Fashion Capitals and Urban Tourism: The Case of Paris, Milan, New York and Tokyo
Keywords:
fashion capitals; Fashion Week; urban tourism; event tourism; cultural economy; destination imageAbstract
Urban apparel is a salient part of urban branding and is closely related to tourism. Tourists patronize fashion cities like Paris, Milan, New York, and Tokyo for the shopping experience, to "experience" the architecture and streetscapes, and sometimes even to attend Fashion Week. This exploratory study examines and compares the academic literature that frames these four cities as fashion cities and tourist cities, and what it says about the economic impacts of Fashion Week. The study employs a qualitative comparative case study approach and a systematic way of reading secondary sources. We identified four mechanisms We have identified four mechanisms - heritage and brand identity; shopping and retail; event tourism; media-facilitated place image. Specifically, in terms of the Fashion Weeks, we saw mentions of direct expenditures-type spending on hotels, transportation, and venues; indirect value from media coverage and the city's image; recognition of uneven benefits; and the challenges of confirming the expenditures estimates. The source base is limited, and was limited for a purpose, so the findings are preliminary and not generalizable. We provided a comparative snapshot of fashion as a tourism asset and what future research should be measuring.
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