performing tourism venetian residents in focus

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 458–476, 20070160-7383/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Printed in Great Britain

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2006.11.002www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

PERFORMING TOURISMVenetian Residents in Focus

Bernadette QuinnDublin Institute of Technology, Ireland

Abstract: In contrast to the growing literature on tourist mobility as a performed art, rela-tively little attention has been paid to resident mobility in tourism places. This paper exam-ines how residents encounter tourists using the concept of tourism as a performance.Drawing on the case of the historic city-center of Venice in northeastern Italy, it exploresthe spatialities produced through the embodied practices of local mobilities. The paper findsthat their movements demonstrated a marked degree of agency. It concludes by arguing thatthe concept of tourism as performance affords useful insights into how local residents are pro-actively and intricately involved in reconfiguring relationships and mobilities with and withintourism places. Keywords: mobility, performance, residents, agency, Venice. � 2007 ElsevierLtd. All rights reserved.

Resume: Tourisme performance: habitants venitiens comme point de mire. Par contrasteavec la litterature croissante sur la mobilite des touristes comme art performance, on a faitrelativement peu d’attention a la mobilite des habitants des endroits touristiques. Cet articleexamine comment les habitants rencontrent les touristes en utilisant le concept du tourismecomme performance. En utilisant le cas du centre-ville historique de Venise, dans le nord-estde l’Italie, on etudie les spatialites produites par les pratiques concretisees des mobiliteslocales. On trouve que les mouvements des habitants demontrent un haut degre d’action.L’article se termine en soutenant que le concept du tourisme comme performance fournitdes perspectives utiles sur l’engagement proactif et complexe des habitants locaux dans lareconfiguration des relations et des mobilites envers et dans les lieux de tourisme. Mots-cles:mobilite, performance, habitants, action, Venise. � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

Globalization undoubtedly underpins the centrality of traveling asa contemporary cultural practice. However, what Bauman (2000)describes as ‘‘liquid modernity’’ is essentially a relational concept as,according to Urry (2000), fixity/groundedness is always the counter-part of mobility. Yet it could be argued that this relational dimensionis under-emphasized in the literature. As Morley notes, if images ofexile, diaspora, time-space compression, migrancy, and ‘‘nomadology’’abound in contemporary social theory, the concept of home, theobverse of all this hyper-mobility, often remains uninterrogated(Morley 2000:427). This is problematic. As Clifford notes, dwelling

Bernadette Quinn is a geographer currently lecturing in the tourism department at theDublin Institute of Technology (Dublin 1, Ireland. Email <[email protected]>). Herresearch interests include tourism and cultural change, festivals and festivity, and culture-related urban regeneration. Her work has been published in such journals as Urban Studies,Social and Cultural Geography, and Tourism Geographies.

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BERNADETTE QUINN 459

now needs to be reconceived, for it is no longer simply the groundfrom which traveling departs and to which it returns (Clifford1997:44). To cite Lury (1997), what is required is an awareness ofthe mutual interdependence of the traveling and dwelling of both peo-ples and objects. Understanding this ‘‘mutual interdependence’’ re-quires acknowledging that, everywhere, the nature of the local isbeing reworked by globalization (Martin 2004). Understanding quitehow that happens is a key research endeavor across many disciplines.For Sassen, the relationality of globalization is crucial, and studyingthe global requires a focus on locally scaled practices and conditionsarticulated with global dynamics (Sassen 2003:3).

This paper focuses on the reworking of the local in tourism contexts.In particular, it concentrates on the processes and practices implicit inthe resident-tourist encounter. Following Joseph and Kavoori (2001), afundamental hypothesis is that locals are not simply passive subjectsacted upon in tourism contexts. Rather, populations who share theirplaces with tourists are active in reconfiguring practices, relationships,and mobilities with and within places. The paper illustrates its argu-ments with insights into how the host negotiates tourists in Venice,one of the most international of all destinations, in northeastern Italy.Questions as to how the presence of tourists prompts residents to altertheir ways of living, adopt deliberate accommodating strategies, or con-test that presence in their locality, are discussed.

PRACTICING AND PERFORMING TOURISM PLACES

The task of further understanding the processes and practices in-volved in tourism encounters can be advanced through the growing lit-erature on practice and performance. For many researchers, theimplications of new mobilities for informing practices in destinationsare best analyzed using the concept of tourism as performance (Bæren-holdt, Haldrup, Larsen and Urry 2004; Coleman and Crang 2002;Edensor 2001). For example, instead of seeing places as relatively fixedentities, juxtaposed in analytical terms with more dynamic flows oftourists, images, and cultures, researchers should conceive of them asbeing created through performance (Coleman and Crang 2002:1).According to Bærenholdt et al, spaces should be understood as entitiesthat are practiced, performed, or stabilized, rather than being simplypassed through. These authors conceive of places as ‘‘contingently sta-bilized sources of deeply held meanings and attachments’’, yet they ar-gue that they must also be seen to be rooted in ‘‘networks that enableparticular embodied and material performances to occur’’ (2004:140).

Sheller and Urry write in a similar vein, arguing that destinations areconstantly being performed and constitute ‘‘places in play: made andremade by the mobilities and performances of tourists and workers,images and heritage, the latest fashions and newest diseases’’(2004:1). These are said to materialize through the multiple mobilitiesand various performances that stretch in, through, over, and under anyapparently distinct locality (Bærenholdt et al 2004:145). Spaces are

460 PERFORMING TOURISM

reproduced in this process, as tourists’ movements are not incidentalbut conscious ways of encountering and experiencing places and peo-ple (Haldrup 2004).

Adopting this theoretical stance means that place cannot be consid-ered to exist separately from what happens there. They are fluid entitiesthat change depending on the mobilities, performances, and encoun-ters ongoing among and between a range of actors at any given time.They are, in effect, multilayered phenomena, where different types ofperformances and encounters occur at several levels, among and be-tween heterogeneous constituencies. Equally, tourism too is bestthought of as a dynamic practice. Crouch (2000) argues that it is mostusefully conceptualized as a process that continuously makes and re-makes images, experiences, economies, places, routines, and practices.Both of these conceptual positions problematize some of the binarythinking that can be found in the literature. Bærenholdt et al (2004),for example, fundamentally contest the dominant paradigm which as-sumes a clear distinction between tourists and the destinations they visit.

The mobility paradigm emerging within the literature has high-lighted how complexities of networking, encountering, and exchang-ing are central in explaining the continuous shaping and reshapingof place. Yet, writings to date have often preferred to problematizecomplexity by focusing on tourists alone. Both Sheller and Urry(2004) and Bærenholdt et al (2004) acknowledge that the perfor-mances of ‘‘hosts’’ contribute to the dynamism of place. However, theysimultaneously stress the special importance of ‘‘guests’’. A key argu-ment here is that residents are equally implicated in the performanceprocesses ongoing in destinations every day. If performance is to beappropriately conceptualized, then understanding how locals areimplicated in complex ways of encountering, negotiating, controlling,and contesting the presence of tourists is as important as understand-ing the roles played by the latter. This paper thus follows Mordue(2005) in suggesting that considering how residents encode and enactperformances that compare and compete with tourists occupying thesame space constitutes a fresh and important analytical approach.

Analyzing Local Performances

Residents have been of major interest to researchers studying tour-ism contexts. The literature on their attitudes, for example, has beendescribed by McGehee and Andereck (2004) as one of the most system-atic and well-studied areas. It is strongly theorized, drawing in a major-ity of cases on social exchange theory, and very well advanced in its taskof explaining how and why they favor/disapprove of development.Conceptualization of their active engagement with tourists or withdevelopment processes is less extensive but growing. A predominanttrend within this literature has been a move away from the ‘‘earlier for-mulations of ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ that assumed that ‘us’ and ‘them’were clearly differentiated in tourist encounters’’ (Abrams andWaldren 1997:5). Recent research (Mordue 2005; Waldren 1997)


emphasizes how the heterogeneity of resident groups is a major sourceof complexity and argues that the label ‘‘local’’ does not represent anundifferentiated social or ethnic community. Rather, it is shown to beassociated with highly nuanced relations of power in ways that disruptsimplistic resident/tourist dualisms (Mordue 2005).

Tucker’s (1997) work in Goreme, Turkey, for example, discusses howlocal people, in representing both themselves and their place to tour-ists, variously accept, resist, and control tourist’s engagement with theirdaily lives. Elsewhere, Joseph and Kavoori’s (2001) research on hostsdiscusses how discourses of resistance to tourism are used by localsto adapt to tourism-driven cultural change in a Hindu pilgrimage cen-ter in Pushkar, India. While these studies are conceived without refer-ence to performance as such, they clearly detail how oppositionalpractices to tourism in particular places assume many of the attributesof political theatre. In the latter case, for example, the authors describehow forms of rhetoric drawing on social tensions, religious beliefs, andpolitical ideals enable community residents to vent their grievancesabout the industry through such practices as writing slogans on walls,participating in public meetings that criticize tourism and absolvethe locals of all blame, and condemning the government for failingto act appropriately (Joseph and Kavoori 2001:7). These actions, in ef-fect, enable the local population to continue to participate in tourismwhile simultaneously appearing to be markedly opposed to the culturalchanges being wrought in the process. There is an obvious ambiguityin the agency consciously enacted by the locals in this study which hintsat the complexities at issue in tourism encounters.

The question of ambiguity also arises in Ridler’s work on the Fer-ragosto celebrations in the Italian Alps. He clearly describes how localsengage in the celebrations as a way of ‘‘articulating who they are ... notonly with regard to a tourist audience, but in relation to locally con-tested senses of place and selfhood’’ (2004:93). He concludes by sug-gesting that public performances for tourism may have as much todo with publicly differentiating individual and collective senses of iden-tity in the host arena as with communicating with tourist audiences.The idea of local agency again comes through in Tucker (1997) whenshe demonstrates how people, particularly local entrepreneurs, areable to ‘‘condition’’ tourism in Goreme in their own way. Empiricallygrounded studies such as these support Meethan’s (2001) argumentthat localized forms of knowledge are informed by interaction pro-cesses comprising both internal and external dynamics. They furthersupport Cheong and Miller’s theoretical position that host populationscan exercise considerable power over tourism development by eitherendorsing it or resisting it, or by ‘‘controlling the behavior of touristsin subtle but effective ways’’ (Cheong and Miller 2000:382).

The Case of Venice

Venice is a useful site for analysis in this regard. Its place in the Euro-pean tourism imagination is unrivalled. According to Fontini Brown


(1997:9), Venice was an attraction long before the term was ever in-vented, and, as Cosgrove (2003) suggests, it has long been a focal pointin the evolution of Europe’s heritage landscape. The city is recorded ashaving had official tour guides since 1204, and as early as the 15th cen-tury official guides were to be found at key city sites, interpreting andchanging money for foreign tourists. By this time, guided tours of anumber of sites in the city, including the Arsenale, the glass-makingworks at Murano, and the Doge’s palace, were also available (Burke1987:188). Until the 17th century, the practice of receiving tourists, dis-playing Venice’s wonderful heritage, and consolidating an interna-tional reputation as a city unparalleled for its beauty, pleasures, andmajesty was very much a consequence of its great power as a tradingand manufacturing center. By the mid-17th century this began tochange, and gradually its economic dominance, founded on tradeand manufacturing, started to fade. According to McNeill (1974:224),Venice’s urban economy from then on came to depend very largelyon its role as ‘‘a pleasure ground’’. According to Zanetto (1986), tour-ism has been a central part of Venetian culture and society since at leastthe 18th century. Initially, it functioned as a ‘‘must see’’ destination forthe aristocracy making their European Grand Tour (Cosgrove 2003;Redford 1996). By the mid-19th century, it had become for most peoplea tourism destination (Cosgrove 1982:146) (see Figure 1).

Early in the post-war period, flows into Venice reached unprece-dented proportions. In 1952 more than 500,000 tourists spent 1.2 mil-lion bednights in the historic city-center. By the mid-90s, it was hosting7–8 million arrivals (Montanari and Muscara 1995). Crucially, however,by then, the number of overnights was being far outstripped by thepresence of day-trippers. By 1999, arrivals had reached 12 million orapproximately 100,000 each day during the peak season, and by2002, it was estimated that of this total, some 80% were day-trippers(Van der Borg 2002). These figures represent an exceeding of the city’scarrying capacity by some two million tourists annually (Van der Borg2002). Over time, the ratio of tourists to residents in the historic centerhas risen from 6.46:1 in 1951 to 45.53:1 in 1995. If excursionists aretaken into account, the latter figure increases to 89.4:1 for 1995 (Vander Borg and Russo 1997). As these authors show, this ratio far exceedsthat experienced in other leading European cities such as Bruges, Salz-burg, Florence, or Oxford. The unique geography of the historic city-center, a 700-hectare clustering of islands in a lagoon, further compli-cates the situation. Vehicular movement is restricted to water. Largewatercraft navigate the canals that dissect and surround the landmass,while smaller craft transport people and goods along and across thenumerous smaller rios. Otherwise, movement is pedestrian.

There is now ample evidence to argue that tourism, in effect, hastaken over the historical Venice. Demographic statistics point to thepersistent hemorrhaging of the city’s population since the 50s (Costaand Van der Borg 1993; Montanari and Muscara 1995; Van der Borgand Russo 1997), as people have moved onto the mainland, conse-quent from the overwhelming predominance of tourism and its‘‘crowding out’’ effect on the local economy (Russo 2002; Zanetto

Figure 1. City of Venice


1986, 1998). Rising house costs, the difficulties of finding employmentoutside of tourism, and depreciation in the quality of life because ofcongestion and over-crowding in public spaces, transport, and otherservices, have meant that 100,000 have moved from the historic city-center to the mainland part of the city (Zanetto 1986). In 1950, thepopulation of the center stood at 184,000. By 2000 it was less than70,000. The historic city’s population continues to decline at a rateof some 0.5% per annum (Russo 2002).

Not only has the population contracted sharply, it has also lost agood deal of its social complexity, becoming increasingly skewed to-wards older, socially elite cohorts. The average age of the core popula-tion is close to 50 years, some 10 years higher than that in the mainlandpart of the city. Similarly, the socioeconomic status of the city-centerpopulation is higher and more homogeneous than that of its mainlandcounterpart (Zanetto 1998). The demographic, social, and economicchanges evidenced in available statistics have prompted researchersto conclude that historic Venice has in fact been overwhelmed by tour-ism and that it is now malfunctioning in the extreme.

When Turco and Zanetto (1983) surveyed Venetians about the prob-lems facing the city, they found that those posed by the presence of


tourists were perceived as more onerous than the risk from periodicflooding. Later in the 80s, Zanetto (1986) described residents vyingfor space in the public domain and the city’s transport networks. Sincethen, arrivals, and particularly, excursionists have surged (Costa andManente 1996, Van der Borg and Russo 1997). Russo (2002) notes thatthe overnight tourist: resident ratio can reach a peak of 50:1 in the his-toric core. When excursionists are included, this ratio increases to175:1. Faced with tourists who consider it appropriate to wear bathingattire in the city, to picnic on the steps of churches, and to block pedes-trian routes to get a good photograph, Venetians feel they have be-come part of a minority culture or folklore group, living in a sort ofDisneyland (Cosgrove 2003; Zanetto 1986:120).

Not surprisingly, the city is said to have developed a love-hate rela-tionship with tourism, with two groups in continual conflict: one livingoff tourism, the other in spite of it (Costa and van der Borg 1988). Sur-prisingly, only a relatively small number of those employed in Veniceearn their living from tourism (De Rita 1993). Equally startling is thefact that little if any work has been undertaken on local perspectiveson tourism encounters (personal communication with Centro Intern-azionale di Studi sull’ Economia Turistica in 2002).

While the extremes in the situation make it tempting to concur withthe interpretation outlined above, the new mobility paradigm dis-cussed earlier prompts some re-analysis. This new paradigm conteststhe distinction drawn between tourists and their destinations (Bæren-holdt et al 2004), arguing instead that what is at issue is a complexrelationality of places and peoples connected through diverse perfor-mances. If this is the case, then Venice as a place becomes inseparablefrom its tourism function. Given its centuries-old engagement withtourism, this is profoundly the case. Those Venetians who reside inthe historic center, by definition, do so in ways that inherently embodyencounters with tourists. To live here is to live with them. Such living,according to the work of Bærenholdt (2004), Coleman and Crang(2002), Crouch (2000), Edensor (2001), and others is about perform-ing a series of roles, sometimes multiple ones simultaneously, depend-ing on varying contexts. The empirical case reported below seeks toidentify and analyze these performing roles by examining how localresidents perform encounters with tourists ‘‘on the ground’’.

Study Methods

The data for this study were gathered over a period of 9 months in2001–2002. Most was gathered through a survey of local residents ofthe historic city-center of Venice undertaken in February 2002. A totalof 158 year-round residents were surveyed in public places using astructured questionnaire that employed a combination of brief,close-ended questions and more probing, open-ended queries. Theformer were designed to gather relatively simple, factual information.The latter were designed to allow respondents to detail and elaboratetheir views, and to explain and comment on their mobility and lifestyle


patterns. In a majority of cases, respondents availed themselves of theopportunity to talk in detail, often giving lengthy answers to questions.In consequence, the survey, which took approximately 20–30 minutesto administer, produced rich qualitative data. Comments andresponses from respondents are quoted in detail in the following sec-tions. The survey used a stratified random sample to represent theage and gender distribution of the historic-center population. The sur-veys were used in residential districts throughout the city at times thatstretched from week-days to weekends and from mornings through toearly evenings. They were administered by native Italian speakers, allMaster students registered on a tourism program at the University ofVenice. Further data were gathered through a series of semistructuredinterviews conducted with a range of tourism academics, local author-ity officials, and tourism board personnel and policymakers in the city,identified through purposive sampling.

Given the central position adopted in this paper, that residents arenot simply passive subjects who are acted upon in tourism contexts,but instead are active performers engaged in reconfiguring practices,relationships, and mobilities, it is important to acknowledge the perfor-mative nature of the surveying process so central to this study. Theknowledge produced through this research and disseminated throughthis paper recognizes that individual respondents can exercise controlover both the quality and the quantity of the information thatthey share. Undoubtedly this has been the case in this study. Some par-ticipants were relatively more forthcoming, animated, cautious, orinterested than others. Some were relatively more conscious of per-forming the role of ‘‘resident’’ in a city which happens to be one ofthe most visited in the world. Recognition of this fact is demandedby the theoretical underpinnings of this type of research. So too isacknowledgement that its findings must be interpreted in this light.Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge the unavoidable possibil-ity that what interviewees say they do may differ from what they actuallydo. Much of the knowledge purportedly produced here is about peo-ple’s mobilities, but more accurately, it is about their self-reportedmobilities. This methodological problem is difficult to overcome, butit is at least important to be cognizant of its existence when interpret-ing the findings.

Performing Encounters with Tourists

The first part of the survey questioned respondents on their involve-ment with tourism. Almost 28% described themselves as being eco-nomically dependent on it. Eleven per cent were in continuous anddirect contact with tourists and dependent on this industry for a living.The remaining 17% were in regular and direct contact and derivedonly some income from them. This proportion of the sample includedpeople directly employed in tourism and also in closely related supplysectors, as well as business and property owners. A further 62% claimedto have no relationship with tourists other than to encounter them


around the city. The remaining 10% described themselves as owningbusinesses that had no contact with them. It seems surprising to reportthat 62% claim to have no economic relationship with the industry in acity so closely associated with it. Yet, this is in line with findings fromearlier research (De Rita 1993), which also notes that only relativelyfew Venetians actually earn their living from tourism.

Three questions were used to probe whether and how the presenceof tourists influenced residents’ lifestyles. The first was a close-endedquestion that simply asked whether the presence of tourists influencestheir lifestyle. Clearly, for the 28% economically involved in the indus-try, it plays a major role in their lives. When asked the same, almostidentical figures, 70.6% and 70.4% of those dependent and partiallydependent on tourism, said yes. Somewhat surprisingly, the responsesof residents not economically involved in it differed little. Some 62.5%of non-tourism business owners said that their lifestyle was affected, asdid 68.8% of those who claimed to have no economic dependency onthis industry. Thus, the degree of economic dependency appears not togreatly influence the extent to which the presence of tourists affectsresidents’ lifestyles. It is interesting to note that this contrasts withthe study’s findings on residents’ attitudes to tourism. Reported in de-tail at a later stage in the paper, the findings reveal that these attitudesvaried markedly with their economic dependency on it.

The general question as to how the tourists in the city influencedlocal lifestyles was then investigated through an open-ended questionwhich asked respondents to elaborate what they meant when they saidthat the presence of tourists did/did not influence their lifestyle. Thiswas then further explored through more specific questions designed toidentify the way tourism affects how residents ‘‘live’’ in the city. Usingopen-ended responses, just over 89 respondents elaborated on thisproposition. The types of influences identified were grouped intothe following categories: time-space mobility, general comfort/easeof living with tourists, and income and employment. It was individualmobility in both time and space that was most affected. Sixty-ninerespondents explained how their movement was consistently compro-mised because of the tourist presence. These constraints were experi-enced in the public transport system and spaces more generally.Repeatedly, participants said that they could not use the vaporetti(the boats which comprise the city’s water-based public transport sys-tem) because they were ‘‘always full of tourists’’, ‘‘over-crowded,’’and subject to delays because of the pressure on the system.

People spoke of ‘‘being late for work because the vaporetti are alwaysfull and you have to wait for the next one’’, and of ‘‘having to take anearlier one to get to work on time’’. In response to these circum-stances, respondents tended to confine their usage of the vaporetti tocertain times, or to avoid public transport altogether and walk instead.Moving through the city on foot, however, is similarly problematic.They spoke of consistently having to try to avoid the areas crowded withtourists. They considered that that ‘‘it was necessary to avoid certainzones’’, that it was important to ‘‘know alternative routes’’ and to‘‘look for short cuts’’. Certain parts of the city were acknowledged as

Table 1. Residents’ Time-Space Mobility

Problem Residents’ Responses

Public transport becomesOvercrowded and congested Avoid public transport and walkInefficient because of delays Use public transport creatively (take a variety

of ‘‘round-about’’ routes toreach a destination)

Only usable at certain times Confine usage to certain times

Public piazze and routeways areBlocked by the physical presence of tourists Zigzag through the crowdsBlocked by the behavior of tourists Avoid central spaces and main streets, skirt

around the peripheriesKey arteries (mainly bridges)

become impassibleTake short cuts and alternateroutes (side-streets, ‘‘round-about’’circuits, etc.)


being ‘‘no go areas’’. Several spoke about trying to avoid the ‘‘historiccenter’’ in general, while others singled out specific areas as ones thatare best avoided. The Rialto (the bridge and the surrounding area),Piazza San Marco, the Strada Nova, and Salute were labeled as particu-larly problematic. If locals must go to Piazza San Marco, for example,then they tend not to pass by the Rialto, but instead to take alternativeroutes, perhaps via Piazza San Margherita (see Table 1).

Respondents found that it was becoming ‘‘more difficult to avoid thetourists’’, who, problematically, slowed local people down. As one putit, ‘‘Venetians must adopt the rhythm of tourists’’. There was a strongsense in which locals felt themselves to have little control over their tra-vel time within the city. They frequently spoke of being forced to slowdown and take longer than they would wish to move around the city.Having to walk because of congestion on the vaporetti/traghetti madejourney times longer. Negotiating tourists on the streets and pathwaysmeant that locals must ‘‘walk zigzag’’, weaving in and out of touristgroups in a way that slowed them down. They spoke of always havingto take secondary streets, the longer and roundabout pedestrianroutes, in order to avoid the crowds. Some spoke about waiting to de-cide on the best routes to take, until they saw how busy the vaporetti/streets were.

The findings emerging through respondents’ elaborated statementswere reinforced in the answers to the more direct questions. As Table 2shows, over half (56.3%) said that the presence of tourists influencedthe routes they chose to move around. Close to one-quarter said thattourists influenced the timing of their movements and their frequencyof going to certain areas. While there were indications that residents’efforts to time their movements relative to the tourist presence variedby season, this was not extensively reported. In the open-endedresponses, for example, some highlighted two peak periods (summerand carnival seasons) as being particularly problematic. However, there

Table 2. Tourists’ Influence on Residents’ Mobility within the City

Does the Presence of Tourists Influence the: No (%) Yes (%)

Routes you choose to move around the city? 56.3 43.7Frequency with which you go to certain parts of the city? 26.6 73.4Timing of your movements around the city? 23.4 76.6Parts of the city in which you tend to

concentrate your day-time activities?20.9 79.1

Parts of the city in which you tend toconcentrate your night-time activities?

12.0 88.0


was a sense that the business of negotiating tourists in space was a con-stant endeavor.

The findings in Table 2 highlight a difference in how respondentsconsider themselves to be relatively constrained by day and night.When asked whether the presence of tourists influenced where theyconcentrated their day-and night-time activities, more people consid-ered their day-time activities to be affected. This response reflects theoverwhelming predominance of excursionists in the Venice touristprofile. These typically create pressure on central zones and keytransport hubs at particular times. The historic center at night canbe a curiously deserted place, even during peak times such as carnival.It is not surprising that just 12% of local residents felt constrained intheir night-time mobility. This is because by that time most of thetourists have returned to their accommodation base, in one of thecoastal resorts, in the mainland part of the city, or in another mainlandcity.

Living with Tourists

As the above discussion shows, the tourist presence demands that res-idents continuously engage with the spaces in their city creatively.These are not static, unchanging entities that can be taken for granted.No less than tourists’, residents’ movements in the city are not inciden-tal. The findings demonstrate a strong sense of how locals’ mobility un-folds in tandem with that of tourists. Residents move in certain ways, atcertain times, and at a certain pace because of the interference. Thiswas the case for a majority of particpants, little influenced by theiractual involvement in the industry.

More generally, moving beyond mobility-related performances,respondents’ reporting of this situation communicated a general senseof dissatisfaction with the tourist presence in the city. This is not onlybecause ‘‘too many tourists means you can’t move’’ but also because,from the perspective of many residents, ‘‘tourists don’t respect Vene-tians’’. Frustration, impatience, and irritation could describe the gen-eral tone pervading survey responses. ‘‘Irritating’’, in particular, wasa key word because often there was a sense of being overwhelmed bytourists and of being disregarded and disrespected by the ‘‘tourist inva-


sion’’. Minca and Oakes (2006) engagingly describe how easy it is fortourists to feel that this city was built for them, and that everyone inVenice is performing some sort of tourism-related role. However, lis-tening to residents, what becomes apparent is that thousands of resi-dents also endeavor to carry out regular, daily-life activities in thecourse of their routine ‘‘home’’ life. In doing so, they do not wantto be photographed chatting to their neighbors, or delayed carryinghome their shopping. Yet this happens regularly, as tourists ambleslowly along, gazing all the while, obstruct narrow passageways to standand consult their maps, stop to take photographs of the main churchesand piazza, the bustling local markets, the tiny rios with people’s laun-dry hanging overhead, the food supplies being ferried along the canal,and so on. For some this sort of behavior was viewed as inappropriateand was interpreted to mean ‘‘there’s a lack of respect for those wholive here’’.

All of this causes a certain sense of unease and discomfort aboutsharing space with tourists in Venice. Yet, several respondents pointedout that tourists were not all perceived equally and that certain typesand their behaviors were infinitely preferable to others. ‘‘Excursion-ists’’ and ‘‘mass tourism’’ were considered negatively in this regard.These were the real cause for concern: ‘‘There are different types oftourism [in Venice]; I can deal with the Film Festival and the Bienniale,but I don’t like mass tourism’’; ‘‘it’s not tourism, it’s only excursionists,they stay for a while and that’s it!’’; ‘‘Venice shouldn’t have mass tour-ism because it destroys the city’’; And ‘‘The city should select its tour-ists’’. In spite of the irritation, there was little sense of hostility, rather apragmatic resignation: ‘‘I try to live with them’’, said one respondent.By contrast, for a minority, the presence of tourists was enthusiasticallywelcomed because it invigorated the declining and predominantlyelderly population of the city. Encounters with tourists were deliber-ately sought after because they give the opportunity for new socialinteraction: ‘‘I go to the places where tourists can be found to get toknow new girls’’; ‘‘I go to the tourist areas to get to know some newpeople’’.

Two survey questions specifically asked respondents to consider themain benefits and costs of tourism. They were first given a table con-taining a list of indicative benefits and costs and were then asked toidentify what they considered to be the most important five of each.Table 3 outlines the findings. Clearly, economic issues dominated peo-ple’s minds. These indicators ranked highest with respect to both costsand benefits in a way that made it impossible to determine which car-ried greatest weight. With respect to the benefits, it is obvious that eco-nomic outcomes were prevalent. Venetians credit tourism with theability to generate employment, to increase demand for locally pro-duced artisan products, and to improve per capita income in a generalsense. However, economic outcomes also predominated when partici-pants were asked to identify the main costs associated with tourism.Most frequently, they blamed it for increasing the price of goods andservices, for elevating property prices, and for generating waste. Allof these are highly tangible, measurable costs. Thus, while residents

Table 3. Local Perspectives on the Main Benefits and Costs of Tourism

Main Benefits of Tourism (N = 158) % Main Costs of Tourism (N = 158) %

Increases employment opportunities 69.6 Increases price of goods and services 70.3Increases demand for local

artisanal products46.8 Causes over-crowding/congestion 67.7

Improves cultural service provision 34.2 Increases the costs of property 55.7Improves per capita income 31.0 Creates waste 50.6Preserves historic buildings

and monuments31.0 Creates resentment/negative

feelings towards tourists21.5

Enriches local culture throughcontact with outsiders

27.8 Transforms the city intoa museum/playground

17.1

Improves the city’stransport infrastructure

11.4 Detracts from the enjoymentof living in Venice

13.9

Improves public services 8.2 Decreases opportunitiesfor shopping

10.1

Increases provision ofpublic recreational spaces

5.7 Makes it difficult to goto museums/theatres, etc.

8.2

Improves residents’ quality of life 4.4 Discourages people frombringing their childreninto the city-center

8.2


are alert to the economic gains to be made from tourism, they are alsovery strongly aware of the obvious economic costs involved.

Conversely, specific cultural benefits were perceived by roughly onethird of the sample, who cited improved service provision and the pres-ervation of historic buildings and monuments. More generally, how-ever, while more than a quarter of the sample (27.8%) identified abroader cultural benefit in the enrichment of local culture throughcontact with outsiders, there was little sense that tourism in Venice isperceived to contribute positively to residents’ quality of life. Relativelyfew accredited tourism with improving the quality of service provisionin either transport, recreation, or in general public service contexts.Meanwhile just 4.4% actually chose to identify ‘‘improves the qualityof life’’ as a benefit of tourism. In contrast, several of the costs identi-fied related to quality of life issues. Almost 51% attributed the creationof waste to the presence of tourists. A further 67.7% related overcrowd-ing and congestion while 21.7% indicated that one of the major costswas that it created resentment or negative feelings towards tourists.

Respondents were also asked to consider whether benefits or costsweighed most heavily by indicating agreement with a number of state-ments. Just over 16% chose to indicate that there was an acceptable bal-ance between the costs and the benefits. The remainder was almostevenly divided, with 42.2% considering that the costs outweigh the ben-efits and 41.5% affirming the converse. When residents were re-grouped with respect to economic dependency on tourism, thefindings became more diversified. Those economically dependentwere much more likely to indicate that the benefits outweighed thecosts (62.5%), as against to those of the opposing opinion (18.8%).


Among those with no reliance on tourism, the equivalent figures were33.3% and 51.1%. In terms of practicing tourist encounters, however,there was little significant difference among groups either in terms ofage, length of residency, location of residence within the city-center, oreven economic dependency. This suggests that the extraordinary pres-ence of tourists in the city is pervasive in the extent to which it condi-tions living. In real and pragmatic ways, this industry creates a series ofchallenges that the resident must continuously and actively seek toovercome. These were felt at the level of the individual, in economicas well as sociocultural terms. In elaborating what it meant to say thatthe presence of tourists influenced their lifestyle, a small number men-tioned that this business was their livelihood and their source of in-come. However, other respondents spoke about how tourism‘‘increases the cost of living’’, that ‘‘the prices in the places frequentedby tourists are too high,’’ and that ‘‘it only benefits those who work intourism’’. Added to this were the considerable difficulties (already dis-cussed) encountered in negotiating the tourist presence getting to andfrom work.

CONCLUSION

This paper has explored what it means to say that destinations aredynamic entities, continuously being ‘‘performed’’ by groups of actors.It follows Bærenholdt et al (2004) in arguing that tourism activities arenot separate from the places that happen contingently to be visited.The implication is that places change depending on the weight ofthe tourist presence, and on where and when it is most felt. Once en-gaged, places and the spaces within them, are in a constant state offlux. An initial stimulus for this paper was the fact that thus far itseemed that residents had received little attention in discussions onhow tourism places are performed.

A key finding has been that mobilities, and the spaces and route wayswithin which they unfold, are consciously constructed by both touristsand locals. Haldrup (2004) approaches this mobility as a performedart, and explores the spatialities produced through the embodied prac-tices of tourist movements. What became obvious here is that localmobility is also a performed art, one that is carried out contrapuntallywith that of tourists. The process of living with tourists in Venice de-mands considerable energy as residents are forced to continuouslyre-interpret and creatively negotiate the space in their city. For muchof the time, for example, it may not be possible to take the straightfor-ward pathway to work. Similarly, it may not be possible to take a vapo-rettoi at an ‘‘obvious’’ time.

Instead, Venetians must be one step ahead, anticipating the crowds,planning their movements for certain times and thinking about alter-nate, short-cut or roundabout ways of getting to their destinations.Effective local mobility, in the context of such a heavy tourist presencerequires a conscious engagement with the possibilities afforded by thecity’s water- and landspaces. The degree of conscious effort involved


came across very strongly in the responses of those who are no longerable to cope with the tourist presence. Of these usually older respon-dents, a few said, ‘‘I rarely leave my house and when I do I just go tothe same few streets’’; ‘‘I avoid the historic center and the vaporetti. Idon’t move from the house’’; or ‘‘the crowds make me ill’’. However,younger respondents also spoke of ‘‘seeking out areas less frequentedby tourists in order to be left in peace’’ and of only going out to eat anddrink in local peripheries, as opposed to city-center places. Sometimes,the task of battling for space becomes too much and locals simply avoidthe places where they anticipate a strong tourist presence.

Thus, these are city spaces that cannot be taken for granted. New spa-tialities are reproduced continuously depending on the weight of tour-ist presence. Local residents spoke about deciding how to travel towork once they could see how many tourists were around, and ofchanging plans at the last minute depending on how busy they foundcertain exhibitions/galleries. Locals, with their intimate knowledge ofthe city, draw upon a store of diverse and dynamic ways to movearound, as and when the need arises. Negotiating space is a major chal-lenge. There is a sense in which the presence of tourists forces theVenetian to become intimately familiar with the intricate geographyof the city, with its myriad of alley-ways, side streets, canals, and bridges.Understanding the possibilities afforded by the spaces of the city con-stitutes the Venetians’ trump card. Their knowledge of hidden, periph-eral, background spaces is their key advantage over the tourist and acritical strategy in coping with that presence.

It is notable that residents’ behavior in negotiating the tourist pres-ence did not seem to be influenced by their relationship with theindustry. This is in contrast to their attitudes, which in line with exist-ing research findings tended to be strongly influenced by their eco-nomic dependence on tourism. As already discussed, extensiveattention has been paid to the latter, and yet conclusions drawn in thatregard may be of little value in furthering understanding of the former,which has received less focus to date.

A key finding has been that mobilities among locals and tourists areclosely interdependent. Some locals, not necessarily defined by factorsof age, gender, or economic status, consciously move towards tourists,seeking to engage in the same time-space, hoping for new encountersto enliven regular social interaction. However, more commonly, resi-dents try to avoid tourists. The latter move in particular ways, at partic-ular times and paces, and the rhythms and patterns that they createinfluence how, when, and where locals move. They move along distinctpathways and cluster in special zones. In response, locals seek out alter-native pathways and zones. Tourists circulate at a leisurely pace, andbecause of their numbers, force locals to adapt to their rhythm, when-ever they share the same space.

One implication of this is that the local mobilities identified throughthese survey findings implicitly create opportunities for tourist mobil-ity. In seeking out the laneways and alley-ways, side streets, and mar-ginal routes in order to promote their own mobility, residentseffectively ‘‘empty out’’ certain spaces for tourists. These spaces


include the vaporetti, the main piazze, especially Piazza San Marco, anda number of key pedestrian arteries, as from Piazza San Marco to theRialto. This process of ‘‘stepping aside’’ permits tourists to enter, circu-late in their own time, experience a sense of the city, and leave. Oneoverarching interpretation of this pattern is to argue that tourists dis-place residents, that their presence impacts negatively upon residents,and that the latter are discommoded and constrained in how theymove around the city.

However, pursuing the position that conceives of the tourist place asa performed reality, facilitates an alternative interpretation. It could beargued that the patterns of mobility adopted and practiced by residentsconstitute a strategy that effectively, yet very subtly, controls the touristpresence in the city. As Cheong and Miller suggest, ‘‘the power of thelocal gaze on tourists can lead [them] to quickly understand wherethey might go and what they might do’’ (Cheong and Miller2000:85). In Venice, while the action of moving aside to let touristsdominate certain spaces creates an opportunity for their mobility, itsimultaneously has the effect of encouraging them to remain confinedwithin these spaces. Those central pedestrian and water-way arteries,the main attractions, and the large piazze become extremely busyand very frustrating for residents to negotiate. However, elsewhere,in the myriad of route ways adjacent to these central zones, residentscan move with relative ease. It is argued here that the established pat-tern which sees tourists stay only for short periods, mainly in centralspaces, and see only a handful of iconic attractions, is, in fact, criticalin making it possible for locals to co-dwell with tourists in Venice.

Acknowledging the validity of this argument would, however, proble-matize prevailing approaches to managing tourism in the city. It haslong been recognized that the temporal and spatial concentration oftourists, mostly excursionists, in the central spaces of the city is hugelyproblematic from a management perspective (Van der Borg and Russo1997; Russo 2002). In recent times, a key local authority response (Il Co-mune di Venezia) has been the introduction of a management toolcalled the ‘‘Venice Card’’. Initiated in 2002, the card aims to dispersetourists throughout the historic center and to convert daytrips into over-night stays. Were it to succeed, it would mean that tourists would thenbegin to invade those ‘‘off-the-beaten-track’’ spaces and marginal routeways that are so critical in residents’ strategies of co-dwelling with tour-ists. At present, while some residents highlighted two peak seasons (Car-nival in February and summertime), tourism in the city is increasinglyaseasonal. In 2002, seven ‘‘traditional events’’, officially supportedand marketed by the City Comune, were spread over eight months ofthe year. These begin with the Carnival in February, continue withthe Rowing Season from April to September, and end with the Festa del-la Madonna della Salute in November. Thus, as there is little temporalrespite from the business of performing in the tourist city, residents relyon creating their own distinctive local spatialities. Were these to be dis-rupted, how then would residents negotiate the tourist presence?

Conceiving of place as a performed reality raises further issues. Froma tourist perspective, for example, the performed dimension of the


place being experienced means that while they may perceive themselvesto be experiencing the real Venice, complete with ‘‘real’’ Venetians, inall likelihood, the majority of encounters in central city spaces are tour-ist-tourist ones. This appears in the challenge involved in taking a pho-tograph in Venice that does not contain an image of another tourist.While they clearly encounter many Venetians, most of these, exceptthose passing through en route to elsewhere, are likely performing somesort of obvious hospitality, transport, or other service role. An awarenessof this raises a series of questions for tourists’ experiences of place.

At this point, the question arises as to the extent to which the ‘‘Ven-ice effect’’ is at play in this analysis. Is this study sample too atypical be-cause of the city at issue? Would similar sorts of conclusions be drawnfrom studies of residents in other cities less defined by their historicallyrooted relationship with tourists? Undoubtedly Venice is ‘‘special’’. Itwas, as Fontini Brown (1997:9) suggested, an attraction long beforethe term was ever invented. It is impossible to speak of Venice withoutspeaking of tourism. People living in the historic city-center live, virtu-ally year-round, with it. It has been described as a themepark (Mincaand Oakes 2006:3). In this context, the specific particularities of thecity would seem to limit the possibility of drawing generalizations fromthis study, and that is the position taken here. Further research inother cities is needed.

To conclude, this paper argues that using the concept of tourism asperformance offers insightful perspectives into the processes and prac-tices involved in its encounters. This is the case not only with respect tohow tourists encounter and perform in space but equally in respect ofhow residents create new mobilities and new spatialities as they negoti-ate and learn to co-dwell with the tourist presence. Locals are muchmore than passive subjects acted upon by tourists and related forces.They demonstrate agency, and are proactively and intricately involvedin reconfiguring relationships and mobilities with and within place.Acknowledging this creates a series of research questions about bothconceptualizing and managing local-tourist encounters, and about the-orizing both locals’ and tourists’ experiences of place.

Acknowledgements—The author gratefully acknowledges the advice and support of Jan van derBorg at the University of Venice, and Mara Manente and her colleagues at the Centro Intern-azionale di Studi sull’ Economia Turistica, University of Venice. She also acknowledges theDublin Institute of Technology for the seed funding that enabled this research be conducted.Finally, she thanks Kevin Griffin at the Dublin Institute of Technology for his help in prepar-ing the map.

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Submitted 30 August 2005. Resubmitted 27 February 2006. Resubmitted 29 June 2006.Resubmitted 5 August 2006. Resubmitted 23 August 2006. Final version 22 August 2006.Accepted 30 October 2006. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: John Urry

performing tourism venetian residents in focus

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