factors affecting regeneration schemes in the leisure and tourism industry
This essay aims to consider the fairly recent uprising of combined retail and leisure outlets that have been appearing throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain and indeed the world within the last ten years. The fundamental political, social, economic and environmental factors will be examined to ensure a full appreciation of the reasons behind the implementation of these colossal enterprises with the purpose of evaluating their current success and future direction. It is increasingly clear that the large majority of these combined retail and leisure outlets or consumption palaces as they are sometimes called are generally incorporated into some form of re-development and/or regeneration schemes. The initial push behind these schemes has many varying reasons from simply years of constant neglect of a specific area to the horrendous terrorist attacks that can devastate an entire city, as was the case in New York on The 11th September 2001 and the IRA bomb that demolished half of Manchester’s prime city centre shopping area in 1996. The fact that these consumption palaces now incorporate both retail and leisure activities under the same roof can be attributed to the change in peoples attitudes towards leisure and free time in general. ... The reasons behind this joining together of retail and leisure activities is seen by most as a natural progression which has been accelerated by the fact that the most common out-of-home leisure activity is now retail shopping, a fact that is due to a multitude of social changes not least the increase in disposable income and free time (Kelly et al, 2000). Also, “People’s concern for social status and individual identity has been reflected in the advertising of leisure commodities. ... Most people derive satisfaction and security from the reassurance of social status which consumption of particular leisure experiences or goods brings”. ... The reason for this massive increase in cost is due to the Printworks prime location in the centre of the city, “Like every other commercial product, leisure spaces have to compete against alternative land uses. ... ” (Haywood et al 1995:p154-155) The second reason that greatly affected the land price of the Trafford Centre in favour of the developers was the fact that the entire site had considerable amounts of contaminated soil, which was left from generations of industry presiding there. ... org) In return for these concessions, the local authority (in this case Trafford Metropolitan Borough council) not only benefited from the cash injection from the private sector to aid the clean up of the highly contaminated Trafford Park area but it also set the wheels in motion to tackle some of the more prevalent social and economic problems that had grown with the ever depleting industry in the area.