Current Issues in Tourism

Vol. 15, Nos. 1 2, January March 2012, 3 17

Capitalness is contingent: tourism and national capitals in a

globalised world
Robert Maitland

The Centre for Tourism Research, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1
5LS, UK
(Received 15 October 2010; nal version received 4 September 2011)

National capitals play a central role in tourism in a globalised world, but their special
qualities their capitalness can be elusive. This article argues that tourism
representation is at the heart of capitalness and shapes the ways in which capitals and
nations are seen. Capitals appeal to visitors with accumulations of heritage and
cultural assets, as centres of power and as symbols of national identity, presenting the
nation to itself and the outside world. Globalisation, territorial change and the rise of
sub-state nationalisms have seen new cities becoming national capitals and
established capitals signicantly changing their roles. Cities may acquire or aspire to
capital status, or have to adapt to a role as a lesser capital or have to abandon
capital status altogether. In doing so, they revise buildings, spaces and cultural assets
to emphasise their new status and negotiate contested identities. Tourism is integral to
this process as new national symbols are created, existing sites are reinterpreted and
revalorised for visitors, and choices are made about how the nation should be
represented to the outside world and to itself. Tourism representation reveals how
tensions between capitals cosmopolitan and distinct national roles are played out,
how new versions of the national story are developed and how capitalness is
contingent on particular national experiences.
Keywords: tourism; representation; capitals; globalisation; nations; London

1. There is something special about a national capital but what is it?

Gordons (2006, p. vii) claim that there is always something special about a capital city
seems to ring true, but it has proved difcult to establish just what gives a national
capital its special qualities, and how they relate to its tourism role. In some ways this is
unsurprising. Capitals head nations yet the very concepts of nation, national identity and
nationalism remain contested; they cannot be dened unambiguously, despite a consider-
able body of scholarship from the nineteenth century onwards (White & Frew, 2011).
Given that, it is not unexpected that a clear picture of the special qualities of a national
capital its capitalness has proved elusive. It is still less surprising that limited progress
has been made in understanding how capitalness and tourism interact. Yet national capitals
play a crucial role in the international tourism system, and tourism in national capitals
represents an important element in the urban tourism.

Email: r.a.maitland@westminster.ac.uk

ISSN 1368-3500 print/ISSN 1747-7603 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2011.634891
http://www.tandfonline.com
4 R. Maitland

At one level, the importance of national capitals to tourism is straightforward. First,

national capitals are often popular and well-established tourism destinations, attracting a
high proportion of international and domestic visitors. Second, there are more of them,
and their numbers continue to grow. Three-quarter of todays national capital cities were
not capitals 100 years ago (Capital Alliance, 2003), and the expansion in numbers
while uneven has broadly coincided with the evolution of globalisation and the develop-
ment of mass tourism since the 1960s. It now seems that this growth will continue. Press-
ures for devolution and the search for recognition by sub-national groups mean more cities
seek to move from being a provincial city to being a national capital, as larger entities frag-
ment into a series of smaller nations. This process is uncertain and protracted, sometimes
peaceful (for example, the velvet divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia), sometimes
violent (for example, the break-up of the former Yugoslavia). Third, capitals are often the
main national gateway, in a literal sense, since they are frequently the international entry
point for air travellers and the hub of national transport systems. Fourth, capitals have a
key role in representing a nation to the rest of the world and to itself: as the focus of national
imagery and representation they play . . . a vital role in establishing national identity
(Capitals Alliance, 2003, p. 9). Capitals boast accumulations of museums, galleries and
other national institutions along with heritage and a built environment that constitutes a
critical mass of cultural attractions for tourism. Heritage, culture and architecture have
long been used by capitals to compete internationally and to mark their status in the
world (to a domestic as well as a foreign audience). The contemporary appeal of many capi-
tals rests on the legacy of past competition. Gilbert and Driver (2000, p. 23) point out that
the form, use and representation of modern European cities have been shaped by the global
history of imperialism in ways that continue to matter even in an apparently post-Imperial
age, while Frost (2012) shows that the appeal of many destinations can be linked to their
former status as national capitals. Finally, as centres of governmental and commercial
power, capitals attract business tourists, meetings and conference delegates, and are
centres of educational tourism as citizens learn more about their country. There can be dis-
sonance between these different roles: for example, for cultural and leisure tourists, centres
of government may be seen as dull at best, unattractive at worst.
Yet setting out the tourism roles national capitals play does not in itself explain the
nature of capitalness. This paper explores capitalness and tourism by considering tensions
between international and national roles at a time of uid national identities, and examining
how tourism representation shapes, illustrates and embodies changing national identities.

2. Nations and capitals

The attributes of capitals are entwined in the very idea of a city. Mumford (1961) argues that
cities emerged through the coming together of a stronghold a centre of power and a
sacred shrine a spiritual centre in a single place. Power and symbolism are at the
heart of what it means to be a national capital. Capitals are cities from which nations are
ruled, and which help legitimate power. Functionally, that makes them seats of government,
headquarters of large businesses, and locations of hard power (army and police forces) and
soft power (key cultural, artistic and educational institutions). But they are also places of
symbolic importance representing the nation to itself, and to the outside world. In that
sense, and linked to sacredness, they are places of pilgrimage, attracting visitors, domestic
and foreign, to experience symbolically powerful places; tourism to national capitals is
longstanding. Of course, these roles are intertwined. Buildings, monuments, civic spaces
and street layouts have both functional and symbolic roles. Vale (1992, p. viii) notes that
 Current Issues in Tourism 5

a variety of national regimes have used architecture and urban design to express political
power and control. For example, Capitol Hill in Washington, DC serves to house parts of
the government and represents power to citizens, the governors and to visitors while at the
same time symbolising democracy as a founding principal of the USA since its classical
style carries allusions to ancient Greece. The British Museums collection of cultural arte-
facts from around the world is an attraction in its own right but also symbolises London and
Britains status as a cultural centre.
National capitals then represent the nation and establish national identity (Capitals Alli-
ance, 2003) and as Logan (2005, p. 560) asserts they are the symbolic head of the territory
and nation. But the term national capital is not straightforward. While it commonly refers
to the capital of a nation-state that is, an entity in which the boundaries of a nation and of
a state are the same nations and national identity may exist without states and cities within
them may assert capital status. Ideas of nations, states and national identity must be
explored to understand the role of capitals, and their signicance in tourism. A state can
be dened objectively, in terms of its ability to assert and to exercise force over and
within a particular territory. From this stems the ability of a state to govern and to
deploy state institutions. The sociologist Max Weber in the nineteenth century dened
the state as a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate
use of physical force within a given territory (Weber, Gerth, & Wright Mills, 1991, p. 78).
Webers denition still captures the essence of the concept of the state, although develop-
ments in international law have challenged the idea that a state enjoys a complete monopoly
of legitimate force within its territory (see, for example, James (1986)), and recent discus-
sions around liberal interventionism (for example, Cooper, 2007). Smith (1991, p. 14)
similarly sees the state in terms of its ability to wield power through public institutions dif-
ferentiated from and autonomous of, other social institutions and exercising a monopoly of
coercion and extraction within a given territory.
Much scholarly effort has been devoted to examining the idea of nation (for example,
Deutsch, 1966; Smith, 1971, 1991) and there is agreement that while a state is objectively
dened, a nation is subjective. For Smith (1991, p. 15), a nation comprises a cultural and
political bond, uniting a political community who share historic culture and homeland.
For Guibernau (1996, p. 47) it is a human group conscious of forming a community,
sharing a common culture, attached to a clearly demarcated territory, having a common
past and a common project for the future and claiming the right to rule itself. There are
elements of these denitions that might be seen as objective, and aligned to the way a state
is dened notably a demarcated territory or even homeland. But all the other elements
are subjective and depend upon a group of people sharing some sufciently common
views. A common culture cannot be objectively dened. The collection of buildings,
spaces, artefacts and cultural practices to be found in a given territory do not themselves
amount to a common culture that stems from how they are interpreted by those who live
there. Equally, a common past is more than a series of events that have taken place in or
are related to a particular piece of territory; it is a shared narrative, a shared interpretation
of those events and the symbols associated with them (often found in capitals) which
create a historic culture. A common project for the future requires some shared sense of
what is desirable and the political community that will seek to bring it about. Bennett
(1993, cited in White & Frew 2011, p. 3) thinks nations represent themselves in never
ending stories. National symbols are essential to the telling of these never-ending but
not unchanging stories. It was in this sense that Anderson (1983) argued that the nation
was an imagined community, to be distinguished from an ofcial nationalism created
by the state.
6 R. Maitland

The modern nation-state is an entity that seeks to combine attributes of both state and
nation. It not only exercises the power of a state over its territory, but actively seeks to foster
national identity. This is common to all nation-states, although efforts may be greater or
more explicit in those more recently independent; in the case of Australia, for example.
White (1981) sees national identity as an invention, constantly to be redened. This can
be done in a variety of ways. Some relate to governance and administration, and have
both practical and symbolic signicance: legal systems, forms of government and public
institutions are functional but also symbolic of national ideals of democracy or justice,
for example. Others are primarily symbolic places, monuments, buildings, ceremonies
and events which resonate with a shared sense of belonging. National capitals are especially
important here, as the location of such symbols.
But while buildings, spaces, monuments and artworks endure for centuries, what they
symbolise is changeable as nations arise, fall, expand and contract and as their sense of
themselves changes. Since the 1940s, there has been radical rearrangement of nation-
states around the world, driven by the ending of European Empires, primarily in Africa
and Asia, by major territorial changes in the aftermath of World War II and following
the end of the Cold War. In Europe, some nation-states were re-established as independent
entities, re-asserted full independence or re-emerged from former federal states. At the same
time, apparently stable nation-states such as the UK, Spain and Canada experienced press-
ures from regional or sub-state nationalisms, with minority cultures asserting their identity
as nations for example, Scots and Catalan peoples. Meanwhile, developments of pan-
national organisations such as the European Union and the Eurozone led some commenta-
tors to speculate about a general decline in the importance of the nation-state. The growth of
sub-state nationalisms and supra-national institutions is a highly complex process. While
commentators agree that they are related to the effects of and reactions against globalisation
and standardisation and to a desire for greater democratic control, different accounts are
contested (see, for example, Gieben & Lewis, 2005). Fortunately, there is no need to
enter into this difcult territory here. The signicant point is that there has been consider-
able uidity in the arrangement of nation-states and nations, and this is set to continue. One
outcome has been cities gaining or losing capital status or altering their role, with conse-
quent implications for capitalness and how such cities attract and represent themselves to
tourists.
The sense is that there is something special about capitals centres on power and symbo-
lism, but though they have common features, capitals are extremely varied and this has led to
attempts to develop classication typologies (see Pearce (2007) for a useful discussion).
Some typologies emphasise variations that can be accounted for by differing political
systems; for example, capitals of strongly centralised states accumulate more monuments,
formal buildings and national institutions than those of more loosely federated states
(Claval, 2001). The urbanist Peter Hall proposed a sevenfold classication, ranging from pro-
vincial to global capitals, and based on history, current functions and place in the world urban
hierarchy (Hall 2000, 2006), while Michael Hall (2002) suggested the typology could be
extended to embrace other types of capital brand or cultural capitals, for example. These
classications are inevitably rather loose, with overlaps and indeed some cities are eligible
for inclusion in several categories. Vale (1992) examined the architecture of national capitals
and noted that geographers have made a simple distinction between natural capitals that
have evolved over time (for example, London) and articial or planned capitals (for
example, Washington, DC or Canberra, discussed in this issue). With a focus on the cities
built environment, he distinguished three types of capital. First, evolved capitals that have
developed historically and experienced gradual re-arrangements of buildings and spaces
 Current Issues in Tourism 7

as their functions changed and their nations sense of identity altered (London, Paris, Vienna,
for example). Second, evolved capitals renewed: cities that have experienced radical design
intervention so that they become in some sense a new city physically and/or symbolically. He
cites the example of Rome where major design interventions were made in the nineteenth
century to emphasise continuity with an ancient empire combined with contemporary
links to a newly unied Italy. Third, designed capitals: cities that are designed as a whole,
from scratch, to perform functional and symbolic roles (Brasilia, for example).
Maitland and Ritchie (2009) drew on this previous work and suggested that from a
tourism point of view, capital cities could be divided into four categories. Planned and pol-
itical capitals have been designed or signicantly re-shaped to present the nation to the world
and to itself. This provides a legacy of buildings, monuments and spaces and cultural
resources that attract tourists. Global and multi-functional capitals are political capitals
with strong economic and commercial functions; they tend to dominate their nation and
have concentrations of heritage and cultural resource. They attract a wide range of business
and leisure visitors. Historic and former capitals have enjoyed capital status at some time in
the past but no longer do so, or remain as capitals of smaller states. They enjoy a legacy of
heritage and cultural resources disproportionate to their current role and are likely to be
especially attractive to cultural tourists. (Re)-emerging capitals are cities that have gained
or regained capital status as nations have achieved independence. They may share character-
istics with cities in other categories in terms of their inheritance of culture and historic associ-
ations, but their changing role means there is particular concern about representation, and
tourism development is part of a wider process of national reconstruction.
This approach, like that of Vale (1992), emphasises the importance of considering the
dynamics of change capitals and their roles, rather than focusing on a static classication.
Cities capital status may be subject to one of four processes of change:
Acquisition (or re-assertion) of national capital status is through the creation of a new
nation-state or the reassertion of statehood. As mentioned above, these cities will be
especially concerned with image and representation to tourists as they reposition them-
selves and assert their new status. Rozite and Klepers (2012) explore some of the issues
this raises for tourism in their discussion of the development of Riga as the city regained
its status at the head of an independent nation-state. Smith and Puczko (2012) examine
tourism developments in Budapest against the backdrop of Hungarys reassertion of real
national sovereignty.
Aspiration to national capital status results from peoples who may feel themselves a
nation but do not enjoy statehood. Catalan, Welsh or Quebec nationalism, for example,
has given rise to inuential political movements and to the devolution of signicant politi-
cal power. This has often been accompanied by the construction of symbolically important
buildings and spaces, intended to illustrate and reinforce national autonomy the Welsh
assembly building, for example. As Skinner (2009) and Haven-Tang and Jones (2009)
show in the case of Cardiff, branding the capital and promoting tourism can be at the fore-
front of developing nationalism.
Adaptation, when national capitals have to cope with changes resulting from a loss of
former roles, or the addition of new ones. Former imperial capitals must adapt to loss of
Empire (for example, Vienna markets itself to tourists as one of a series of Habsburg
cities, rather than as the capital of Austria (Diekmann & Cloquet, 2012)). This requires
both functional and symbolic changes as imperial architecture and spaces are revalorised
a process which is discussed below in the case on London. Equally, the development of
cities with transnational roles requires adaptation in how they represent themselves to
the visitor; see Jansen-Verkbeke and Govers (2009) and Diekmann and Maulet (2009)
8 R. Maitland

for discussion of these processes in Brussels, where an increasing transnational role is

paralleled by a more modest national function with the rise of Flemish and Walloon
nationalisms.
Abandonment or loss of capital status is the fate of some cities indeed, for many cities
if a long historical span is taken. These former capitals retain a legacy of heritage, built
environment and memories from and earlier time (see for example Frost 2012 in
2012) a palimpsest (Boukas, Ziakis, & Boustars, 2012) on which later development is
overlaid. These legacies provide an important element in their attractions for visitors (see
Eades and Cooper (2009) on Japans former capital cities, while Frost (2012) examines
the legacy for Melbourne, Australias rst capital).
Identifying these processes helps improve our understanding of how capitals and their
tourism signicance change. But the processes are messy and uneven, with periods of
relative stability and others of rapid change. Understanding tourism in national capitals
is therefore challenging. As nation-states emerge, evolve or disappear, cities acquire or
lose capital status, or have to adapt to changing roles or seek to change their nature as
they aspire to capital status. As they do so within the global system of cities, their functions
change and the way in which they represent themselves to tourists citizens and foreigners
alike changes too. These processes are examined in the following sections.

3. Capitals: cosmopolitan and national

National capital cities vary considerably, yet they share distinct features that serve to set
them apart from other cities from a tourism perspective (Claval, 2001; Pearce, 2007;
Rapoport, 1993). As Barbier (1986, quoted in Pearce, 2007, p. 8) says: Such a city
holds all the trumps: a hub and gateway . . .; the best equipped city; for reasons of prestige
the most carefully looked after [it] . . . can only be a great tourist city. That is particularly
the case in the Third World . . .. Maitland and Ritchie (2007) see national capitals advan-
tages encompassing connectivity with global city systems; national focus of power (as
seat of government, administrative and business centres); and as clusters of national pol-
itical, economic and cultural facilities and heritage that frequently have international sig-
nicance with tensions arising from potential conicts between national and
international roles. National capitals frequently enjoy superior connectivity, since their
roles as centres of power and government plugs them into global governmental, political
and business networks, their rich endowment of cultural resources gives them an elevated
position on global cultural circuits and because they are frequently national gateways for
transportation. Not all capitals are world cities (Hall, 1966) or world tourism cities (Mait-
land & Newman, 2009), and other cities in a nation-state may be more important in the
global hierarchy. Planned or designed capitals in particular often have modest business or
commercial roles (for example, Canberra compared with Sydney; Brasilia compared with
Sao Paulo). Nonetheless, all capitals have world city attributes and they are signicant to
the more global approach and perspective of urban tourism that Ashworth and Page
(2011, p. 13) see as essential. As they point out:

From a tourism perspective the world city hierarchy ... is important in relation to globalisation
because it illustrates the linkages that exist between each city and which also link them across
geographical borders. (Ashworth & Page, 2011, p. 4)

As centres of government power, and frequently of business, links to the international

economy are an important part of their role, yet the strength of those links may approach
 Current Issues in Tourism 9

or exceed those to their national economy. Global capitalism has driven the growth of
business tourism and city competition has been reected in staging events that attract
and speak to an international audience. Symbols of modernity are sought, including
iconic tall buildings, air terminals and cultural and arts centres designed by starchitects
with international reputations. However, collections of international symbols can become
Potemkin villages, masking the realities of place behind a facade of modernity, and
swamping local identity.
As Ashworth and Page (2011, p. 4) say

although world cities function as a gateway to their national tourism system, integration into an
international hierarchy may effectively disconnect them from their respective national urban
systems to create a system of world cities that that is sometimes better connected to other
world cities than their own national tourism economy.

This paradox is especially acute in the case of national capitals. Their high level of connec-
tivity means that they are strongly linked to international systems. However in an increas-
ingly uid international city system, their status, privilege and role internationally may not
be secure and must be constantly defended by adding to their global credentials (see Saidi
(2012)). Yet at the same time they have key roles as functional and symbolic focuses of the
nation and national identity. The tension and apparent disconnect between the capital and
the rest of the nation can at times seem extreme. The American musician Steve Earle told
his audience at a concert in Norwich This is our last show in England. Tomorrow we play
London (quoted in Pearman (2007)).
In one sense this tension stems from capitals links to a global culture that according to
Smith (1991, p. 158) is

Unlike previous cultural imperialisms, which were rooted in an ethnic time and place of origin . . .
[it is] universal and timeless . . . indifferent to place or time ... boasts no history or histories . . .
[the] folk motifs it uses are quarried for surface decoration . . . it is fundamentally an articial
culture . . . and lacks any emotional commitment to what is signied.

This cosmopolitan culture clearly stands in contradiction to a national identity that is place
specic, and built from collective memory, a nation as an imagined community the
construct of rulers and intelligentsia . . . [whose] images and traditions will be sustained
only if they have some popular resonance, and they will have that resonance only if
they can be harmonised and made continuous with a perceived collective past (Smith,
1991, p. 159).
Smith feels that the conditions do not exist for global culture to supersede the national.
Nations will survive. However, it is clear that for capitals there are tensions between their
connection to global and cosmopolitan cultures and their role in fostering what is national,
local and distinctive. Tourism perspectives are inevitably international, but what a city
offers can emphasise the international, cosmopolitan, standardised and ubiquitous, or the
local, domestic and distinctive. As tourism destinations, capitals are places that must sim-
ultaneously manage being part of the international scene, and distinctive places, with their
own history, heritage and traditions that speak to the nation. Their built environments reect
attempts to pursue modernity and tradition, and the interpretation of buildings, spaces and
monuments reect changing national identities. Capitals simultaneously exist as part of an
international culture of global products, standardised and universal, and as the heart of the
nation, representing it to the outside world and to itself. Yet at times national identity may
not be the overriding issue; the goal is identity in the eyes on an international audience
10 R. Maitland

(Vale, 1992, p. 54). The next section examines the importance of tourism in how capitals
represent themselves.

4. Capitals, tourism and representation

The representation of any city is a complex matter, and urbanists examining how cities are
represented emphasise the intricacy, contradictions and ambivalence involved (see, for
example, Harvey (1989), Rabin (1975) & Shields (1996)). The city comprises the tangible
(buildings and spaces), the intangible (atmosphere, sense of place, buzz) and the symbolic
the meanings attached to city attributes. Capitals as places of pilgrimage encapsulate
this symbolic role. In a tourism context, city representation is seen as closely tied to
image, with some commentators seeing representation as an element of destination
image (for example, Morgan, Pritchard, & Pride, 2002) while others regard image as a com-
ponent of representation (for example, Lew, 1991). In these circumstances, it is perhaps
inevitable that city representations will be selective (Palmer, 2007). There is no city to
be unambiguously represented; rather, any representation will conceal or downplay some
aspects of the city and promote or emphasise others. Hubbard (2006) discusses the broad
discourses about cities, which have seen them as either (or both) good places (for
example, associated with progress and freedom) and bad places (for example, creating
alienation and ennui) and points out that particular phenomena within the city can be inter-
preted in different ways as evidence of the good or the bad city. For example, changing
values may be seen as a loss of tradition and evidence of impending social breakdown or
as evidence of progress and cultural renewal. Representation is a reexive process. Cities
are represented but also have agency in some sense choices are made about how the
city is represented. This of course raises issues about who chooses and on what basis.
Matters are even more complex in national capitals, since representation encompasses
both the city sees itself and the nation.
What is the role of tourism in this process? After all, in most cases, although tourism is
an important economic activity, national capitals like other international cities are not
dependent on it (Ashworth & Page, 2011). Tourism has particular importance in how capi-
tals represent themselves even though it is not a dominant activity and the cities do not see
themselves primarily as destinations, since tourism representation requires choices to be
made about how nation and national identity, built environment, monuments and culture
are presented to a domestic and an international audience. As Mules, Pforr, and Ritchie
(2007, p. 360) put it:

. . . capital cities symbolise national identity and self-image, and also promote national ideals/
values and showcase history and culture. In that sense a nations capital mirrors the cosmos of
the entire country, and a visit may help a resident or visitor to better understand the nation in
general.

Tourism representations are intended to convey a clear message or transmit a coherent image
to potential visitors, to dene the city and country to tourists (Hunter, 2008). They require
choices about the way in which national ideals/values and identity are promoted; the
manner in which history and culture are showcased their representation means
making choices among contested interpretations. Tourism thus spotlights how national iden-
tities are to be interpreted. As Duncan (1993) points out, representation always involves
power relationships. Governments, business, non-governmental organisations, citizens
and tourists and the tourist industry all exercise power in tourism and tourism representation
 Current Issues in Tourism 11

(Coles & Church, 2007). In discussing tourism in post-Soviet central Asia, Palmer (2007,
p. 647) says:

The identities projected for tourism promotion purposes are a potentially powerful means by
which outsiders comprehend the way in which a nation wishes to be seen ... [but] the processes
by which the projected identities are selected for tourism purposes have received little academic
attention.

The point has much wider applicability. In the context of shifting nations and national iden-
tities discussed earlier, identities projected for tourism promotion in national capitals reveal
the way the nation wishes to be seen. This is so in all capitals not just cities that have
acquired or are re-asserting capital status, but also in those that aspire to capital status,
seek to adapt to changing roles, or that have abandoned their capital status. As capitals
experience change, they represent themselves differently to their citizens and to outsiders.
They are home to clusters of cultural, architectural, aesthetic and symbolic assets, fre-
quently grouped together in particular areas which themselves have national and symbolic
importance as zones of prestige (Maguire, 2005). These elements interact in place represen-
tation. As Duncan (1993, p. 53) points out representation is always highly complex and is
mediated through historically changing institutions, class structures, taken for granted his-
torical accounts. Representation operates in the service of power. Changing power
relationships and roles thus intersect with place and its cultural and historical attributes
to form a site of representation that signies both the site to be represented (a geographical
place), and the site (geographical, cultural, political, theoretical viewpoint) from which that
representation emanates. Tourism provides an interesting lens through which to focus on
such sites. While tourism is becoming more pervasive and less differentiated from other
urban activities and city users (Franklin & Crang, 2001), it is still true that tourists are fre-
quently outsiders and look at and experience the city in a particular way bringing to bear
Urrys famous tourist gaze (Urry, 1990, 1995). The practices of tourism tend to concen-
trate attention on seeking and enjoying the aesthetics of the built environment (Maitland &
Smith, 2009), so visitors domestic and foreign have a particular focus on buildings and
spaces. At the same time, there is a strong link between tourism and process of national
branding, rebranding and representation (Hall, 2004).
This brings up a series of issues about how national identity is represented in capitals.
First, whose nation is being represented? In his inuential argument about the invention of
tradition, Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) claimed that despite frequent appeals to the anti-
quity of nations and their roots in natural communities, they were actually comparatively
recent, and constantly reconstructed. For him this was part of a process by which ruling
elites invented and manipulated traditions as a means of social control, a view accepted
by many British historians (Sutton, 2000). From this point of view, traditions need to be
reinvented as nations and their ruling elites change for example, the shift to post-com-
munism in eastern and central Europe and in former Soviet Asia has led to changing
tourism representation (Light, 2000; Palmer, 2007). This can be uncomfortable for national
capitals for several reasons. First, multi-ethnicity may make it difcult to forge unambigu-
ous symbols of national identity (Palmer, 2007; Rozite & Klepers, 2012). Second, the
tension between the local and the international is reected in how capitals represent them-
selves to tourists. The tension between an inward and outward orientation is discussed by
Smith and Ebejer in the context of Valetta (2012), while Evans (2012) shows how Nuit
Blanche festivals have been used to present cities as international and cosmopolitan. Capi-
tals association with government, business and bureaucracy can make them seem dull to
12 R. Maitland

the leisure visitor, so festivals that offer exciting ways to celebrate their heritage and can
make them seem more contemporary and eventful, potentially at the expense of local
associations. However, Saidi (2012) discusses how performances in historic spaces can
create an almost physical union between spectators and national capital (p. 82). Third,
their very urbanity means capitals may struggle to represent national identities that draw
on rural traditions and identity. Rozite and Klepers and Smith and Puczko (2012) discuss
this in relation to Riga and Budapest, respectively. Though England pioneered industrial-
ised urban society, searches for Englishness frequently invoke the countryside or rural
life (for example, Bryson, 1995; MacDonnell, 1933; Paxman, 2007). Returning home
from the Spanish Civil War in 1938, George Orwell gazed at England from his train
window and thought of it as the sleekest landscape in the world . . . deep meadows . . .
slow moving streams . . . larkspurs in cottage gardens; even London, when it approached
seemed not so much a city as a huge peaceful wilderness (Orwell, 1966, pp. 220 221).
London illustrates how tensions between the national and international, local and cos-
mopolitan, and changing values and symbolism have to be coped with. If national identities
shift as traditions are re-invented, tourism representation must change too. The meanings of
national heritage are changeable in a pluralist and contested world and as they change,
different versions of the national story will be presented to visitors. London illustrates
how contested versions can play out in different ways. The citys retreat from being an
imperial capital and its attempts to reimagine itself as something else has involved trying
out a variety of new national stories, including Swinging London in the 1960s, a Big
Bang nancial centre in the 1980s and Cool Britannia in the 1990s. More recently, the
focus has been on representing Britain and London as diverse and tolerant. On winning
the contest to host the 2012 Olympic Games, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair said
London is an open, multiracial, multi-religious, multicultural city and rather proud of it.
People of all races and nationalities mix in with each other and mix in with each other
well (Newman, 2007). Londons diversity has become an important part of its marketing
(see Spillman (1997)), but needs government at all scales to maintain the image of multi-
culturalism that now serves as Britains distinctive rationale in the current world order, and
in many respects can be considered a success (Dench, Gavron, & Young, 2006, p. 226).
Changing national myths, or the accumulation of different, often contradictory, national
stories have been illustrated by changes in sites of tourism representation.
A key site and zone of prestige within London is centred on Trafalgar Square. The
Square is located at the end of Whitehall, a formal street that runs up from the Houses of
Parliament and encompasses the prime ministers residence, the major ministries and the
Cenotaph the national war memorial. Trafalgar Square itself is laid out in formal style
commemorating the countrys most famous naval commanders victory over the French
navy at Cape Trafalgar in 1805. It is dominated by Nelsons Column, but also contains
equestrian statues of kings, and statues of other military men. The National Gallery occupies
one side of the Square. Alongside the Square and nearby are buildings that house or housed
the High Commissions of some of the Dominions in the days of Empire (for example,
Canada, India, South Africa). The area was thus a kind of home space for colonial citizens
in the imperial city . . . fostering a peculiarly imperial kind of cosmopolitanism (Gilbert &
Driver, 2000, p. 28). Running westward from Trafalgar Square is The Mall, a highly formal
avenue leading to Buckingham Palace, which can be glimpsed through the neo-classical
Admiralty Arch which closes the vista at the Trafalgar Square end. This set piece is the
most self-consciously imperial replanning that London has experienced.
This is an area whose buildings, spaces and monuments play a key role in national
identity, and which are must-see sites for tourists. However, the Square quickly
 Current Issues in Tourism 13

became contradictory in its symbolism. While retaining its role as the heart of the Empire
and as a place of Imperial display, from the later nineteenth century onward, it gained
another role as a place for political protest and popular demonstrations, where crowds gath-
ered, marches began or ended, and speeches were made (Gilbert & Driver, 2000). Both
these roles can be seen as reecting dominant though contesting ideologies of imperial
power and of popular resistance and working class politics. More recent changes have
reected a shift away from both these ideologies, and towards the values of diversity
and multiculturalism mentioned above. In the early twenty-rst century, the space was reor-
ganised and a road closed so that for the rst time the National Gallery entrance was joined
to the Square. The Square itself was remodelled to include a cafe and extensive seating
areas, becoming a place for the visitor to relax and be a aneur rather than to admire imper-
ial display or take part in political protest, though those older possibilities remained. The
Fourth Plinth a statue plinth at one corner of the Square, intended for an equestrian
statue, but which had remained unoccupied was turned over for changing temporary
occupation by popular contemporary sculptures that challenged the dominant story of
the site. For example, Alison Lapper Pregnant (2005) represents a pregnant disabled
woman confronting and challenging a deeply established statue discourse of military
men and their battles (Tribe, 2008, p. 938). The Square has also come to be used for
popular celebrations like the England cricket teams Ashes victory in 2005, and music
and sport shown on a giant screen. In 2007, Visit London, the citys tourism organisation,
covered the Square with articial grass for 2 days to promote their London villages mar-
keting campaign a nod to the elds beneath the city streets (Tindall, 2002) and the con-
tinuing importance of the rural in national identity. During 2009, the Fourth Plinth was
turned over to a project overseen by the sculptor Anthony Gormley. It was made a
living monument, occupied for an hour at a time by a succession of 2400 ordinary
people chosen by ballot with the intention that a space normally reserved for statues
of kings and generals could be occupied by the people of the UK, in an image of them-
selves, and a representation of the whole of humanity (Mayor of London, 2009): an inter-
esting take on the idea of national identity. Trafalgar Square remains an important tourist
site and for citizens is still prominent in the national story, but the story or rather stories
it tells has changed, become increasingly multi-layered and in some respects dissonant
from the architecture and spaces. Imperial celebration has contested with popular
protest, and more recently, both these grand narratives have been overtaken by celebration
of popular culture and diversity. Tourism representation provides clues to an evolving,
post-imperial identity.

5. Conclusions
This paper has argued that tourism in national capitals is an important component of tourism
and a signicant element of the capitals activities. The economic signicance of tourism
varies between cities, but its importance goes beyond immediate economic impacts. It is
central to the ways in which national capitals are reappraising themselves, their roles and
how they represent themselves to the world at a time of rapid global change. While national
capitals are heterogeneous, their shared qualities provide signicant commonalities.
Understanding the particular qualities of national capitals, and what capitalness brings
to tourism is becoming more important. The number of cities styling themselves national
capitals has increased, and while the rapid growth following decolonisation and then the
ending of the Cold War and the accompanying territorial changes has ended, the continuing
rise of sub-state nationalisms sees continuing pressure for more cities to gain national
14 R. Maitland

capital status. But beyond that, capitalness is becoming more complex as changing
nationhood and national identities inect the symbolic roles of capitals, and as globalisation
disturbs world city hierarchies, and threatens capitals established positions.
Capitals key roles are as centres of power and the symbolic place that stands for the
nation. Many of their other attributes ow directly from this for example, their
gateway functions and the accumulation of heritage, arts, educational and cultural insti-
tutions. Various typologies of national capitals have been proposed in an attempt to recon-
cile both their commonalities and their rich diversity. As discussed above, these have
focused on capitals political, economic and cultural roles and functions, their architecture
and built environment, and their tourism signicance and activities. Such classications can
provide a helpful insight into the cities tourism roles and their qualities of capitalness.
However, at a time of rapid global change, it may be more useful to focus on the processes
that are transforming the role and symbolism of capitals. Cities can be seen as acquiring or
re-asserting status as national capitals; aspiring to that status; adapting to changing roles as
their signicance and roles changes; and abandoning or losing national capital status
altogether. It is these processes of change that can have particular implications for
tourism. Cities that acquire or re-assert a capital role frequently see tourism as a means
to emphasise their new status to the wider world, while the way in which they represent
themselves to the visitor can reveal the outcome or continuing tensions of longstanding con-
tests over national identity. Cities that aspire to head emergent nations will also wish to
increase their prominence on the world stage and see iconic new buildings or attractions
that bring in visitors as an important means of doing so, while at the same time emphasising
their and their nations status. Other cities must adapt to changing roles. The rise of new
nations changes and in some ways diminishes cities that once headed empires or federa-
tions. They are left with legacies of their former role in heritage architecture and built
environment, and cultural and image assets, which they must revalorise to suit their new
circumstances and the way they represent themselves to visitors is a key part of the
process. Finally, cities that are deprived of capital status offer an interesting insight into
the nature of capitalness. They too have an inheritance of heritage and cultural assets
that will be attractive to visitors, but their changed role means that they are no longer a
centre of power or the prime symbol of national identity. It is this power and symbolism
that means capitals offer tourists something more than an accumulation of attractions and
an attractive built environment.
In a globalised world, capitals experience a tension between their national and inter-
national roles, the conict between cosmopolitanism and a distinct localism, and
between an inward and outward orientation. Since representation always involves power
relationships, and what capitals seek to represent shifts continually. The growth of multi-
ethnicity in nation-states can further complicate the process of establishing unambiguous
symbols of national identity. Choices that are made for tourism promotion and represen-
tation can reveal how a nation wishes to be seen or powerful groups within it wish it
to be represented. Tourism and tourism practices involve looking, lingering and reecting
on what is seen. Tourism is strongly focused on the aesthetic of places and in capitals that
means a built environment and visual culture rich in symbolism and designed to impress
citizens and foreigners alike. Tourism representation and promotion is a means through
which different and contested versions of the national story can be tried out and developed.
These contested versions need not be resolved, but rather can exist simultaneously. Para-
doxically, this can be an asset in tourism terms since different versions of national
stories, culture and identities can be emphasised to different visitors, offering a place
with a wide variety of experiences.
 Current Issues in Tourism 15

Better understanding of tourism in national capitals provides insights not just into the
cities themselves but into urban tourism more widely and into the dynamics of worldwide
city development. Recent research has gone some way to remedying previous neglect, and
brought greater depth of analysis. However, there is much more to do and the two overarch-
ing research priorities identied by Maitland and Ritchie (2009) remain. First, deeper theor-
etical understanding of phenomena and processes in national capitals (and other cities) is
required, and to achieve this tourism scholars need to engage with perspectives from
other elds, including urbanism, urban geography and planning. Second, tourism in a
wider range of national capitals should be examined. Capital cities in the post-socialist
and developing world are of particular interest but studies remain sparse especially of
the latter. While further studies are required, they need to be on a consistent basis and
utilise frameworks suggested in this issue and in earlier work; isolated case studies are
of limited value. Capital cities do have special qualities. Capitalness exists and has impor-
tant interactions with tourism it adds to cities appeal to visitors while tourism is a means
through which capitals promote themselves, their nations and try out new versions of
national identities and stories. However, capitalness remains contingent its nature and
how it manifests strongly tied to particular places and national experiences.

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