Alternative Tourism in Budapest: Class, Culture and Identity in a Postsocialist City (Forthcoming 2017 from Lexington/Rowman and Littlefield) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Overtourism and Resident Resistance in Budapest
Routledge eBooks, 2021
The phenomenon of "overtourism" in cities is hardly a new one, however the process and nature of resistance has changed significantly in recent years. The work of Colomb and Novy [2017. Protest and Resistance in the Tourist City. London: Routledge] encapsulates the manifestations of resistance in numerous cities. They argue that many of the contestations surround tourism rather than being about tourism. This paper explores resident resistance in the Hungarian capital city Budapest. This includes the rejection of the Olympic bid in 2017 and protests surrounding a controversial new development project in the city park. An uncontrolled night-time economy has also adversely affected local resident quality of life. Questionnaire data collected from both local residents and tourists as well as an analysis of Facebook sites using Sentione software will be used to illustrate the key areas of discontent. The research attempts to demonstrate that tourism is often marginal rather than central to residents' discontent and resistance to developments.
Has our society already become postmodern or is it still modern? Has postmodernity replaced modernity in business sciences (as modernity replaced traditionality in the second half of the nineteenth century) or do both modernity and postmodernity exist and shape the practice and theory of the different disciplines together? These dilemmas represent a major concern for a small group of researchers not only in the fields of sociology and business but also in other sciences. The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the extent to which postmodernity can be identified in the field of tourism marketing as well as to see practical cases for its appearance in Hungary and its acceptance by local people.
Tourism in (Post)socialist Eastern Europe
As the term ‘post-socialist Europe’ is only a generalization, a label that does not reflect the inherent complexity of the discussed area, the articles comprising this volume do not claim to represent the whole region. This small collection of research papers can only focus on a few regions and nations and a small range of important topics. Excluding for the most part the vast flows of internationaltourists, especially from West and the more routine ‘recreational’ (Cohen, 1979) types of tourism, we have decided to illuminate those forms of tourism which have to do with identity and memories, particularly building upon the unique past of this area,and on the personal aspects of tourist interactions relating to individualism and family, intergenerational memory and solidarity, and methods of catharsis of the painful more immediate past.
Non-Planning and tourism consumption in Budapest's inner city
The r el ationshi p b et we en urb an plann ing and tourism c onsump ti on is pre s ente d through o ne of the m os t att rac tive and pop ular district s of Buda pest ( District VII). Bud apest i s t he cap ital city o f H ungary a nd has a pop ulation of 1 .7 million i nhab it ants making it one of the largest m etropolitan r egions in Cent ral Eastern Europe . Budap est is typical of many other p ost-socialist c ities in that its urban development process has followed a somewhat different trajectory from m any Western E urop ean cities until rec ently, for ex amp le the r elatively slow r ate of ge nt rification in t h e post- so cialist ye ars. The p aper will fo cus in particular on one cent ral district of the c ity (VII) which currently contains a high c oncentration of hospita lity and entertainm en t f acilities (espec ially ‘ruin pub s’) and a ttr act s a l arge numbers of tourists. T he pla nning a nd developm ent hi story of the district will be explained, including many controversies and conflicts which hav e arisen o v er the year s. In addition t o analysing the sign i fic anc e o f t he are a s ’ heritage and the intensive g rowth of the cr eat iv e indust ries, t he pape r w ill also p ro vide a case s tudy a bout the Bud apest-specific ‘ruin bar ’ p henomenon, as well as data on the global issueofAirbnb, whichisbecominganextremely topicaland cont rove rsial issue i n ma ny o t he r cities in the wor ld t o day . ‘Ruin bar s ’ and A irbnb r epresent local and global exam ples of tourism consump tion w hich have flourished d es pite or even b ecause o f an unstructured , o ften unregulated u rban p lanning system. T hr ough this examinat ion, t wo main q uest ions are ad dressed : to what ext ent ha s p lanning (or a lack of it ) in fluenced urb an development and t he new trend s of international tourism i n Budap es t? a nd w hat role ha s tourism played i n t he transformati on of a c en tra l d is trict w ithin the inne r c it y?
2016
This chapter deals with the development of tourism in post-socialist Prague, and with the forms of citizens’ protest and resistance reacting to socio-spatial changes related to the touristification of Prague’s historic core. The chapter starts by introducing the changing political-economic context of Prague’s historic core since late 19th century up to today. Consequently it details the causes and implications of the historic core’s touristification and depopulation, mainly in connection to the laissez-faire approach of post-socialist politicians. On the basis of the data from interviews with citizens engaging in various activities, as well as interviews with representatives of relevant institutions, the chapter outlines the emergence of bottom-up social mobilizations surrounding urban issues in post-socialist Prague and examines the focus, modes of action and claims of these urban social mobilizations. It provides an account of the spread of civic engagement and of the gradual opening of the municipal government to public input after 2010, and presents a typology of different forms of citizen engagement and the main lines of division between them. The chapter concludes by showing that activists in Prague blame the city’s problems on the city‘s mismanaged development, not on tourism, hoping that better governance would tackle the situation.