Ragnhild Skogheim

Sun, sea, sociability, and sightseeing: Mediterranean summer holidaymaking revisited

Popular summer holidaymaking in the mainstream and much-visited destination of Mallorca is segmented and versatile in terms of tourist motivations. This study demonstrates unanimous touristic interest in pleasant weather conditions and a majority emphasis on sociability, relaxation, and beach life, along with cultural sightseeing and landscape experience motivations. Moreover, the findings indicate quite stable motivations in this holidaymaking context. There are very few motivational differences between Mallorca visitors using package tours or charter flights and their fellow tourists going by scheduled flights. The questionnaire-based survey results thus challenge conventional wisdom about Mediterranean seaside package tours as undifferentiated “sun and sand mass tourism” for “ordinary people” lacking individuality. Although air travel and package tours may still be standardized, the tourists themselves do not become homogenous simply by the mere utilization of such products.

Participatory Planning Processes: Chances for New Knowledge in Urban Politics?

Three distinct frameworks of participatory planning processes in three different European cities are being analysed: Oslo/Norway, Goteborg/Sweden, and Vienna/Austria. The ease of access of knowledge to the process was the decisive criterion defining each frame. Apart from the lessons that the involved actors have learned from each individual case the text also tries to present conclusions drawn from a comparative analysis. The look at the three cases from the outside offers additional insights which usually remain out of focus: the generation and organisation of urban knowledge under differently structured planning processes, its’ determining constraints, and the traceability of the impact of urban knowledge on the planning process.

Urban Regeneration and the Use of “Urban Knowledge” in English and Norwegian Cities: Knowledge Producers, Interests and Inclusion/Exclusion of Knowledge

Over the last 20 years there has been an increasing emphasis on the use of ‘knowledge’ in urban regeneration to inform the design and implementation of policies/initiatives and to understand ‘what worked’/‘what did not work’ and why. This has been part of what in English is termed developing the evidence base. However, urban regeneration is a controversial field – in some sense it may be seen as an arena of conflict constituted by numerous actors/stakeholders: local authorities, professionals (like architects and planners), NGOs, market actors and lay people. In this arena conflicts can occur due to different interests and positions (cf. Stewart and Stoker 1995). Disagreements can be about the use and development of space, for instance between those in favour of protecting distinctive features of a city/neighbourhood, versus those who prefer new (modern) development, about the height of buildings, protection of public spaces versus commercialization of central urban areas, etc. Fundamentally it is a question of what constitutes an attractive and liveable city for residents, those who visit the city and for business and industry. It is therefore relevant to analyse how the knowledge of different actors are weighted and included in decision making processes and who occupies positions to define what should be counted as relevant, legitimate and authoritative knowledge. Powerful individuals and sectoral interests (e.g. from business and finance, local industry) often have better access than the general public to local authorities through their competence in lobbying and possession of officially recognised and codified forms of knowledge and understanding of how the political system works. They are able to “speak the same language” as those in political system who take decisions; in this sense they share a cultural and social understanding of what needs to be done, when and by whom.