tourism in difficult areas revisited: the case of bradford

Tourism Management 22 (2001) 629–635

Tourism in difficult areas revisited: the case of Bradford

C.A. Hope*, M.S. Klemm

University of Bradford, Management Centre, Emm Lane, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD9 4JL, UK

Received 15 December 1999; accepted 20 September 2000

Abstract

Bradford was the first city in a ‘‘difficult area’’ in the UK to try to capitalise on tourism. This concept was introduced by Buckleyand Witt in the 1980s using Bradford as an example. The article looks at how Bradford and its tourism policies have changed since

their initial success in the 1980s. Support for tourism from Local Government has fluctuated because of funding crises, uncertaintyabout the benefits of tourism and changing political priorities in the City. In the late 1990s, Bradford launched a new strategy toattract leisure tourists, using support from the private sector and funds from Europe. Finally, we attempt to evaluate Bradford’s

success in tourism over the period and relate this to the original study of difficult areas r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rightsreserved.

Keywords: Urban tourism; Bradford; Leisure tourists

1. Introduction

Buckley and Witt (1985) reported the preliminaryresults of a research project into tourist developments in‘‘difficult areas’’. They defined a difficult area as follows(p. 205):

* one which has a small tourism base in terms ofreceipts;

* one which may be regarded as unsuitable for touristdevelopment because of a poor ‘image’, unfavourablesocial or economic factors, e.g. declining industry; and

* is in need of infrastructural improvement.

They reported the results of case studies of Bradford,Bristol, Glasgow and Hamm. In this paper, the case ofBradford 14 years later will be examined.Bradford is a city located in the North of England

which developed as a tourist destination in the 1980s‘‘virtually from scratch’’ (Urry, 1990, p. 115). The cityoriginally grew with the Industrial Revolution when itsprosperity was linked to wool, in particular themanufacture of worsted material. Numerous textilemills and complementary engineering businesses devel-oped in the district and these impressive buildings have

enabled Bradford to turn history into industrialheritage. One particularly famous mill, Salt’s Mill, wasbuilt on the outskirts of Bradford. The mill owner, SirTitus Salt, built a model village, Saltaire, to house hisworkers and which included a hospital, old people’shomes, schools, a church and a park. This village is nowone of Bradford’s principal tourist attractions.Over the past few decades the traditional industries

of textiles and engineering have declined, and thesocial and economic composition of the city haschanged. Bradford district now has a large ethnicminority population (Bradford and District Trainingand Enterprise Council, 1997)F17 per cent ofinhabitantsFmostly people of Asian origin whocame originally to Bradford to work in the mills, butthe younger generation have been born and broughtup in Britain. This community is now firmly establishedand expanding, especially in the inner city areas wherethere has been an accompanying growth of small Asianbusinesses, estimated at around 1400 in the 1990s.However, unemployment amongst the Asian commu-nity is higher than the average for the City (BradfordMetropolitan District Council, 1998a).

2. Bradford in the mid 1980s

During the mid 1980s, The Bradford MetropolitanDistrict Council took the lead in tourism policy,

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1274-234360 or 234358; fax:

+44-1274-546866.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C.A. Hope),

[email protected] (M.S. Klemm).

0261-5177/01/$ - see front matter r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 7 - 1

marketing and investment by creating and funding atourism section located within the economic develop-ment unit (EDU). Staff in this unit developed andmarketed short breaks to Bradford, based on the themessuch as

* Haworth and its links to the Bront.ee Sisters, (10 milesoutside Bradford),

* ‘Emmerdale Farm’Fa long running nightly TV‘soap’ series (6 miles outside BradfordFactually inthe Leeds Metropolitan District) and

* ‘Last of the Summer Wine’, another TV series filmedin Holmfirth, (15 miles from Bradford).

In various innovative ways Bradford tried to changeits image as a grimy old industrial city with the slogan‘‘Bradford: A Surprising Place’’. The city capitalised onits scenic surroundings in the Pennines as well as onliterary heritage and popular culture. (For a detailedaccount of tourism product development in Bradfordsee also Davidson & Maitland, 1997).Private capital was attracted into tourism develop-

ment, partly encouraged by council-backed investment,such as d1 million of council money which was investedin St. George’s Hall for concerts and meetings. Atourism development action plan (TDAP) brought inmoney from central government via the YorkshireTourist Board. European Community funds of d2.3million contributed to the d7 million refurbishment ofthe Alhambra Music Hall and Theatre. Despite thisinvestment, Buckley and Witt (1985) considered that thecity faced major threats to tourist development. Theseincluded: poor economic and social conditions in innercity areas; a poor image of the city despite theimprovements and marketing efforts; declining regionalincome; a lack of resources for tourist development; andincreased competition for short-break holidays. AsBramwell and Rawding (1994) observed, much of thiscompetition came from other cities which followedBradford’s innovative approach to the marketing of anold industrial city.

3. BradfordFchanges since the mid 1980s

In the early 1990s, Bradford City Council was facedwith a funding crisis. As a consequence of policies by thethen Conservative Government, the total Local Author-ity budget was reduced over several successive yearsculminating in a cut of d20 million for 1994. TheCouncil, faced with the prospect of reducing essentialservices such as education and the care of the elderly,decided that it could no longer afford to fund thepromotion of Bradford as a tourist destination. Tour-ism, unlike most other local council services, was not astatutory responsibility. There was also a change inphilosophy, which said that tourism did not generate

income for the Council, and should therefore be fundedby private business.

3.1. Organisation and marketing

The Tourism Unit was closed in 1995 with severalredundancies. It was argued that the income from leisureshort breaks had been declining due to increasedcompetition from other UK cities with better fundedpromotion. Council promotion had increased thenumber of day visitors, but these visitors only broughtin d25 per day compared with conference visitorsstaying overnight who brought in more than d100 perday (Guy, 1984). With this in mind, the Council retainedone of the Tourism Unit Staff to run a Conference Desk,a job which was financed by a grant from the EU(d140,000 over 3 years from 1994) to fund thepromotion of Bradford for business and conferencetourism only. The remit for this person was to bring8000 new conference delegates (staying overnight) intoBradford per annum during the years 1994 and 1995, atarget, which was achieved. The 1990s, therefore sawBradford Council gradually, and for some painfully,disengaging itself from tourism policy and frompromotion of the city to leisure tourists.

3.2. A multicultural city

Bradford’s Asian community has a major impact onthe cultural and economic life of the city, and this hasbeen recognised in its tourism policies. In the late 1980s,a new theme for short-break holidays was introdu-cedFFlavours of AsiaFcelebrating Asian cuisine andfashion. This new theme lead to the opening of 18 newAsian restaurants and 60 new jobs in the inner city areaof high unemployment. The Bradford Festival, calledthe Mela, is another multicultural event held in one ofBradford’s Victorian parks, now restored with lotteryfunds. The Mela is a 2-day festival held each June,culminating in a large open air concert featuring modernAsian music and dance which attracts many youngBritish-born Asians. The festival brought in 175,000visitors in 1997 (Bradford and District Training andEnterprise Council, 1997), many of whom stayedovernight in the city.

3.3. Visits to attractions

Over the period, visitor numbers to attractions in theBradford area have tended to fall as can be seen inFig. 1. This follows the downward trend in visits to UKattractions as a result of increased competition amongstattractions, and the fact that people are spendingmore leisure time at out of town shopping centreswhich are now open all weekend (Noble, 2000).However, the available figures do not include all

C.A. Hope, M.S. Klemm / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 629–635630

attractions in the Bradford area. For example, therestored and revitalised village of Saltaire and Salt’s Millwhich contains the David Hockney Art Gallery has seenan increase in visitors since 1985, but this is difficult toquantify as entry is free. The fall in numbers visitingthe national museum of film, photography and televi-sion (NMFPT) was due in part to its closure forrefurbishment and expansion (costing d13.4 million)for 18 months. Following the refurbishment andreopening in 1999, visitor numbers rose to an all timehigh of 962,000 for 1999–2000. One relatively newtourist attraction in Bradford, Transperience, did notattract enough visitors and was forced to close in 1998.The lack of figures for the period between 1995 and 1997is due to the closure of the Council tourism unit.

3.4. Infrastructure

Bradford is centrally located in the UK with goodcommunications by direct motorway and rail links. Themajor change since 1985 has been the investment inLeeds–Bradford Airport, located approximately 17 kmoutside the city centre. Its runway was extended in 1984with the first Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet landing on 4thNovember. d8 million was spent on expanding theterminal buildings in 1994/95 and a further upgrade/extension was completed in May 1998. It has seen a

growth in total passengers using the airport from474,570 in 1985/6 to 1,398,363 in 1998 (Leeds BradfordAirport, Annual Reports). Rail links have beenupgraded between Leeds and Bradford with theelectrification of Leeds/Shipley/Bradford route. Beforeelectrification, the through trains to London had to havetheir engines changed in Leeds! The number of directtrains to London from Bradford per day has increasedfrom one to four and the journey time slightly reduced.European money has also helped fund the building of anew ring road to the east of the city, but roads generallyin West Yorkshire remain very congested. It is difficultfor visitors to park in the city centre. There is alsocongestion on the narrow village roads leading to thehoneypot villages of Haworth (Bront.ees) and Esholt(Emmerdale Farm).

4. 1998Fa new tourism strategy for Bradford

In 1998 Bradford Council re-entered the policy arenaon tourism by launching a new tourism strategy(Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 1998b). Thepolicy acknowledges tourism as a ‘‘a regenerativetool which unites key business players’’ but is signifi-cantly different to the marketing led strategies of the1980s. Tourism is seen as more than just economic

Fig. 1. Number of visitors to attractions.

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development, it is a tool of regeneration which can beused to develop communities, the environment, and as-pects of social life such as the arts, culture and religion.

4.1. Bradford tourism partnership

The core of this strategy, which differentiates it fromtourism policies for Bradford in the 1980s, was theestablishment of a new private/public sector body calledthe Bradford Tourism Partnership to lead tourismdevelopment in the city. The City Council is only onemember of this partnership body, which was supportedby a grant from the European Regional DevelopmentFund. Groups involved in the partnership were

* the City Council,* the local hotel association,* local transport providers,* City Centre retailers’ association,* representatives from local attractions, and* major local employers.

Through its monthly meetings the partnership isexpected to

* formulate a business plan,* research potential target markets,* develop a brand for the District, and* most importantly to contribute financially to newinitiatives in tourism.

The move towards private sector funding in tourismwas met with some scepticism, but in fact members ofthe partnership contributed financially towards abrochure to promote short breaks and leisure tourismin Bradford. In establishing a private/public sectorpartnership for tourism, Bradford is part of a trendamongst British Local Authorities toward this type ofcollaborative agreement (Charlton & Essex, 1995).

4.2. New marketing initiative

The first act of the new partnership was to relaunchBradford as a destination for leisure tourists with a newshort-breaks holiday brochure funded by the membersof the partnership. This was based on research predict-ing a 30 per cent growth in the domestic short breakmarket between 1998 and 2003, with an expected totalof 47.9 million trips (Howitt, 1999). Market researchcommissioned by the City Council identified fourmarket segments in the UK population, which providedthe best fit in terms of attractiveness and location for ashort break in Bradford. Bradford hoteliers contributedto this promotion because (as in the 1980s) they foundthat although they had benefited from conferencebusiness during the week, occupancy was still low atweekends. Seventeen hotels participated in a newscheme in which each offers a slightly different package

and the average rate charged is in the region of d26 perperson per night. Some hotels include free entry to theIMAX theatre, others draw on other attractions in andaround Bradford. No new themes have been launched,but the whole package of attractions for Bradford andsurrounding area is emphasised.

5. European funding

5.1. Tourism pole

The central area of Bradford has been designated anObjective 2 Area by the European union (EU). As suchit is eligible to bid for grants from the Economic andSocial Fund and the European regional developmentfund (ERDF), and has been successful in obtaining anEU grant of d300,000 for a tourism pole in the citycentre. The pole is defined as the area within 15minwalk from the city centre and includes the NationalMuseum of Photography Film and Television, theColour Museum and will include the proposed newNational Millennium Faith Heritage Centre which is tobe based near the Cathedral. It is under this grant, thatthe initiatives to improve Bradford’s image, developshort breaks for leisure tourists, extend visitor stays andimprove the quality of the local product mentionedearlier will be taken by the Bradford MarketingPartnership.

5.2. ERDF funding

Other major schemes approved under the ERDF fund(1997–99) include the Bradford Cathedral 2000 project,the Bradford Summer Festival and a new IMAX cinema(Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 1997). TheCathedral 2000 Project will bring back into use animportant landmark building that forms the gateway toLittle Germany, a small district in Bradford noted for itsarchitecture. The building will house the National FaithHeritage Centre, training, a community restaurant andretail space. The total cost of this project is in the regionof d4 million, with a grant from the EU of just less thand1million. The Millennium Commission is also con-tributing d2.25 million towards this development. TheBradford Summer Festival, the Mela, provides free,culturally diverse and accessible entertainment and artsevents. The objective is to extend the festival and createa vibrant atmosphere in Centenary Square and thecentral precincts and parks of Bradford for local peopleand also to attract visitors. The season is supported by acommunity development programme, market research,publicity and marketing strategy. The projected cost isd1.5 million and the grant sought is d0.5 million. Afurther project is to introduce state-of-the art IMAXtechnology as a new and additional visitor attraction at


the NMPFTV. The total Cost will be d2.8 million andthe grant sought is just under d0.4 million.

5.3. Targets

The grants have been welcomed, but there are manyassociated restrictions and targets that have to be metwithin two years. For example, for the Tourism Pole bidthe following targets apply

* 60 new indirect jobs and 5 new direct jobs,* an increase in the number of visitors by 200,000;* increase in bednights of 20%,* 10 new film products,* 4 new events.

One particular difficulty that exists with these targetsis in terms of measurement. It is very difficult toestablish how many visitors there are to Bradford, andthus demonstrate with any degree of certainty, whetherthere is any increase.

5.4. Quality and customer care

In the Tourism Strategy document published in June1998, Bradford City Council included the improvementin quality through training and encouragement ofexcellence in customer care as two of seven aims(Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 1998b). Theyhoped to achieve this in a number of ways, including theestablishment of training programmes and the develop-ment of relevant skills in the districts’ residents,particularly in disadvantaged communities.Staff in hotels and attractions in Bradford have

received training in customer care in the form of theWelcome Host Course partly funded by the Yorkshireand Humberside Tourism Board and Morrison’s Trust,a local training agency. This is a national vocationalqualification (NVQ) level one course leading on tohigher level qualifications.Bradford and Ilkley Community College have run

HND Level Courses in Leisure Management andTourism Management. These courses have recentlybeen developed further and two new degrees are nowon offer: BA (Hons.) Leisure Management and BA(Hons.) Tourism Management.

5.5. Image

Despite the efforts of the marketing department ofBradford Council, Bradford still suffers from a poorimage in Britain, although the international perceptionof the city as the home of premier league football and aprestigious university is more positive. Two nights ofrioting in one area of the city in 1995 hit the televisionnews and became newspaper headlines. Although somedamage did occur, which included a car dealership being

set alight, this was presented in the media as a muchmore major event than it actually was. A televisiondrama series in 1998/9 called ‘‘Band of Gold’’ whichfeatured drugs and prostitution was located in Bradford,further knocking its image.The older industrial areas of Bradford have a run-

down appearance, which, according to a Governmentreport, makes it unattractive to visitors and newinvestors (UK Government Office for Yorkshire andthe Humber, 1997, p. 43). The city is ringed by oldterraced houses that were built for the mill workers inthe late 19th and early 20th centuries. These are at thelower end of the housing market and include areas ofhigh unemployment. The city centre has many fine oldbuildings, but lacks an air of prosperity. What wasformerly a lively market has closed and the site remainsundeveloped. Bradford Council offered grants to localshopkeepers to upgrade their shopfronts, but this hasnot had much impact on the town centre. With theclosure of the city’s major department store in 1992 anda dearth of high class retailers Bradford has lost out toneighbouring towns such as Leeds and Harrogate(Bradford and District Training and Enterprise Council,1997). Surveys of British and international studentsvisiting Bradford show positive perceptions of Brad-ford’s history, countryside and multicultural society andnegative perceptions of the built environment which isdescribed as grey and depressing (Trueman, 2000).

6. Conclusions

The lack of hard data makes it difficult to statecategorically that Bradford has either succeeded orfailed in its efforts to attract tourists. It is the only Cityin the UK to be successful in bidding for Europeanfunds for a ‘‘Tourism Pole’’Fall other Tourism Polesare based on specific sites (for example YorkshireSculpture Park). It has seen a great increase in thenumber of hotel beds and in bednights, although carehas to be taken in comparing the figures presentedabove, as they are not strictly comparable. On the otherhand, it could be argued that bedstock remains low for acity of its size. Many of the hotels, and all of the newones are in the outlying areas of the City, and this,together with the lack of a large conference venue,makes it difficult to accommodate large conferences.However, the City has done well in attracting businesstourism and smaller conferences.Bradford clearly is not a ‘‘natural’’ tourist attraction

and in this respect not much has changed since 1985when Buckley and Witt (1985) categorised Bradford as a‘‘difficult area’’. The City appears to have nearlydoubled in size, which is unusual for city districts(Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 1999a). This isin part explained by the continued immigration of


spouses from Pakistan. This continued influx andstrengthening of the Asian community has been reflectedin the themes ‘‘Flavours of Asia’’ and the Mela.However, there is high unemployment and the usualassociated problems in the inner city or Objective 2 areaof Bradford (see Table 1), and although there have beensome improvements to the infrastructure, the image ofBradford in the UK is still unfavourable.Bradford’s experience shows that support for tourism

from local Government cannot be relied upon. Thisappears to be for two reasons: the lack of statutoryobligation to promote tourism and the difficulty incollecting data to prove whether or not tourismcontributes to the local economy. Over the period therehave been changes in the Council’s tourism policy; aswing from policy leadership and energetic marketing ofBradford to all visitors in the 1980s, retreat intopromotion for conferences only in the early 1990s, andcautious re-entry into leisure tourism with a strongerrole for the private sector on the eve of the millennium.Bradford was one of the first cities in a ‘‘difficult area’’

in the UK to try to develop tourism, but the earlysuccesses were in part due to Bradford’s early entry intothe market. Since the early 1980s many other cities havefollowed suit and competition within this sector of themarket has increased. Bradford Council claim in itsmedia release that ‘‘Six million national and interna-

tional visitors come to Bradford every year to enjoy itsmany ‘surprises’’’ (Bradford Metropolitan DistrictCouncil, 1999b). However, despite the launch of thenew Tourism Partnership between the City Council andthe private sector and the recent cash injections fromEurope and the National Lottery, it still remains to beseen whether or not the marketing unit were beingrather optimistic when they stated ‘‘Bradford District isgearing up for a new tourism boom’’.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the help of GinaGlot and Mike Cowlam, City of Bradford MetropolitanDistrict Council and Samantha Wynzar, Leeds BradfordInternational Airport, for their help in providinginformation for this paper. The views expressed in itare those of the authors.

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Bradford: changes in the City and its tourism summariseda

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