Urban counterstructures in the tropics

A few weeks ago, I attended the Asia Pacific Tourism Association (APTA) Conference in Bangkok, and had the opportunity to share some of my research, as well as listen to what else is going on in the tourism world. I heard about the Explore Mekong initiative, a project developed to join China, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia in marketing the Greater Mekong as a region in a comprehensive way, which is a fantastic idea. I look forward to exploring it!

I also heard about Michelle Thompson's research on tourism in agricultural areas - thinking about cellar door sales of wine and more particularly farm gate sales - something that has quite a lot of potential in the tropics, but as yet not well developed.

In terms of my research, I spoke about urban counterstructures in the tropics. I like this idea. It developed originally I think from Cohen (1979), who suggested that people travel to counter the structure of their everyday lives. Things like differences in climate, natural environment, culture, language, pace of life, etc. Gospodini (2001) took this a step further and applied it to the urban environment, with the example of Bilbao in Spain. So the idea is that people also look for different urban environments, or urban counterstructures in their holiday experiences.

So far, I can't find any evidence of people speaking about urban counterstructures much at all, especially not in the tropics. Since we've been thinking so much about planning and urban design in the tropics, and tourism is such a valuable industry to so many tropical places, it may be a good angle from which to consider planning and tropical urban design. I came up with a model, which I plan to submit for publication soon.

Model: Elements of considering tourism and urban design in the tropics (Anderson, unpublished)

Basically, the model considers user experiences on one side, and urban design on the other, essentially a supply-demand relationship. The top half of the model is tourism focused, the bottom half is locally focused. Although it doesn't show here, I also have a basis of 'physical place', which lies beneath all of this, reflecting the natural environment, climate, hazards, things that are outside the realm of influence of planners and policy makers, but which must be considered.

I am developing this idea and thinking about specific case studies - possibly Palm Cove in Cairns could be a good one to start with. Something to keep me busy!

TP