Selling Cities: Promoting New Images for Meetings Tourism

Cities, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 61–70, 2002 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.Pergamon

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Selling Cities

Promoting New Images for Meetings TourismAndrew Bradley, Tim Hall* and Margaret HarrisonGeography and Environmental Management Research Unit, University of Gloucester, Francis Close Hall,Swindon Road, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK

This paper investigates two related areas, namely the importance of urban image to locationdecision-making processes and the extent to which provincial former industrial cities in theUK have overcome past images. These cities are amongst the most active in pursuing themeetings industry through their urban regeneration strategies. The survey evidence stronglysuggests that the selected towns and cities had been successful in transforming their externallyperceived images, although towns and cities with weak images in the past still tend to haveweak images, whereas cities with strong industrial images in the past, which have undergoneextensive regeneration, have strong, rejuvenated images. Additionally, image is important inthe location decision-making processes of meetings organisers, though not as important as otherfactors. This paper demonstrates that a more nuanced understanding of the relationshipbetween place promotion, urban image and urban development can be achieved. 2002Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: place promotion, urban image, urban development

Introduction: image and urban development

The transformation, enhancement and promotion ofurban image have emerged as central planks of theentrepreneurial governance of western cities. Both thenumber of cities engaged in place promotion and thevariety of media used has grown in recent years(Barke and Harrop, 1994). Much of the supposed“transformation” of former industrial cities hasinvolved a process ofinvestment marketing, thedevelopment of new facilities and city centre land-scapes and the promotion of rejuvenated urban images(Bianchini and Schwengel, 1991; Crilley, 1993;Fretter, 1993; Ward and Gold, 1994; Hubbard, 1996).The economic rationale behind these efforts is toattract jobs, tourists and residents to replace decliningformer manufacturing economies (Harvey, 1989;Dicken and Tickell, 1992; Haughton and Lawless,1992; Decker and Crompton, 1993). Consequently,place promotion has been widely posited as a tangiblepart of the urban development process.

Place marketing has thus become much more thanmerely selling the area to attract mobile companies

*Corresponding author. Tel.:+44-01242-532836; fax:+44-01242-543283; e-mail: [email protected]

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and tourists. It can now be viewed as a fundamentalpart of planning, a fundamental part of guiding thedevelopment of places in a desired fashion (Fretter,1993, p 165).

There is an eclectic and growing critical literature onplace promotion (see Ashworth and Voogd, 1990;Kearns and Philo, 1993; Paddison, 1993; Gold andWard, 1994; Chang, 1997; Hall and Hubbard, 1998).This eclecticism, however, fails to mask obvious gapsin this literature. Previous research has identified twotheoretical approaches within this literature. Firstly,there is a body of literature that links urban marketingto a deeper political economy (Logan and Molotch,1987; Harvey, 1989; Kearns and Philo, 1993). Sec-ondly, there are studies that focus on the more practi-cal aspects of urban marketing by examining the typesof approaches that urban marketers adopt and theirrelative success (Ashworth and Voogd, 1990; Kotleret al, 1993). This is not to say that these methods aremutually exclusive, and writers often use both, oftenwithin the same piece of work, but as Short and Kim(1998, p 55) note, “there are differences in orientation[between the two approaches] with the former empha-sising the transformation of urban governance and theinvolvement of business coalition, whilst the latter

Selling Cities: Andrew Bradley et al

focuses on the detailed processes and strategies ofurban marketing” .

One area, by contrast, where there has been littlesustained academic investigation is into the consump-tion or impacts of place promotion strategies. This issurprising because, despite all of the rhetoric concern-ing the supposed saliency and centrality of place pro-motion to contemporary urban change, there is, todate, little, if any, empirical evidence that this is thecase. Put simply, despite the great attention paid toplace promotion by academics, we know little of theactual importance of place promotion to the locationdecision making processes of its intended audiencesand less of its tangible impacts on the urban develop-ment process. This omission is a widely recognisedweakness of semiotic methods, which have dominatedthe study of place promotion. This gap has impli-cations both for the academic understanding of placepromotion and for decision makers in, for example,local authority planning and economic developmentdepartments, for this reason this paper is addressed tothese two audiences.

This paper takes a step to address this empiricallacuna by examining the impacts of place promotionand urban image enhancement on the locationdecision-making process of one key client market –convention, exhibition and meeting organisers in theUK. The paper addresses three themes:

� How successful have former industrial towns andcities in the UK been in enhancing or transformingtheir externally perceived images?

� What are the contemporary externally perceivedimages of former industrial towns and cities inthe UK?

� What is the significance of urban image to thelocation decision making of potential investors inthe business tourist sector?

Meetings tourism and economic developmentMeetings tourism, which we define as, travel associa-ted with attendance at corporate or association meet-ings, conferences, conventions or congresses or publicor trade exhibitions, has emerged as a significant sub-section of the tourist industry both in terms of volumeof travel and expenditure generated. “Meetings” dem-onstrate enormous variety, ranging from small busi-ness meetings of a few delegates to large conventionsof, for example, professional associations whichmight attract in excess of 20,000 delegates. Similarly,exhibitions vary in size and nature depending onwhether they are primarily aimed at a trade or pro-fessional audience and on the geographical range ofthe exhibitors and delegates. The range of locationswithin which these meetings take place is also broad.It includes: hotels, universities, sports venues, special-ist exhibition facilities and purpose built conventioncentres. Increasingly, specialist meetings venues are

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able to cater for both exhibitions and conferences asthere appears to be an increasing association betweenthem (Hall, 1987). For the purposes of this study weuse the umbrella term “meetings” to cover all suchgatherings.

The meetings tourism market has been vigorouslypursued by a large number of former industrial citiesin the UK, continental Europe, the USA and Australiawithin their strategies of post-industrial urban regen-eration (Law, 1987, p 85). This market offers a num-ber of obvious attractions to such cities, not least therapidity of its growth during the 1970s and 1980s, thevery period during which many cities were sufferingcontractions in their industrial base. Meetings tourismhas grown, and seems destined to continue to grow,at rates above those of most European national econ-omies. Figures for the USA suggest the business con-ference industry almost doubled during the 1980s(Law, 1993, p 41). The growth is particularly markedfor international conferences, which bring the greatestfinancial returns for host cities (Labasse, 1984; Law,1993, p 47). Similarly the exhibition market seems tohave grown during the same period (Law, 1993, p59). In many European cities the economic contri-butions of business tourism outweigh those from leis-ure tourism by two to three times (Van den Berg etal, 1994, p 161) making it both a seemingly appropri-ate and rewarding sector for former manufacturingcities to pursue.

Meetings tourists are also high spending and hencethe market is able to generate high levels of inwardinvestment for cities and regions (Law, 1993, p 39).Although the myth of the bottomless expense accountis somewhat exaggerated, meetings tourists are majorusers of the entertainment and accommodation facili-ties of the locations they visit. It has been estimated,for example, that the International Rotary Meeting atthe International Convention Centre in Birminghamattracted 23,000 delegates resulting in spending ofalmost £20 million in the city during the meeting,much of which remained in the local market (Kotleret al, 1999, p 219). Returns of this magnitude are notuncommon for such “mega” gatherings. Clearly,meetings tourists, at small as well as large meetings,are higher spenders on average per day than leisuretourists. A survey of visitors to Bournemouth during1984 confirmed this, with the average conference del-egate spending £179 compared to £102 for all visitors(English Tourist Board, 1986; Law, 1987, p 85).

The potential for direct and indirect job creationassociated with meetings tourism has been recognisedas high. A study of the potential job creation effectsof a convention centre in Birmingham, UK was cru-cial to the decision by the local authority to pursuethe development. The study estimated that while only125 jobs would be created directly in the centre itself,almost 2000 indirect jobs would result from its devel-opment (JURUE, 1983). The potential job creationspin-offs from exhibition facilities seem even moresignificant. A study of the National Exhibition Centre


on the outskirts of Birmingham, which opened in1976, suggested that by 1988 it was sustaining almost9500 full time equivalent jobs in the region in linkedindustries (Peat Marwick McLintock, 1989).

Success in this market also brings a number of non-financial rewards associated with image and profileenhancement, the improvement to decaying districtsand city centre landscapes and the generation of civicpride amongst residents (Law, 1987, p 85; Hall,1992). Zelinsky (1994, p 76; see also Kotler et al,1999) recognised that the indirect benefits may alsobe long-term, attracting meeting attendees back asvacationers, employees or residents at later dates,should the impressions garnered from meetingattend1992). Zelinsky (1994, p 76; see also Kotler etal, more rapidly than many other sectors of the econ-omy. For these reasons, convention and exhibitionfacilities, which rarely in themselves make a profit,have been developed by local authorities as catalystsof city centre and wider regional economic and infras-tructural regeneration. Often these developments havedrawn finance from urban regeneration budgets orgrants from the European Union.

The zeal with which some cities, notablyBirmingham in the UK, developed facilities to attractmeetings tourists during the 1980s suggest that it wasseen as something of a panacea for the problems thathad come to affect them (BBC Television, 1991; Hall,1994). However, the pursuit of the meetings touristmarket certainly incurs costs, for example, the longterm financial burden on local authorities both tocover the costs of construction and to service the typi-cal year-on-year financial deficits of such facilities,and brings with it potential problems, such as thequestionable redistribution of the social and economicbenefits of the meetings trade (Loftman and Nevin,1995) and risks, such as a vulnerability to cut backduring recession and the fact that at national levels,and sometimes regional levels, the competitionbetween cities for meetings often results in it being azero-sum game. However, this did little to hinder thedevelopment, refurbishment or enhancement of exten-sive meetings facilities in former industrial cities dur-ing the period of industrial decline, an increasingnumber of which were wholly or partly developed andfinanced by local authorities (Petersen, 1989; Law,1993). Thus, the 1980s and early 1990s wereundoubtedly growth periods in the supply of meetingsfacilities internationally and particularly in those cit-ies seeking to position themselves within the post-industrial rather than the industrial economy.

Meetings tourism in the UKAlthough, like much research into the meetings indus-try, there is a lack of reliable data for the UK, it isfair to say that the industry is significant at thenational and regional scales and at the levels of indi-vidual towns and cities and that it has been growingsince the mid 1980s. A 1990 survey estimated that

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the conference trade in the UK consisted of 700,000conferences and 115 million delegate days (Coopersand Lybrand Deloitte Tourism Leisure ConsultancyServices, 1990; Law, 1993, p 55) while the exhibitiontrade in the UK in 1990 generated £901,000,000 ofvisitor spend, up from £183,000,000 in 1983 (Law,1993, p 65). Despite a dip during the recession of theearly 1990s these trends appeared to have continuedsince. Recent figures indicate that tourism associatedwith business and work by UK residents within theUK rose from 9.7 million trips in 1993 to a peak of16.4 million in 1996 followed by a slight dip to 15.4million in 1997. The spending associated with thesetrips rose from £1,730,000,000 in 1993 to£2,475,000,000 in 1997. Of these tourists, 74 per centwere from socio-economic groups AB and C1(UKTS, 1997). British Tourist Authority (1998) fig-ures indicate that overseas visitors to the UK whosemain purpose of visiting was business rose from2,453,000 in 1981 to 6,133,000 in 1996. The averageexpenditure per day of these visitors similarly roseover this period from £49.50 in 1981 to £115.40 in1996 and total expenditure per trip from £311.20 in1981 to £528.90 in 1996. Using these figures it canbe seen that overseas business visitors to the UK spent£763,373,600 in 1981 rising to £3,243,743,700 in1996, a significant proportion of which is meetingstourism related. While not all of these visits were formeetings tourism, it is safe to assume that meetingstourism followed this upward trend.

Figures at the city level are even more difficult toobtain. While figures for individual meetings suggestthe potential impacts of meetings, it is difficult to findsystematic or comprehensive statistics that indicatetrends and overall impacts. However, the growth inthe supply of meetings facilities supports the notionsthat both the trends in the meetings tourist industryin the UK are upwards and that it is increasing inits geographical spread outside traditional locations.London remains the pre-eminent centre for meetingstourism in the UK containing a number of major exhi-bition halls such as the Docklands Arena and EarlsCourt, along with numerous major hotel and univer-sity meetings centres. It is second only to Paris in thenumber of international conferences hosted (Union ofInternational Associations, 1991) and exceeds thenumber hosted by any other UK city by at least fourtimes (Law, 1993, p 48) London also accounts forover 40 per cent of exhibitions held in the UK. How-ever, the growth of meetings facilities in provincialcities in the UK suggests the industry is developingin these areas.

The meetings industry has demonstrated threephases of growth in towns and cities outside London.The first was the development of meetings and exhi-bition halls in many cities from the end of the nine-teenth century onwards. By the 1960s and 1970smany of these halls were regarded as obsolete andhave been demolished, substantially refurbished,expanded or turned to alternative uses (Law, 1993,


p 62). Initially, it was seaside resorts who started todevelop specialist conference facilities in the inter warperiod to cash in on their extensive supply of accom-modation and to attract visitors beyond the traditionalseason. A number of these resorts expanded ordeveloped new facilities during the 1970s and 1980sand continue to host the majority of major party polit-ical conferences each year (Law, 1993, p 55). Themost recent wave of development has occurred sincethe early 1980s in inland provincial cities formerlyassociated with manufacturing industry includingBirmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Nottingham andNewcastle. The majority of these developments havebeen of multi-purpose exhibition facilities, the oneexception being Birmingham that has developed anAmerican style convention centre to compliment itsNational Exhibition Centre opened in 1976. However,most of these exhibition halls are also able to accom-modate conferences. It is in these cities that the ques-tion of the impacts of urban image on the locationdecision-making processes of potential clients andaudiences for these facilities is most acute.

Urban image and meetings tourism

There is a general consensus that organisers takeaccount of four attributes when selecting meetingsvenues. In order of importance they are: the qualityof meetings facilities, cost, accessibility and theimage of potential locations (Law, 1993, p 43). How-ever, the relative influence of these attributes will varyaccording to the nature of different meetings. Lawargues that the conferences of international organis-ations “are attracted to places with good air links, ahigh standard of facilities and an attractive image”(1987, p 93) while the role of the image and attract-iveness of locations is unimportant for the choice ofexhibition venues (Law, 1993, p 60). Whereas imageis generally regarded as important both in thedecisions of convention organisers of where to holdmeetings and of potential delegates of whether or notto attend, there is debate over its relative importancecompared to other attributes and the potential deter-rent effect of a negative image.

However, Greaves states categorically that “people(delegates) chose a destination (for a conference)because of the destination not the venue” (1998, p38). It might be assumed, therefore, that this prefer-ence for destinations with an alluring image will bereflected in the locations for meetings selected byorganisers. Zelinsky makes a similar point, arguingthat image is of enormous importance in determiningthe success or otherwise of meetings cities.

But overarching all of these factors and influences isanother great, pervasive variable: the reputation orimage of a potential Convention site. How attractive,interesting, and congenial is it perceived to be? Howrich the array of amenities and other notable features?Although these judgments may be wholly or partly

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subconscious for individual conventioneers as well asorganisers, they are nonetheless crucial …. Perceptionis what matters and it matters mightily. Thus, to takea specific case, although Pittsburgh is now a muchmore attractive setting than during its manufacturingheyday, reality has not caught up with the stereotypedimage, and its Convention traffic may still be slidingdownward (1994, p 75).

Zelinsky’s assertion of the significance of image isdebateable given evidence suggesting the greaterimportance of the other attributes of conventionvenues and cities, perhaps most importantly cost andnumbers of beds available. However, while ident-ifying evidence of image as the prime pull-factor inattracting meetings to particular cities is difficult,there appears to be some agreement that a negativecity image acts as the prime push-factor driving meet-ings away from cities with problematic images. Zelin-sky identifies the case of Pittsburgh above and alsocites the example of Los Angeles that fell from sixthto fifteenth in terms of the number of convention part-icipants between 1964–1965 and 1990–1991. Thecause, identified by an officer of the Los AngelesConvention and Visitor Bureau, was put down to thelong run of negative national press coverage that thecity had received. Law has also raised concerns overthe negative perceptions of a number of UK former-industrial cities that attempted to enter or expand theirpresence in the meetings market in the 1980s and1990s.

Perception is [also] important. Many older industrialcities have a poor image which may make the attrac-tion of delegates difficult (Law, 1993, p 67).

To counteract their adverse image, major northernindustrial cities need to transform their environmentand create tourist facilities (Law, 1987, p 94).

This provides an appropriate point at which to con-sider six examples of towns and cities in the UK withsuch problematic images all of whom have sought todevelop their meetings tourist facilities and econom-ies.

Image and industrial decline in UK urbanareas

Six British towns and cities (Belfast, Birmingham,Cardiff, Doncaster, Glasgow, and Manchester) wereselected for this study as they met three criteria:

� They have had a prominent industrial/manufacturing economy that has subsequently con-tracted;

� They have developed/redeveloped facilities in ornear their centres, which demonstrates a commit-ment to the promotion of meetings tourism;

� They have developed meetings tourism facilities aspart of a wider policy of economic regeneration.


In order to investigate the extent to which these townsand cities had modified their externally perceivedimages and the influence of these images in the devel-opment of meetings tourism economies, 295 postalquestionnaires were sent to companies responsible forthe organisation of business meetings of various kindsand of public and trade exhibitions. These companieswere identified by examining business directoriesunder the category “conference organisers” . Eachcompany received a postal questionnaire containing amixture of open-ended and closed-questions. Of the295 questionnaires distributed 62 were returned, giv-ing a response rate of 21 per cent (see Fig. 1).

Each of the six towns and cities selected for thisstudy has a history of major industrial development.For instance, as Booth and Boyle (1993, p 24) note,“Glasgow has a rich industrial heritage” based uponindustries such as linen, iron smelting, shipbuildingand railway engine manufacturing. Likewise, Doncas-ter was also heavily involved in the manufacturing ofgoods for the developing railway network (Bagwelland Barker, 1992). Some of the promotional literaturefor Birmingham claims that the city was “at the heartof the industrial revolution [with] many of the 19thcentury’s most significant discoveries and inventions[taking] place there” (Anon, 2000a). In a similar vein,Belfast’s promotional literature refers to the city as“ the engine room that drove the industrial revolutionin Ulster” (Anon, 2000b) with industries such as linenmanufacture and ship building doubling the size ofthe population every 10 years. Cardiff’s industrieswere based primarily on the export of coal, which wasof “world significance” during the early 20th century

Figure 1 Location of towns/cities.

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(Thomas, 1994). In Manchester nearly one in six ofthe city’s total workforce was still employed in themanufacturing sector in 1991 (Ward, 1998) despitethe deep-seated contraction of this sector. For manyit will always be regarded as the “cottonopolis” of theindustrial revolution. In some parts of the world cot-ton sheets and pillowcases, for example, are stillreferred to as “Manchester” .

What unites these cities, despite their diverseexperiences of industrialisation and deindustrialis-ation, is the problematic legacy of old industrialimages in the context of the post-industrial economy.This is exacerbated where other social, political andaesthetic dimensions contribute to city image in simi-larly problematic ways. For instance, Bianchini(1993, p 343) notes that Glasgow’s image was one“associated with razor-gang street violence and urbandecay” and also identifies the widely perceived imageof Birmingham as a city afflicted by a series of post-war planning disasters. Belfast’s externally perceivedimage over the past thirty years has been shaped over-whelmingly by the enormous media coverage of the“ troubles” . These images, both Law (1987, 1993) andZelinsky (1994) would argue, constitute major bar-riers to the success of meetings tourism develop-ments.

Discussion of findingsThis section discusses the findings of the question-naire survey. It begins by discussing the extent towhich the six cities and towns have altered their exter-nally perceived images and then goes on to examinethe importance of these images to the location-decision making process of convention organisers.

The results in Table 1 can be broken down intothree distinct categories;

� Towns/cities with a strong positive image that actsas an encouragement – Glasgow, Manchester andBirmingham. In each case over three-quarters ofall respondents view the image of each of thesecites as an encouragement to conference organ-isers. These locations also have the lowest responserates in the “don’ t know” category, which indicatesthat these places engender strong images amongstconvention organisers.

� Towns/cities with a strong image that acts as adeterrent – Belfast. Nearly two-thirds of all respon-dents saw Belfast’s image as a deterrent as alocation for a conference.

� Towns/cities lacking distinctive or strong image –Cardiff and Doncaster. Although Doncaster’simage was seen as a deterrent to many, its largestcategory of response, like that of Cardiff, was inthe “don’ t know” category. This indicates thatthese two locations may be lacking a strong image(either positive or negative) or awareness amongstconference organisers. Similarly there was littleconsensus amongst the respondents over what con-stituted the images of these towns/cities.


Table 1 Image as an encouragement or deterrent to potential conference organisers

Town/city Encouragement Deterrent Don’t know No. ofresponses

No. % No. % No. %

Glasgow 41 77.4 5 9.4 7 13.2 53Manchester 38 76.0 4 8.0 8 16.0 50Birmingham 39 75.0 10 19.2 3 5.8 52Cardiff 5 17.2 7 24.1 17 58.6 29Belfast 6 11.8 32 62.7 13 25.5 51Doncaster 2 3.8 21 40.0 29 55.8 52

When respondents were asked to expand upon theirviews of image as an encouragement or deterrent, thedata provided fitted into eight main categories(Table 2).

Although there were eight distinct themes withinthe data this is not to say that each factor has the samerelative importance, as some factors were mentionedmuch more frequently than others. For instance, cul-tural and accessibility factors were mentioned inrelation to the image of each town and city, whilstpolitical factors were only mentioned in relation toBelfast’s image.

There are also major differences in the factors thatled to each individual location’s image being rated asan encouragement, deterrent or indifferent. Whilst allof the locations whose image was believed by themajority of respondents to be an encouragement(Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham) were ratedhighly in terms of the facilities available at the venuesthemselves and the facilities that the cities offer toconference delegates, there are important differenceswithin some of the other categories. For Glasgow, itsmajor plus points were predominantly associated withthe positive images that are generated by its repu-

Table 2 Eight categories

Cultural Factors: These were predominantly positive and included popular culture, newimages and fashionable associations with nightlife. Where negative responses werereceived in this category they suggested places lacked such positive cultural attributes.Social Factors: These were predominantly negative and included violence, theft andcrime.Environmental Factors: These were predominantly positive, for example the aestheticattractiveness of the locations, but included occasional negative responses.Political Factors: These responses were entirely linked to Belfast and focused onsectarian unrest.Regeneration/Economic Development Factors: These responses were entirely positiveand images of place were derived from the perceived success of recent regenerationprojects.Factors specifically related to the individual venues: These responses werepredominantly positive, although some negative comments were received. They indicatedthat the broader images of place were derived, at least in part, by the quality ofindividual meetings venues.Factors specifically related to the facilities (hotels, shops etc.) in the venue’slocation: These responses were almost universally positive and commented on theabundance of retail, leisure and other facilities in the centres of towns and cities.Accessibility Factors: These comments were very mixed, with some cities, most notablyBirmingham, being perceived as highly and easily accessible and others, most notablyBelfast and Cardiff perceived as inaccessible.

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tation as a culturally vibrant city which may be attri-buted to its highly successful year of culture (Boothand Boyle, 1993; Hall, 2001) and how this has pro-duced long term spin-off benefits in terms of creatinga much improved image for a once much-malignedcity. Manchester’s positive image also includeselements related to its cultural development, as it isseen as a vibrant city with good night-life and is seenas a city which has been successful in moving itsimage away from its industrial past. Manchester isalso rated highly in terms of its accessibility to boththe motorway and air travel networks, thus making iteasier for delegates to attend conferences held there.

There is a significant commonality between thethree places that are positively perceived. Events ofa national and international importance were referredto by a significant number of respondents and formeda noteworthy component of their positive images ofthose places.

Birmingham, like Manchester, is praised for its tra-vel connections, as it is seen to be centrally locatedwith access to all of the major transport networks.However, unlike the other two examples of locationswhose image acts as a encouragement, nearly one in


five of the respondents said that Birmingham’s imagewould act as a deterrent to them organising a confer-ence in the area. This suggests that Birmingham hasbeen less successful than either Manchester or Glas-gow in changing its image, as elements of its earlierimages, such as the city not being aesthetically attract-ive and being ridden with crime and traffic problems,still persist, albeit to a lesser extent than in the past(see Table 3).

In the case of both Doncaster and Cardiff, themajority of responses in relation to whether the imageof these locations was an encouragement or a deter-rent to the organisation of a conference, were in the“don’ t know” category. One possible conclusion thatcan be drawn from this is that these locations don’ thave such a strong image as locations whose imageis either an encouragement or a deterrent. Further evi-dence of this comes from the number of responsesthat were obtained in relation to Cardiff’s image,which were only just over half the amount that wereobtained for any of the other five locations. This lackof a strong image for these locations is also apparentin some of the comments that respondents made. Forexample, it was reported for both Doncaster and Card-iff that respondents had “no image” of either locationand in respect of Doncaster one respondent simplyreplied “where?” (see Table 4).

Belfast had by far the most negatively perceivedimage of the six towns and cities examined here.However, these negative perceptions nearly allreflected comments made about the sectarian unrest inNorthern Ireland. The only other negative commentsbeing made related to awareness of its conferencefacilities from UK mainland conference organisersand associated problems of getting delegates toBelfast from the rest of the UK. High profile media

Table 3 Selected quotes Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester

Glasgow� Is now a vibrant city, good conference facilities, hotels, good shopping.� Very positive image since year of culture.� Trendy, lively, great people, good PR.� Like Brighton its cultured and trendy.� Glasgow has a much improved image since the 1980s, there’s so much going on.� Interesting, cool.Manchester� Major developments in Manchester, perfect location, easy access, host of the

Commonwealth Games.� Vibrant city, good image, good facilities.� Trendy, cosmopolitan, lively.� Working hard to shake off past industrial revolution feel, vibrant, lively.� A happening city.� Violence and theft.Birmingham� Established conference/exhibition/event city, excellent hotels, bars,

restaurants, venues – easily accessible.� International accessibility, local hinterland, good conference facilities, high profile.� Area around International Convention Centre is vibrant and up and coming.� Centrally located, rejuvenated.� Poor image, high rises, dirty, crime, traffic problems.� It takes many years for cities with poor industrial images to alter

perceptions, hard work paying off, but still poor image.

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Table 4 Selected quotes Cardiff and Doncaster

Cardiff� Perception of city has improved.� Has more of a provincial image but is improving rapidly.� Good new venues, a fast improved city.� Difficult to reach by all forms of transport, smaller facilities.� I have no image of Cardiff.� Even with improvements to waterside area, its still a dump.Doncaster� Good position, poor facilities.� Lack of knowledge, perceived as a Northern town.� Where?� Too remote, dowdy image.� Very drab image.� I have no image of Doncaster.

coverage of unrest in Northern Ireland in the weekspreceding the questionnaire survey is likely to haveplaced this firmly in the minds of respondents. Whilstsome respondents acknowledged that there has beensome change in Belfast’s image due to developmentsin the peace process, and despite the efforts of its pro-moters, its image is still overwhelmingly derived fromperceptions of sectarian unrest and violence (seeTable 5).

Can we say that former industrial cities in the UKhave been successful in transforming their externallyperceived images? The evidence collected here, fromone key audience, suggests that the answer to this is aqualified yes. Clearly the images of these cities appearmore diverse than in the past. There was evidence thatthe predominant images of the selected cities circulat-ing amongst decision makers within the meeting plan-ning industry owe little to their industrial pasts.Indeed, in three cases the images of the cities actedas a positive encouragement to meetings organisers,


Table 5 Selected quotes Belfast

Belfast� Beautiful city with a friendly atmosphere.� Dangerous image.� Unstable politically, difficult to get to.� Too much violence in the news.� I think that Belfast should try and promote the positive side of its culture, the negative

side is always seen in the media.� Still has image of city affected by sectarian unrest.

suggesting the legacy of negative past industrialimages seemed to have been eradicated. However,some deeply seated popular perceptions of theseplaces do seem to persist to some extent, for example,the perception of Birmingham as architecturally poorand beset with traffic problems. However, theseimages have become blended in with much morerecent positive images deriving, in large part, fromurban regeneration initiatives. Where the images ofthe six towns/cities examined here acted as a deterrentto meetings organisers they tended to derive fromthings other than industrial imagery, for example, alack of a strongly discernable image in the cases ofDoncaster and Cardiff, and from the reinforcement ofthe image of Belfast as a city suffering sectarianunrest in recent media coverage.

Finally, we sought to examine the significance ofthe image of a town or city to the location decision-making processes of meeting organisers. There is anassumption in much academic literature on place pro-motion, often implicit but occasionally explicit, thatimage is key to understanding the movements of capi-tal in the form of company relocations, jobs andinvestment. Yet such studies have little, if any,empirical evidence upon which to sustain theseassumptions. Young and Lever (1997) found littleevidence that image was an important considerationin the decisions of companies seeking semi-perma-nent or permanent locations for new or relocatedoffices. Despite this, there is reason to suppose thatwhen location decisions are more temporary, typi-cally, meetings last less than five days, that imagemight be of far greater significance.

We approached this issue in two ways in our sur-vey. First, we asked meetings organisers directly andexplicitly how significant they felt the image of atown or city, within which a meeting was takingplace, was to the success or the attractiveness of thatmeeting. Their responses indicated that they feltimage to be highly significant in this regard. Over 80percent of respondents (38 out of 46 responses or 82.6percent) felt that the image of a town or city waseither “ important” or “very important” to the successof a meeting (Fig. 2).

Second, we aimed to situate the significance ofimage within the decision-making processes of meet-ings organisers by asking them, using a Likert scale,how important a range of attributes, including image,were to them when selecting a meetings venue. The

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attributes were then ranked into order of importancebased on these responses. The list of eight attributeswas derived from analysis of the key selling pointsfrom a range of promotional materials produced bythe six UK convention centres selected for this study(Table 6). The findings of this stage added a signifi-cant caveat to those outlined above. Of the eight attri-butes listed, “ the image of the city it [the meeting] islocated within” emerged as only seventh mostimportant. In comparison to the other attributes listedbelow, image was only more important than “previoushigh profile events/customers” .

However, this is not to say that this suggests imageis unimportant to the location decision-making ofmeetings organisers. Despite being ranked seventhout of eight in order of importance, 21 out of 32respondents to the question (65.6 percent) still rankedimage as “ important” or “very important” (on theLikert scale) when selecting a meeting. These find-ings, then, echo Young and Lever’s (1997) findingsto the extent that they suggest that image is not themost significant consideration in the locationdecision-making of key economic actors. However,despite this, image is still regarded as important bymeetings organisers and cannot be ignored either bylocal authorities engaged in the promotions of theirlocalities or by individual meetings facilities. A goodpromotional image emerges as an important support-ing attribute to a range of others based in the tangibleworld of accessibility and services provision.

ConclusionsThis paper has attempted to investigate two relatedareas of enquiry, the importance of urban image tothe location decision making processes of meetingsorganisers and the extent to which provincial formerindustrial cities in the UK have overcome the legacyof past images. These two issues come together asthese cities are amongst the most active in pursuingthe meetings industry through their urban regener-ation strategies. There are suggestions that positiveurban images are major contributors to success in themeetings industry and some consensus that negativeurban images constitute major barriers.

The evidence from our survey strongly suggeststhat the selected towns and cities had been successfulin transforming their externally perceived images.Clearly the images of these towns and cities are much


Figure 2 Ranking by respondents of the importance of the town or city in which a meeting is taking place to the success of thatevent or attractiveness of that location.

Table 6 Ranking by respondents of attributes, in order of importance taken intoaccount when selecting a venue for a meeting

� Accessibility� The quality and versatility of the venue itself� Catering and banqueting� The quality and range of services it offers� The physical location and associated facilities/services (eg hotels, shops, restaurants)� Technology and technological facilities� The image of the city it is located within� Previous high profile events/customers

more diverse than in the past. Their images are nowderived from a variety of cultural, social, environmen-tal, political, economic, physical and accessibility fac-tors. Industry was rarely mentioned by respondents indiscussing these towns’ and cities’ images. Therewere significant differences amongst the respondents’reactions to the images of the six towns and cities,however. Indeed, we might tentatively suggest thatthe possession of a strong industrial image in the pastmay actually be advantage in some circumstances inthe post-industrial period. This is certainly the casewhen compared to the case of towns and cities withno strongly perceived image. An historical imageassociated squarely with industry appears to act as amarker against which people perceive or measurechange in those towns and cities that have undergoneextensive redevelopment in the post-industrial period.Our survey suggested that towns and cities with weakimages in the past still tend to have weak images,whereas cities with strong industrial images in thepast, that have undergone extensive regeneration,have strong, rejuvenated images.

Finally, our survey suggested that image isimportant in the location decision making processesof, in this case, meetings organisers. However, it isnot as important as a number of other factors. Thisfinding is significant in that it informs on-going aca-demic debates about place promotion and the signifi-cance of urban image. Much of this debate has exam-ined image in isolation, neither situating it within thelocation decision-making processes of key economicactors, nor amongst the other attributes that are sig-nificant to these decisions. This paper has demon-

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strated that a more nuanced understanding of therelationship between place promotion, urban imageand urban development can be achieved if this omis-sion is rectified.

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