The authors of this book use regulation theory to bring theoretical focus and analytic clarity to the study of urban tourism. The book opens and closes with chapters that analyze urban tourism within the context of a restructured global economy and its interaction with local and global cultural tendencies. The editors and contributors emphasize the role of the state at different spatial scales in the production of the tourist city, examine the ways in which urban images are created, and investigate the place of sports, art museums, and other cultural forms in creating the tourism milieu. Original chapters written by leading scholars illuminate their theoretical perspective with studies of Venice, Mexico, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and Australia's Gold Coast.

These studies are grouped into four categories: regulating tourists, city space, labor markets, and the tourism industry. The regulation framework allows the editors and contributors to show how the political, economic, and cultural elements of urban tourism constitute an interwoven whole.