Can Nature Tourism Rejuvenate Seaside Resorts?

Can Nature Tourism Rejuvenate Seaside Resorts?

Robert John Tonkin

This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the MA degree in Tourism and Leisure of Lancaster University.

September 2003
Contents

Abstract

This dissertation considers English seaside resorts, which became popular tourist destinations during the first wave of mass tourism in the nineteenth century but subsequently became unfashionable resorts towards the end of the twentieth century and as a result have experienced many years of social and physical decline. The proposal considered is that such resorts can regain popularity if they accept that they will never again be viable destinations as traditional seaside resorts. Instead it is proposed that English seaside resorts diversify into niche tourism markets and the particular proposal presented here is for nature tourism. A case study approach is taken throughout, using Morecambe as an example.

The research indicates that there is a large potential market for nature tourism with most nature tourists being drawn from the higher social groups, indicating a possibility of relatively high spend per person. For a resort to regenerate and remarket itself for new tourism markets requires massive commitment and investment from both the public and private sectors. A clearly stated and agreed course of action is a requirement and without these any attempts at changing the targeted tourist market are doomed to failure.

Morecambe currently stands at a crossroads, much positive work has been done to regenerate and re-brand the town but there is still much more to do. If the funding for new projects stops now then all preceding work will be in vain and the town will continue to decline.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank a number of people for the assistance they have given me during the writing of this dissertation. For setting aside time during busy work schedules and agreeing to be interviewed: Alan Chester, Morecambe Bay Partnership; Maggy Lightfoot, RSPB; Jim Trotman, Morecambe Tourism Officer; and Ron Sands, local councillor. I would also like to thank Viv Cuthill my supervisor at Lancaster University for her constructive criticisms throughout and of course all the visitors to Morecambe, past and present, without whom the town would have no tourism industry and this dissertation would not have been possible.

1

English Seaside Resorts

Introduction

The primary objective of this dissertation is to consider one approach that could be adopted by traditional coastal resorts in the UK to reverse the decline that they have experienced since the advent of cheap foreign travel from the 1970s onwards. It is proposed that some of these once thriving resorts could diversify from the traditional bucket and spade markets that their fortunes were built on to other, more lucrative, niche markets. The real world importance of the topic can be realised with a brief look at the local press from any of the traditional coastal resorts. Here will commonly be found reference to the decline experienced as a direct result of falling visitor numbers. Cooper (1997) highlights the decline of English seaside resorts and states that 39 million visitor nights were lost from seaside destinations in the ten-year period from 1988 to 1998.

This dissertation considers the evolving niche tourism market of nature tourism and how some coastal resorts could diversify into this market to attempt to reverse the decline currently being experienced. The need to diversify is considered vital, as the demand for the traditional family seaside holiday has reduced dramatically over the last thirty years. It is further believed that nature tourists are likely to come from social groups AB and thus have a higher potential spending power than traditional seaside visitors who are predominately drawn from social groups C2/D/E (Trotman, 2003).

The research aims to provide answers to the following questions

Ø  Is there a market for nature tourism?

Ø  Do English seaside resorts have the potential to reach any nature tourism markets?

Ø  Is there a desire to change the tourism emphasis in seaside resorts away from the traditional markets towards nature tourism?

Ø  If a desire for change exists is this backed up with the necessary investment?

A case study approach is adopted throughout with the main focus being Morecambe, a traditional coastal resort in North West UK that owes its very existence to the development of mass tourism in the 19th century. Morecambe was chosen as not only was it developed purely as a tourist resort from the outset, so it has no other industry, but it has a very poor image throughout the country, having been labelled the ‘Costa Del Dole’ in the 1980s (Bingham, 1990). Morecambe does, however, have many positive aspects that do not appear to have been incorporated into the tourist development of the resort. The most notable asset of Morecambe is Morecambe Bay that has views over to the Lake District and is itself the third most important wildlife bay in Europe (Lancaster City Council, 2003).

English seaside resorts entered a period of decline following the Second World War and many millions of pounds have been spent since the 1980s in an attempt to rejuvenate the declining seaside tourism industry. This has often been in the form of partnership funding, for example the Tourism Development Action Programme (TDAP) and the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB). These redevelopment programmes were designed to include the whole community and therefore it was envisaged that the local residents would be supportive of the plans. Despite extensive consultations and the vast sums of money spent most of these redevelopment programmes met with limited success (Agarwal, 1999). This limited success maybe as a result of trying to continue to attract traditional seaside tourists rather than diversifying into new niche tourism markets.

It appears that the redevelopment programmes of the past 20 years have not fully considered the changes in tourism demand that have taken place at the same time. The traditional two-week family holiday is largely a thing of the past, the demand is now for more short-break holidays, often involving some activity such as canoeing or walking or the pursuit of a hobby such as photography or bird watching (Boniface, 2001). By considering these changes in tourism demand and especially the demand for nature tourism it is proposed that coastal resorts in decline should diversify from their traditional markets and redevelop as bases for nature tourism.

In order to test these ideas the existing literature on a number of related factors is reviewed. Firstly the rise and fall of traditional seaside resorts is documented and a short section follows this on destination development. Following these some space is devoted to explaining the evolvement of alternative, niche tourism markets in general and eco or nature tourism in particular. The second half of the dissertation is given over to the case study of Morecambe. The town’s development as a seaside resort is briefly outlined and this is followed by a discussion of the current tourism scene in Morecambe. The case study continues with a look into the various recent plans and strategies for tourism in Morecambe to see whether the relevant authorities are pursuing traditional seaside markets or if they are seeking to diversify. The success or otherwise of these plans is also discussed. The case study investigation concludes with four in-depth interviews with those involved with the regeneration of tourism in Morecambe.

Rise and fall of English Seaside Resorts

As mentioned in the Introduction, this dissertation investigates the possibility that English seaside resorts could diversify into evolving niche tourism markets in an attempt to boost visitor numbers and to reverse a decline that has been ongoing for the last 30 years. It is therefore useful to briefly chart the rise and fall of English seaside resorts as tourist destinations and this chapter addresses this issue.

Seaside holidays in England became part of most children’s growing-up experiences during the twentieth century. They have, however, now come to be associated with the worst forms of mass tourism and have lost much, if not all, of their former glory. The resorts are no longer seen as the place to take the family on holiday, they have been replaced in people’s affections by places such as the Mediterranean Islands of Majorca and Menorca and more recently Florida, USA. What follows is a brief discussion of the rise in popularity of English seaside resorts to their peak at the end of the nineteenth century, their brief second peak at the end of the Second World War and their subsequent decline.

Although the English seaside has come to be known as a holiday destination this was not always the case and throughout most of history the costal regions were only seen as important if they offered harbour facilities and/or if the area was good for fishing. The view, which we may now see as beautiful was not so sought after, and indeed houses were built facing away from such vistas. The land immediately adjacent to the coast is often poor farming land and so the coastal regions were areas to be avoided and of little importance. The fact that coastal views later came to be appreciated indicates how tastes and fashions change over time and how the tourist industry must strive to keep pace with these changes.

The popularity of the claimed medicinal properties of firstly spring water and then seawater was the turning point for the English coast. Urry (1990) states that the first English spa town, presumably after Roman times, was Scarborough after a spring was discovered on the beach in 1626. Other spa towns soon developed throughout the country as the medical profession proclaimed ever increasing numbers of ailments could be cured by either drinking or bathing in the water. Scarborough, being on the coast, sought to make itself unique amongst spa towns and it was soon advocated that drinking seawater and bathing in it would cure ills.

The popularity of the claimed medicinal properties of seawater spread during the eighteenth century, especially among the professional and merchant classes. Shields (1990), reminds us that at this time sea bathing was not the fun activity we think of today, it was carried out under doctor’s supervision and was normally to be done naked. As the winter months were considered as being better for the cure it is likely that pleasure would not have been uppermost in most visitors’ thoughts at this time.

Sea bathing gained in popularity and came to be enjoyed as a recreational activity not just a medicinal one. As the popularity of sea bathing increased and spread to all classes of the population not just the elite more and more coastal resorts sprang up around England’s coastline. During this period the coastal resort of Morecambe was developed from three neighbouring fishing villages. The new town was developed as a tourist resort from the start and grew up as a direct result of the rail links first installed to provide a link for a new port for Lancaster. The town was named ‘Morecambe’ after the bay in 1889 (Bingham, 1990). The growth of these new resort towns continued at a pace faster than the new manufacturing towns in the early nineteenth century (Urry, 1990). By 1911 it was estimated that just over half the population of England and Wales took at least one trip to the seaside each year (Myerscough, 1974). The arrival of the railways in the latter half of the nineteenth century helped the growth of the seaside resorts and the seaside tourist industry; people of all classes were now able to travel to the resorts.

The industrialisation that is so synonymous with the nineteenth century also brought about a growth in leisure time and consequently more trade for the seaside resorts. Industrialisation brought about routinised work and leisure, all part of a grand plan to ‘civilise’ the working classes (Rojek, 1993).

During the nineteenth century there was something of a north/south divide relating to the use made of seaside resorts. In the south the day trip, often organised by the rail companies, were the norm, whereas in the north it became more customary to go on holiday for several days at a time. The holidays in the north were often organised by pubs, clubs or factories with the whole contingent of members and their families saving up all year to go on the holiday (Urry, 1990).

Urry (1990) also refers to the resort hierarchy, or differences in the social tone of resorts, being partially explained by land ownership patterns and scenic attractiveness. If the land prior to development as a seaside resort was unenclosed as was the case with Southport then development could be controlled and large hotels and residential villas constructed. If, however, the land was owned by a multitude of small freeholders, as was the case with Blackpool, then it became impossible to plan on a grand scale and small guesthouses evolved rather than the larger hotels of Southport. The result for resorts such as Blackpool was an ill-planned mess (Urry, 1990:23).

By the start of the twentieth century there were many thriving seaside resorts all around England’s coastline. There was in place a sort of league system with resorts to cater for all social classes (Walton, 1997), Brighton was probably always at the head due to its royal connections and close proximity to London and many northern resorts such as Blackpool and Morecambe catered for the workers from the mill towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The seaside resorts of England continued to grow during the first half of the twentieth century although foreign competition was starting to attract the elite to the beaches of France (Walton, 1997). The continued expansion of the English seaside holiday was aided by the Holidays Act, 1938 which for the first time granted paid annual holiday as a right to employees and as the century progressed the increase in car ownership opened up independent travel to more and more people.