Urban spaces : a study of the impact of spatial configuration on tourists

Abstract

When people think about cities they tend to think of certain aspects such as streets, buildings, shopping areas or similar. However, there is another important element about cities that is the urban spaces between them. Fundamentally, cities are mostly shaped by the flows of people. The multiple users of a city include office workers, residents, and amongst those people that move through cities are also tourists. Thereby it can be recognized that tourists are interested in exploring the everyday aspect of a city that they visit. In order to understand what makes urban spaces enjoyable and interesting an urban design literature model by Montgomery was used. This is discussed in the literature in section 3.5. Referring to this model helped define the field of this long essay. The author gathered the most relevant information in order to understand the features in urban spaces that enable to have an enjoyable experience.

The research is on St. George’s Square and Independence Square. Relating these two squares for the research was useful to gain an insight into the tourist experience so that the researcher could make comparisons. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used and seen suitable for the research objectives. Thereby this resulted in some useful findings on the tourist experience. The overall findings suggested that entertainment, architecture and pedestrianisation were the most important components of the tourists experience.