Urban Restructuring and Tourism Marketing: The Dual Transformation of Neoliberal New York.

To what extent has urban tourism marketing been accompanied by, and itself helped facilitate, deeper political and economic restructuring? Through a case study of New York City over the last 30 years, this paper argues there is a strong interrelationship between these two processes, and indeed that tourism marketing has been instrumental in the shift towards urban neoliberalism. I focus on two pivotal periods of crisis and transformation in contemporary New York City, when new public-private partnerships formed with a similar, dual agenda to save and transform the city. The first period is that of the 1970's fiscal crisis, when this agenda involved behind-the-scenes promotion of "pro-business reforms," and very public branding of New York as a white-collar tourist destination. The second period follows the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the quiet use of lucrative business incentives was accompanied by high-profile efforts to "re-brand New York" for "patriotic tourism." This paper draws in particular on consultants' reports commissioned and acted upon by city and state economic development agencies-documents previously unused by scholars. Thus my research shows different ways in which tourism marketing was employed discursively, politically, and economically to facilitate, and distract attention from, broader neoliberal shifts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]