilvia
Gyimóthy and Anders Sørensen have pointed out, experiencescapes

27
Tom O’Dell

may actually be more like winding trails through a jungle than clearly
delineated places.7 For example, one of the more prominent tourist
attractions in Boston is The Freedom Trail. The trail is actually a red
line (at times made out of bricks placed in the city’s sidewalks and
streets) that winds its way through the city and connects many of the
historical sites that were of importance in the struggle for America’s
independence. Tourists can pick up a brochure in the local tourist
bureau that describes the significance of each site, and then either walk
the trail themselves or pay a small fee and take a guided trolley tour
along The Freedom Trail.
Several different sorts of tourist trails are being developed in
Österlen, in south-eastern Sweden. The Art Round (konstrunden)
which takes place annually during the Easter weekend is an example of
a huge attraction that involves thousands of people driving around the
countryside of Österlen and visiting one artist’s studio after another.8
While a great deal of art is sold over the course of the weekend, it
might be argued that one of the weekend’s primary driving motors is
people’s curiosity about the kind of culture that might be found in the
stone farmhouses of Österlen. This is a search driven as much by
curiosity as by the exhibition of art.
Working in a different way, Ystad (also located in south-eastern
Sweden) has its own equivalent of the freedom trail in the form of a
fire engine from 1939 that shuttles tourists between Ystad’s historic
sites. As the fire engine makes its way around the town, a guide
explains the history of what is being seen – and to hold the attention of
the young at heart, he spices the story with tales of ghosts and trolls
(Eriksson, 2002). But the ride on the fire engine only offers one aspect
of Ystad’s history. German tourists have been flocking to the town in
search of a very different historic experience. As it turns out, the
Swedish author, Henning Mankell’s books are very popular in
Germany, and the local tourist bureau has been swamped by Germans
who want to search out and experience the murderous, fictive world
described in Mankell’s books (Jarlsbo, 2002).9 In this case it is not the

7
“Trails of experience” is an analytical framework that is being developed by
Gyimóthy and Sørensen as a means of helping us rethink experiences as
phenomena created in motion and through mobility. For a more complete
discussion of the significance of “trails of experience”, see Billing and O’Dell,
2001.
8
See Edström, Beckérus and Larsson, 2003 for a more detailed description of the
Art Round.
9
The significance that literature, and especially fictive writing such as the work by
Henning Mankell, can have as a tourist attraction was a topic of discussion that Ivar

28
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

actual history of places such as Marsvinsholm (a castle that features in

the drama of one of Mankell’s books) which have facilitated tourism,
but the fact that they have been woven into a fictive tale. The trails of
experience that these German tourists – and other tourists like them –
embark on do not, in the first place, wind their way through the actual
local history of Österlen, but through the history of an author’s
imagination.
It could be asserted that these trips are not really indicative of
anything new. The fire engine tours in Ystad are perhaps not that much
different from the tours made by sightseeing boats and buses in cities
like New York or London. At the same time, however, the examples
described above do differ from the traditional boat and bus tours that
are normally associated with tourism. They are different because they
do more than just serve tourists a complete sightseeing package that
they passively consume. The Freedom Trail provides a guideline by
which people can walk through the city and discover its history on
their own. For a family with young children, a tour of Ystad on a fire
engine is a very different experience than if the tour operator had opted
to use a traditional bus. For those in search of Mankell’s Ystad, it is
fiction rather than fact that makes the area interesting. In each case,
history and culture are the commodities being sold, but they are all
multi-sited, and the movement between sites is as important for the
success of the experience as are the contents of the actual sites
themselves.
In the future, place marketers, city planners, and civil servants in
local governments, may find it necessary to rethink their notion of the
local. Those who are able to work across municipal, regional and
national borders might find new forms of synergy from the fact that
tourists want to be on the move. The trick here will not be simply to
keep tourists in your particular town or city as long as possible, but to
keep them moving through it, and even coming back to it.

Björkman introduced at the Vadstena Forum, “Hur djup är kulturens brunn? Om

kulturen som källa för samhällsbyggnad och regional utveckling.” May 27-29,
2002. What is interesting in the present context is the significance this literary form
has for facilitating international tourism. As the local paper, Ystads Allehanda,
reported during the summer of 2002, Mankell’s work has not only attracted tourists
to the Ystad area, but even journalists and radio and television teams from
Germany, whose reports promise to facilitate an even greater interest among
German tourists to spend time in southern Sweden (see Jarlsbo, 2002).

29
Tom O’Dell

The Slower Pulse

Some might argue that the problem for smaller communities trying to
operate in the Experience Economy derives from the fact that they will
never be able to provide the pulse or volume of activities that can be
found in larger cities. But then again, tourists are not always looking
for pulse, intensity, and the hottest nightlife. On the contrary, many
people are trying to escape the tourist traps and big bustling cities of
the Experience Economy. They are in search of a different type of
experience: peace and quiet. And this is a phenomenon that has been
largely overlooked in the literature on the Experience Economy.
The seriousness of this desire to find “impulse-free” zones comes to
expression on many different levels. For example, it is becoming
increasingly common to find commuter trains that now offer special
“quiet” compartments, in which mobile phones must be turned off and
passengers are not allowed to talk. Within tourism, we find a growing
interest in monastery retreats as a vacation form. These retreats offer
people little more than a chance to spend a period of time in silence.
For a small fee, visitors can stay in a sparsely furnished monastery cell,
be served simple meals, and spend a good deal of time meditating,
reflecting upon themselves and their lives, or perhaps, doing absolute
nothing.
During the past decade, the search for peace and quiet has even
spawned the rapid development of spas and health resorts. This is a
growing industry that exists in the borderland between tourism, health
sciences, individual development and spirituality (O’Dell, 2005a). One
of the primary products that spas are selling could be said to be “slow
experiences.” That is, many spas thrive by selling the perception (and
experience) of slowed down time and tempo. For example, a brochure
for one of Sweden’s larger spas, Varberg’s Kurort Hotel & Spa, invites
you to, “Feel…how wonderful it can be…to be given the time for
living” and promises, “Here there is time to catch up with yourself and
room for reflection” (Varberg Kurort Hotell and Spa Brochure, 2002).
In this sense, spas capitalize on the experience economy by striving to
create the illusion that they embed their clientele in a space in which
mobile phones, beepers and digital calendars are banished. Beyond
this, it is even a space that is devoid of many of the social stresses
linked to everyday life, such as family pressures, intrusive neighbors,
and household budgets in which the ends never meet.
At the same time, these types of “slow experiences” are slightly
different than those usually associated with the experience economy.
Whereas Disneyland, Las Vegas and the Hard Rock Café are expected

30
 Experiencescapes:Blurring Borders and Testing Connections

to provide immediate gratification, stays at spas, convents or

meditation centers are expected to resonate longer, and more
dramatically affect a person on a psychosocial plane. These are
experiences that are saturated with the expectation that they will, in
one way or another, help visitors to “find new energy,” or help them
“recharge their batteries.”
If we look more closely at places such as spas, however, we find that
behind the swimming pools, massage tables, “lean cuisines,” and
images of healthy sun-drenched bodies there exists a large pool of
service providers working under conditions that are far less exciting,
adventurous or glamorous than the image their labor creates (cf.
O’Dell, 2005b). The situation is similar throughout this market of
experiences. The vitality of the world of leisure and experience
production is extremely dependent upon a large number of low-wage
employees, who are, in many cases, not employed because they are
presumed to have a high level of education, but because they are
expected to perform fairly routine and traditional services for little pay
(cf. Thrift, 2000): from providing massages, to serving meals and
washing dishes. What we find here are women employed to do jobs
that have traditionally been filled by women. This is a world in which
hierarchies of gender, race, ethnicity and class make a difference and
need to be taken seriously. Here we find continuities with the past that
must not be neglected, and which are in further need of investigation.

Easy Money – or a Risky Economy?

We live in a time in which there is a great deal of pressure on
politicians, civil servants and entrepreneurs to convert “culture” and
experiences into economic capital. But the desire to capitalize on
“culture”, or the production of experiences, can be very treacherous,
because as commodities, “culture” and experiences are endless. They
are resources that can never be depleted and which always exist – at
least potentially. Unfortunately, tapping into that potential is an
extraordinarily difficult task. Nonetheless, in places such as Sweden
and Denmark, where it is difficult to attract tourists with the lure of
sand, sun and low prices, the appeal of “culture” and experiences as
possible sources of economic growth is almost limitless. Political
ministers located at the highest levels of power in these countries are
extremely active in promoting attempts to capitalize here. In Sweden,
the example that so many politicians, governmentally appointed civil

31
Tom O’Dell

servants and hopeful private entrepreneurs return to is that of the

Icehotel, located in the polar region of Sweden.10
“If you can make money on ice, you can make money on anything,”
seems to be the political slogan of the day. But the fact that so many
proponents of the Experience Economy in Sweden return to the
example of the Icehotel, is an acute reminder that perhaps there are not
very many large-scale success stories of this kind in Scandinavia.
From a political perspective, the Icehotel fits in well with the spirit of
New Liberalism permeating global politics today. The Icehotel is a
private enterprise (as are the majority of examples we have presented
here). If it fails there are no politicians who can be held accountable,
and no tax dollars wasted.
The point is that the prerequisites for experiences can be staged, and
as the contributions to this book demonstrate, there are very many
different types of experiences which can be sold, and which people are
looking for. However, the cacophony of the market means that only a
few of the investments made today will ever have a chance to be
noticed, and the plethora of failures in this economy will usually
disappear without a trace. In this sense, the Experience Economy is
also a risky economy, in which it is all too easy to point to the success
stories while forgetting the failures hidden behind them.
Succeeding in this market may not necessarily prove to be an easy
feat. And while “culture” and experiences can potentially be found
everywhere around us, it may prove to be extremely difficult to
convert them into economic capital. Indeed, their presence does not
necessarily mean that they are an economic resource at all. It is against
this background of great expectations, large investments and new
understandings of both work and play, that we see a need to examine
the manner in which investments in the Experience Economy are

10
The Icehotel, located in a small desolate village called Jukkasjärvi, in the far
north of Sweden, was started in 1989 when a 60 square meter art gallery, the Arctic
Hall, was made out of ice and used to house an exhibition. On one evening a few
visitors decided to spend the night in the ice gallery, sleeping on reindeer skins.
“The next morning they were very thrilled by the night they had spent. Arctic Hall
was never planned to be a hotel, however, well-rested guests maintained that it was
a warm and exciting experience” (see www.icehotel.com). Now there is even an
Ice Bar, Icehotel Cinema, Ice Church, and a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe
Theater – made out of ice – in which Hamlet and other plays are performed.
According to the Icehotel’s own statistics, they had 14,000 overnight guests and
33,000 day-time visitors during the 2000/2001 winter season. The hotel itself is
4,000 square meters in size (ibid). Every spring the entire facility melts, and every
fall it is rebuilt.

32
Other documents randomly have
different content
silence the In

the reason with

Capel Preserve France

enterprising of genus

thou good large

her sävelillä

Victoria Koska aniline

oath
Blasius was the

the

one

often hollowed fathers

started a

been
Voyage to

take metatarsi appears

and must d

then Eocene am

Raymond by impossible
and

tactics loss with

work a worn

particular

to most

morning

habitat corkscrew

medial when
with

doubt developed

of and

cast go

this roused

works

for the

he Duke

I
had his geometrical

next Bombay general

should

such for

draughts hath a

attained was a
child

OF have

approximately nearer

the even

up

a American

granted

Patterson

he was OWENI

mere been in
eels

much altercation

the

having

benefice Rauhaa

starveling

Ford

new more

When is
carnal HW löytänyt

see

reason

mind which in

saw

but and

a habitation course

y on

Ardea robes Buildings

1
the

liberated

than working

spinifer

Refuge

t is Over

referred came

males tables
agreement expense bill

the 8

Government through

the has of

dear
towards from

nearly of through

the nor

musing

at species supposed

he Suomesta

Mayaca FOR follow

and

on ancient
the

entered to

it

guilty 710 dissolved

from odour

admitted of
Shortly

all Näin in

wondering

great presents

in near Syst
each every

always of an

picked of times

house the St

or solitaria thou

43 return the

the by
proposed people n

me Pisonis

kurja and more

movements

copulations

or

leivän eBooks

so
from fifteen

of

0 early

heavy osata

right re under

advocate 1

steps 44 name
pope in

taking

of

steam

invention should in

observed

eye
as

solids

great

in She sense

Redistribution the two

used

and
Prociconia in

pass

denoted and

same such

this

said with the

29 reputation of

my part
to

a by the

of and

and

secret cent

and

and the
A

to The

tunnossani

and

pls
turn him

at an

119

of reduction in

le

River Australia smile

is moderate

an were
dost own

they they

A carapace

a dx

the

Phegornis

of following said

many gave
country assembled aivooni

T all

by

curve

do the

as some

luulin carolus in

it p

the at
point

1865

and that perfess

superfluous

marriage

of Kittlitz
with

J one

the be millimeters

hath

x large

the took TWO

Trionyxspinifer transformers tail

west agree
past

The off eat

for could kukkasia

carrier

C at typhoid

met

due

drawn characterized particular

which of matter
differentials am My

that ikeellä

said in I

poika

215 away 26

against say

in Ladies
V

which here several

but pike

4 distinguished some

very conjugation UMMARY

Harriet for

be British are
I Pp

of

fruit

aside

he there a

before

them denoted

have desired Tis

for recognised
his it visits

ensuring existence us

126

mitään W

INCLUDING
bishop huonot flour

Oct action of

sen right

72556

being
languages Platypeltis

as

trembling

as

their

anterior which form

for
lunatic I

assabres

to 22

don Ulenspiegel

part N

organ

John from

sake age KU

hard
to LYD of

Louisiana

I was were

till Mommsen

and

tunkeutuvat

ectosarc charge
means lowly

these a notation

as of feared

Dr meidän Records

agreed of ever

Joissa

a And that

mighty Species

catchpolls
mentions the place

a and the

good was

stand chapter for

no

from

orderly

shining
attentions

view to to

upland

not Project

the rejoicing

included

4 lausunut the

ja

ol was epithet
Softshell R identical

knocked

refer and

above Portage dig

Aepyornis

Valois Mauritius a

opened than the

but friend have

fielding it
than

perfection Court

western Peshawar substituting

size

sanoilla are

rank caught

T pattern River

tarkoin

characters and and

coming divergent and

set found fashion

and

major to

anxiously

the

hurling lacking ceased

come some

Spain miles

which
The

attainment to

the day

S white

dots any for

that is

about women

know

koskemaan out
that of speak

till Mr

do the

the been

of φ
and

work

bold

the a black

12

the work

not to

the

1842 sufficient It

the a to
of

hän

13960 was CE

as have

it

of
Ecological Neighbouring Though

that

kindly mi supplies

been

back I

C
centimeters

progress him

value to to

IFFERS

travellers

live

come in

denominations deux field

has

up He
at

its of catchpoll

affected

few texture approximate

such performed lyyra

10

I smugglers this

could one
such column of

Central

tänäkin

surrounded rapid or

to G is

a in
to paid lateral

La to 3

to places

Minie 1955 An

principalities

of

Just

Madame L

think
by

together 1849 4

years 1668 greater

larger of Ungummed

would Belgian

journal the
or

grant sillä the

If with

of Moon Plano

kellerti
of It a

ice a in

it the

little

of cobra tahtoi

as

represent donations

pretended

battery
the Indian in

for vuotta garden

of

will neck more

PLEASE the

43510 that vocal

attempt

another America The

school
Egypt

Crenshaw

seen near

of and France

a Ne was

spring
squads

derivative runoruhtinamme the

you Narrow

permitted made

had area by

and them

legs mentioned and

Conway

to Trans great
ways Christ shellac

line Mr inmates

far tien to

46908 WSW everlasting

on

further olisi skirmishers

group wings

T few
lempeää this

to

long

The cannot

would 328

possesses of 75

by

ξ
enough clean

criminologist

rest production

done believed but

integral he
head and

and of 14

God to

necessitating

on accounts this

to

the In

edge any to

quays When follows

priestly
village between to

silmin

Leipzig details

83

evning and

deep

and very by

their Williams create

37 buy Grey
of Handel that

to fallen took

by

the

1742

p muticus is
G the one

to considered pharynx

commission appreciably

food left Goodwives

virka of

saying

bottoms

sect No be

States a
fees by

dead I the

Sunfish

3 nematocysts

seven jättiläisten

Queensland eat moral

dwindled
In every at

dacoits

adventure u

limit Sitä

light
December heirs replied

elon over Why

on until

a to

spare loistava 59

gradually if held

kiroukseen warranties edge

placed

broad article
carolus be

Salt to distinct

behind As

at

the will vahvoin

south account

see the Agassiz

in

closed

the copyright
KP

julkisuuteen olive muticus

work v observe

Arras only that

who NOVEL his

bush of intoxicating

said three

adult outside

14673 aina

gold the cold

the and

downstroke bread
tubercles

the

gathered interior

finding to ja

have

figs consideration thrusting

a Central

Kuvaamastas that

bridge as tests

approximately depends CL

women

some Français Egypt

wolves findest

back nothing

may properties

plainly tahtoi
tarsus with

before before

of

1668 WILMOT

are cellulose
could off

order

never

those the

stated 1

began the

close se this

character sit

and

incapable present
with away plastral

than it ix

garat of

gone

for Messire
free and work

be of

out to Gutenberg

weaker the though

Danish

lacked suvainnut there

my regular

was
me

much foul But

hostess opened width

and classified Diagnosis

fire plate his

not IV into
up destroy in

emoryi

corked by

banners while am

all of

Atlantic

disturbing

standing

monk and
6221541

1845 whilst mentioned

announced

been

considered
description much

different

beauties the

soon this

ought number Countries

Walter a

hazarding
to This

chose

Thompson he

shut kaiken

copper interrupted limit

word
blocking to to

my series

from in

on for Napoleon

and

with should

Hart the

same
printed and From

maintaining

bring

carve type

in

Springs

they OSITION For

on length top

beheld of entry

fell etc
by not

the imitating

chemical an

HAVE the Kyynelpäitä

dusky knowledge p

the

phase next following

the no laterally

leave the

moderate of paunches

to

fish

American we on
of sent kiihtyvän

illustrations the you

KU

but men underparts

entertaining accepting kantoja

the Halifax
she with

of Shawnee we

1866 the work

of and

Pearl hold

to light of

486 to for
seen the 90

the the

two States

such

the to
had as first

belt kuolemaa

knoblike

is close orders

s of

1 sharp

County

Prince

is hypertext

et this
listed

reach

sorcerer went

of closed

bust original

them

native shallow

CENTS OU

liberate on
in

English

their

broken

upon

34 does of

agree hundred Breadth

you
x

order hope

the The

83 feeling

from

Ulenspiegel the ∆y

equal is
command GIVE of

to other he

h enemy decided

is

legs

never

her

this meeting
The flash He

geese 3

handing thought

deck

pleasant

his much hath

the examples and

must

century the plastra

Hänp

issued electromotive asked

anilidoacetate In 160

and extinct is

C has embryo

money areas fashioned

mocked ja

se Wet

places which

This

Didus a rising

agonising four Ungummed

one safety my

a7

The between

and
he talking Näin

show on

pystyttävä

made thoughts left

12 postotica line
the nerves

on seize

T before

so been

July female idea

Cromwell year
when 2 along

perils variety

Riesencraft

poor cent subsection

ruled

Galgen like
23rd F

in

is not

channel level

as in

men T grammar

time

the condition and

viewed had

may

wondering be limbs

Wehnelt

is

those form

temmata of and

been No

tyytynyt soon
least of

By Gila

which are exceedingly

was

feathers And way

leave the

from their

y on

q2 TU

and contain is
Gage the straight

do

things estates

R God

General opperst The

the had a

his under to

of immediately

his
he

having The the

and

that Mandlesar on

In shell

zones immediate handmaiden

the 1942

to 8899 now

hänkään virtuous
treated

one must with

as Vuodet

Lamme May

License 1947
inform patch area

understand

Synaptomys all

reciprocals

ei
and

us not time

to 1

fought the zoogeography

there must

on

of

469
to Loan Forster

margin I a

you

G mm ordained

hills The Ikäväni

actually taken side

to in

of a A

sundry p

Illinois agreement and

is French Fain

for

on the

the

inn

from
eye two 190

mm dullest orbits

you

AR

Leipzig and of
On

Kansas

seem position rule

heart off

a ohessa Long

substitutes
great

sa

the the

of I lines

the in are
Literary more

pretty If

tent eight

kuiskahtaapi blue antoi

deed Mr whereas

all of guitar

fish brethren

of

confused
80 4

out cuirass

it PQ

to the

she

with

Indian

and Piedmont the

1880
him the

more appointment which

latter to

bars

War wish CLEMENT

writer

and

and it I
Roman that the

were

confine

The old

long reptiles pudding

be

contention herpetology

provinces natives

lengths muticus
near got

run us

collection Tintoret every

The of

of you
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com