What is Consumer Culture?
According to Mies van der Rohe (1926 quoted in Frampton, 1983, p.40) and Sassen and Roost (in Judd & Fainstein, 1999, pp.147-150), the built environment reflects material and symbolic changes in society, and cities have become important sites of consumption. The transformation of the appearance of city centres does not just express historic modifications; social relations and ideologies are also reproduced through it (Gudis, 2004, pp.50, 244; Sharrett 1989, p.178; Goss quoted in Jameson 1984, p.54). Historic and commercial city centres are characterized by interactions between consumption functions and commercial trends that have social consequences extending far beyond the behaviour of individuals. Shopping has become a key activity in the present day economy, and has been recognized not just as the action of buying goods, but as an entertainment and leisure activity (Thorns, 2002, p.133; Zukin, 1995, p.187). Places for shopping, fashion, eating, tourism, recreation and leisure have became important areas for demonstration of user social and cultural differences, as well as for the consumption of untouchable goods such as films and tourism destinations (Shane, 2005, pp.259-261; Thorns, 2002, p.121; Zukin, 1995, pp.188-189; Bourdieu, 1984, pp.257-259). Goss (quoted in Jameson 1984, p.54) suggests that consumption has become one of the main driving forces of contemporary life.
The context described above form a phenomenon known as “consumer culture”, which has caused a significant impact on the appearance of several cities around the world (Proto, 2006, pp.95-121; Knox, 2005, p.4; Thorns, 2002, pp.127-133; Marshall & Wood, 1995, pp.156-169; Campbell, 1987, pp.17-35). According to Sharrett (1989, p.178) and Goss (quoted in Jameson, 1984, p.54), in the “consumer culture”, people tend to be recognized for “what they can buy” as much as “what they can do”. This is related to social status attributed to products such as places, cars, clothes, shoes and so on. People consume brands and the symbols associated to these by what Thorns (2004, p.125) calls global culture. Goods begin to have more than utilitarian value; they become part of identity, personality, self-image, social position, attitude and aspirations of people (Marshall & Wood, 1995, pp.156-160). According to Sharrett (1989, p.178) and Goss (quoted in Jameson 1984, p.54), in fact, it is not the material object that is desirable by people, but the image associated with these objects. In this new era, Cass (in Lasansky & MacLaren, 2004, p.246) argues that architects design architectural commodities that in many cases users do not need to interpret for themselves because of the symbolism already created by the consumer culture. According to Cass, the consumer culture has dictated semiotic significances and cultural meanings for a set of architectural forms and commercial signage design.
Consequently, “consumer culture” can be described as the symbolism of objects. Aware of this, advertisers and shop owners devote their efforts to creating and displaying commercial signs to attend to new visual needs related to this symbolism. Marshall and Wood (1995, pp.159, 167-168) suggest that advertising strategies, media and sales practices are focused on the symbolism of objects to define how commercial signs should be designed in public spaces. As a result, the global phenomenon of “consumer culture” manipulates the layout of these media with respect to size, proportion, colour, lettering style and size, and their location in the city centre. Consequently, these influences on commercial signage design transform the image of whole cities where goods are made available and advertised (Harvey, 1989; Gibbs, 1988); the cultural context of consumption has become influential in the design and location of shop facades, malls and new developments in city centres (Marshall & Wood, 1995, p.160). In cities of different urban contexts, standard commercial signs are displayed representing the global effect of “consumer culture”; the most obvious consequences for the appearance of historic city centres have been standard commercial signs related to franchises, anchor stores, and shopping malls. These signs can be seen in many cities in the United States, China, South American countries and, increasingly, in Europe. At the same time, commercial signage has been designed to increase the commercial appeal of several historic city centres encouraging consumers to perceive these areas as centres of exchange, consumption and sources of commercial activities (Sasaki, 2002, p.11; Creswell, 1998, pp.273-277; Marshall & Wood, 1995, p.167).
Concept of Marketing the City
Cities have become increasingly shaped by the necessity to project a positive image of themselves, and there is no greater advert for cities than their own built environment and natural landscape (Hall & Hubbard, 1998, p.29). As discussed by Lang (2005, p.77), many local authorities have recognized the importance of open-space design in creating positive images of cities. Taking this approach to thinking, marketing became a discipline of city centre management during the 1970s and 1980s. According to Smyth (1994, p.12), strategies related to marketing the city come from different fields, such as economics, sociology, psychology, politics and biology. Marketing the city has been a concept debated by two approaches of thought: one group ties urban marketing to a deep economic analysis (Kearns & Philo, 1993; Harvey, 1989; Logan & Molotch, 1987), while another group focuses on the range and success of marketing strategies (Gold & Warn, 1994; Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993; Ashworth & Voogd, 1990).
These two approaches are not exclusive and usually one complements the other. The primary concept of “marketing the city” is related to the publicity field; it says that creation of strategies for selling and satisfying users requires a high quality in production of goods and delivery of services. When this principle is applied to the built environment, this can be defined as the creation of strategies to promote city centres or entire cities for certain activities and, in some cases, to “sell” areas of a city for living, consuming, and productive activities (Selby, 2004, pp.16-18; Holcomb in Judd & Fainstein, 1999, pp. 54-65; Bill & Marion, 1997, pp.35-60). This concept involves the redefinition of the city as an urban product (Bill & Marion, 1997, p.37), and refers to the promotion of city images in order to attract people and increase social and economic vitality (Kelly & Kelly, 2003, p.15; Smyth, 1994, p.2). Complementing this idea, Fretter (1993, p.165) says: “Place marketing has thus become much more than merely selling the area to attract mobile companies and tourists. It can now be viewed as a fundamental part of guiding the development of places in a desired fashion”.
According to Paddison (1993, p.340), strategies for marketing the city are centred on four main objectives: increasing the competitiveness of a city in comparison with other places, attracting investments, improving the cities image, and promoting the well-being of users. The importance of the concept “marketing the city” in terms the economic development of cities is highlighted by Kotler, Haider and Rein (1993, p.20): “marketing the city is one of the most adaptive and effective approaches to the problem of urban settings”; these authors believe that cities that fail to market their images successfully can be affected by economic decline and stagnation. Several studies have already explored the relevance of this kind of thought (Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993; Goodwin, 1993; Holcomb, 1993; Haider, 1992; Fleming & Roth, 1991; Ashworth & Voogd, 1990).
Advertisements, the main components of marketing strategies, have been used by many cities to promote local economic development. After setting incentives and selecting desirable images that might be associated to places, a variety of advertisement packages, such as city guides, glossy brochures, fact sheets, xeroxes of industrial commercial information, and advertisements in newspapers, are used by the local authority. For example, many marketing strategies apply the terms “business” in slogan campaigns of cities to advertise that these places are good for investment, while in other cases, when cities are characterized by historic heritage, usually marketing strategies are designed to emphasize the advantages of these places to tourists and locals by means of analogy, for example: “sunny places”, “blue sky”, “historic heritage”, “local culture” and so on (Landry, 2006, pp.172-173; Knox, 2005, p. 4; Hall & Hubbart, 1998, p.61).
One example of an application of strategies for marketing the city can be seen in Old Havana, the historic core of Havana, capital of Cuba. This is one of the least altered colonial cities in Latin America, and was inscribed in the Unesco World Heritage List in 1982. In 1993, a Master Plan was designed to revitalize its historic city centre which was in ruins. Over 100 buildings have been restored, dozens more are in progress of restoration, and an equal number have been identified as sites for future work (Rodrigues, 1999, p.43). To promote this city as a tourist destination marked by a strong colonial historic character, a series of promotional materials has been published and distributed to residents and tourists. Promotional literature and well-maintained websites designed to advertise a net of hotels located in restored colonial mansions emphasize the historic importance and the individual character of these buildings and their surrounding areas. Pamphlets showing restored colonial buildings, maps of the city and posters were designed to promote the image of Old Havana as a well preserved historic colonial site. Even books were designed and published in order to attract tourist investors, and highlight the positive results achieved through the implementation of the master plan. The city centre has been packaged as a series of cultural and historic products of consumption in a manner that helps tourists navigate through the city. Although there are some criticisms related to the emphasis given in this master plan for the tourist industry, the strategies adopted to marketing this city centre have been successful in the promotion of the city image (Lasansky & MacLaren, 2004, pp.165-184).
In the British context, Glasgow has been seen as an example of adoption of strategies for marketing the city to improve its image. In 1983, a campaign named “Glasgow’s Miles Better” was launched; it was inspired by the earlier campaign promoted in New York in 1977 – “I love New York”. Advertisements were published in colour supplements, international business magazines, and displayed on the London Underground and the sides of red double decker buses. The idea was to change the image of Glasgow from a centre of production to a centre of consumption. This strategy was already applied in many cities in the United States; local authorities of places such as Boston, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland and other American cities had begun to apply marketing strategies to promote the image of these places as centres of innovation, commodity and quality lifestyle (Jaynes, 2005, p.169; Selby, 2004, pp.66-73; Hall & Hubbard, 1998, pp.31-53).
According to Smyth (1994, p.15), people and their activities give meaning and use to the built environment. In the process of marketing historic city centres or even entire cities, the images promoted through media, such as newspapers, post cards, pamphlets and websites, are not just related to the formal elements of places, but to their symbolic meanings as well. This idea is related to the field of Environment Behavioural research that has its conceptual basis on user perception and cognition of the built environment; in this research field, selling and defining a city centre requires the sale of what this place means, how it feels and what it looks like to users (Stevenson, 2003, p.98; Ashworth & Voogd in Gold & Ward, 1994, p.39). In this sense, Smyth (1994, p.1) suggests that the process of marketing the city can start from the question: what sort of cities do users wish to see?. Having answered this, by analysing user perception and evaluation of the appearance of city centres, marketing strategies can be designed and applied to intervene in the production and transmission of urban images, and to reinterpret these images as the bases of an initiative for “selling” city centres to residents and outside users (Smyth, 1994, pp.2-14). Symbolic factors associated with places need to be identified and packaged. For this, perception and evaluation of different user groups, such as local authorities, local communities, shop owners, visitors and investors, need to be investigated (Stevenson, 1999; Holcomb 1993). Approaches that take into account only the interests related to the development of tourist activities can create images of places not recognized by their own residents (Lasansky & MacLaren, 2004, p.183). In the case of Old Havana, for example, some promotional materials about its historic centre include services that only interest tourists and investors, ignoring the needs and interest of the local retailers, industry and community.
In places such as Piccadilly Circus and Times Square, commercial signs are designed to create images of multicultural, worldwide and international centres, which attract many users. In addition, according to Trulove (2000, p.108), in the Block at Orange, an open-air shopping mall in California, the commercial signage is designed to be “reminiscent of the word’s great city blocks, like Times Square, Pier 39, and Melrose Avenue, but with a California state of mind”. In this type of urban spaces, commercial signs are designed to increase social and economic vitality by maintaining order among physical elements and reinforcing the commercial appeal of these areas. At the same time, in many historic city centres, marketing approaches influence the design and control of commercial signs with particular focus on the preservation of historic buildings and places (Russo, 2002, pp.27-28). As opposed to the case of Times Square, for example, the image promoted by marketing strategies in historic city centres, such as Oxford and York in England, emphasizes the historic appearance of the area in an ordered streetscape, and not just its commercial functions.
Concept of place promotion
Place promotion is part of a system of communication in which meanings of places are encoded and decoded by advertisers, and decoded in many different ways by users (Selby, 2004, pp.98-103; Britton, 1991, pp.451-478; Burgess, 1990, pp.139-140). Place promotion involves strategies which come through artistic historic approaches [MD1] in which techniques of iconographic and related analysis are applied to promotional materials. Promotional messages have created images of cities communicated by different kinds of media, such as television programmes, films, advertisements, post cards, books and newspapers (Gold & Ward, 1994, p.21). Representations are pivotal in shaping the ways in which users recognize the built environment. Images of cities can be advertised through all kinds of popular culture such as magazines, newspapers, literature, art, photographs and songs (Stevenson, 2003, p.10). According to Taylor (1991, pp.xiii- xiv), posters displayed on streetscapes or in the formats of postcards and pamphlets are the elements that most help in the promotion of city centre images: postcards, for example, are designed to persuade people to visit distinctive urban sites, and can lead to the creation of urban itineraries among historic and tourist points. This kind of advertisement is able to target cities as attractive places to visit and holiday in. Sometimes, according to Taylor (1991, pp.xiii-xiv), posters help to reverse a nineteenth century idea that cities are unattractive places, rather than tourist destinations.
As argued by Thorns (2004, p.145), positive images of places are usually created by local authorities and private-sector boosters to encourage local residents to feel good about their city and the quality of life that places can promote. In the United States, for example, the “Main Street Approach” is a recognized method for revitalizing commercial city centres. This is mainly a method used to revitalize older and traditional central areas. The underlying premise of this approach is to encourage economic development within the context of historic preservation in ways appropriate to the marketplace. This approach is based on four issues taken into account in the process of revitalization of central areas: organization (fundraising, committee structure, membership recruitments), promotion of the city, design of buildings and signage, and economic restructuring. According to a study carried out by Robertson (2004, pp.60-61), promotion is the most utilized component to improve the appearance of city centres. This is applied as a tool to sell a positive image of commercial city centres, and encourages consumers and investors to live, work, shop, play and invest in these areas.
One role of place promotion strategies is to communicate images of city centres for people in different places at the same time. This allows many individuals, who have never been to places like London and Paris, to have strong images of the physical and symbolic forms of Piccadilly Circus and Champs-Elyses, for example (Stevenson, 2003, p.10). These images are the result of a process which is not just related to how people respond to and interpret the place, but this also concerns configurations of meanings, feelings and expectations, which are involved in user cognition of a city (Kearns & Philo, 1993; Madsen, 1992; Ashworth & Voogd, 1990). Thorns (2002, p.130) says that users no longer know a city because they have been there, seen and touched its public spaces; they shape their views of the world through the images provided by the media. When people go to Las Vegas, for example, they already have a pre-conceived image of this city. In this process, perception and cognition are steps that happen before users come to know the real place (Stevenson, 2003).
Pre-conceived images that users have of cities have been analysed by cognitive and behavioural studies. These investigations are related to a broad movement which has been developed in geography, sociology and environmental psychology research fields. Since the late 1960s, researchers have examined representations of places as sources of environmental information and influence on user behaviour (Gold & Ward, 1994, p.22).
With regard to Smyth’s studies (1994, p.13), one problem can occur in the application of place promotion ideas: some user expectations can be raised to the level of fiction. In many cases, the reality of city centres does not correspond to the images advertised by promotional materials. In this regard, users may evaluate as unpleasant places that when observed through postcards are evaluated positively. According to Hall and Hubbard (1998, p.28), several place promotion strategies and projects of economic development can be labelled as “carnival masks of late capitalism”. They create images of cities which hide the problems that need regeneration projects in the first place (Harvey, 1989, p.35). In some cases, the image promoted of cities can be categorized as cosmetic make-overs (Holcomb, 1993, pp.140-142). Another issue is stereotypic ideas of cities; once formed, stereotypes are an important category in environmental cognition. Usually, these concepts are resistant to change and supply summaries of understanding of cities. It is not uncommon for users to classify places according to categories: they assume that a set of cities, for example, have the same physical and symbolic attributes. Such stereotypes can be prejudicial to the development process, damaging city chances of gaining new investments, and affecting its reputation with residents, tourists and investors (Gold & Ward, 1994, p.23).
The concept of urban tourism is described by MacCannell (quoted in Taylor, p.66) as “a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity, of incorporating its fragments into unified experience.” According to Stevenson (2003, p.100) and Thorns (2004, p.141), urban tourism involves the redevelopment and regeneration of the city, image-making and application of marketing strategies focused on production of leisure spaces. Moreover, in many cases, the term urban tourism has been understood as the revitalization of declining cities or parts of cities into centres of tourist destination. MacCannell’s study (quoted in Stevenson, 2000, p. 100) suggests that local authorities can attempt to discover or reconstruct cultural heritage and the social identity of places through urban tourism initiatives. He believes that many cities become aware of themselves as tourist attractions, such as Las Vegas and New York, because of the urban tourism process. Reynolds (1988 quoted in Miles & Hall, 2004, p.171) says that “the growth of the tourism industry has a great deal to do with the growth of every other industry or business: the opening up of the regions as fine places to visit means that they’re better places to live in – and thus better places to work (…) a higher quality of life benefits employees”.
One purpose of urban tourism approaches is to create landscapes for international comparison (see section 2.2.2.2); they aim to promote images of cities to compete with images of other places located in different urban contexts (Hoffman, Fainstein & Judd, 2003, pp.25-33). According to Stevenson (2003, p.99), what distinguishes urban tourism from traditional tourism is the way that images of places are packaged and marketed. Law (1992, p.599) argues that urban tourism strategies are applied to transform city centres into places of consumption and leisure. Moreover, images of cities divulged by these strategies are used to build user perception and evaluation of places (Miles, Hall & Border, 2000, p.108). As suggested by Ockman (in Lasansky & MacLaren, 2004, pp.227-232), Bilbao in Spain is an example of the application of urban tourism and marketing the city strategies: since 1997 this city has been known as a popular tourist destination mainly because of the postmodern architecture of the Guggenheim Museum. This building immediately became synonymous with the entire city and a symbol of regeneration for a declined region of Spain. The application of urban tourism strategies in order to remake a place can also be seen in places such as the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in Australia, Costa del Sol in Southern Spain, Pattaya and Phuket in the Gulf of Thailand, and Bali in Indonesia (Thorns, 2004, pp.143-144).
Urban tourism is also related to “tourism shopping”, a term applied by Page and Hall (2003, pp.133-139). According to the English Historic Towns Forum (1992), there is a relationship between tourism and retail activities as the majority of tourist destinations combine shopping and visiting attractions. Many successful cities in Europe have applied urban tourism strategies and promoted unique leisure shopping to establish their popularity as international destinations. In this context, the overall significance of the visual quality of public spaces is considered as essential to promote tourism in historic city centres: usually users look for a unique shopping experience which can be created through the design of shop windows, shopfronts and building facades. Page and Hall (2003, p.137) also suggest some issues that could be considered by city centre managers in order to promote urban tourism: (i) image of the place, leisure setting, display of goods on the streets, street musicians and artists, (ii) aesthetic value, image of maintenance and safety, (iii) architectural design of buildings, streets, shops, windows, sign boards and lighting, (iv) animation, entertainment, amusement and surprise. Moreover, these authors also describe that the following factors could be considered by local authorities to attract visitors to historic city centres: (i) marketing the destination based on an identifiable theme, using historic and cultural attractions of a place, (ii) investing in attractive shopping galleries, facades, shopfronts, layout and design of the built environment and in the preservation of the historic architecture.
The importance of the concept of urban tourism is related to its influence on the operation of commercial signage controls adopted in historic city centres. In many cases, commercial signage controls are incorporated in urban tourism strategies as a tool to create or reinforce the visual character of a historic city. Usually, one of the aims of this kind of commercial signage control approach is to develop the local tourist economy of the city by attracting visitors. This type of control can help to promote historic city centres as tourist destinations with unique identity. However, in some cases, this can also be applied to promote a manufactured character of city centres. Examples of commercial signage controls influenced by the application of urban tourism strategies, and designed to reinforce the manufactured image of the city promoted by the local authority to attract tourist, consumers, potential residents and/or investors can be found in Gramado and Campos do Jordao in Brazil, in Celebration and Sea Side in the United States, and in Bicester Village in England.
Pre-conceived images that users have of cities have been analysed by cognitive and behavioural studies. These investigations are related to a broad movement which has been developed in geography, sociology and environmental psychology research fields. Since the late 1960s, researchers have examined representations of places as sources of environmental information and influence on user behaviour (Gold & Ward, 1994, p.22).
With regard to Smyth’s studies (1994, p.13), one problem can occur in the application of place promotion ideas: some user expectations can be raised to the level of fiction. In many cases, the reality of city centres does not correspond to the images advertised by promotional materials. In this regard, users may evaluate as unpleasant places that when observed through postcards are evaluated positively. According to Hall and Hubbard (1998, p.28), several place promotion strategies and projects of economic development can be labelled as “carnival masks of late capitalism”. They create images of cities which hide the problems that need regeneration projects in the first place (Harvey, 1989, p.35). In some cases, the image promoted of cities can be categorized as cosmetic make-overs (Holcomb, 1993, pp.140-142). Another issue is stereotypic ideas of cities; once formed, stereotypes are an important category in environmental cognition. Usually, these concepts are resistant to change and supply summaries of understanding of cities. It is not uncommon for users to classify places according to categories: they assume that a set of cities, for example, have the same physical and symbolic attributes. Such stereotypes can be prejudicial to the development process, damaging city chances of gaining new investments, and affecting its reputation with residents, tourists and investors (Gold & Ward, 1994, p.23).
Concept of urban tourism
The concept of urban tourism is described by MacCannell (quoted in Taylor, p.66) as “a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity, of incorporating its fragments into unified experience.” According to Stevenson (2003, p.100) and Thorns (2004, p.141), urban tourism involves the redevelopment and regeneration of the city, image-making and application of marketing strategies focused on production of leisure spaces. Moreover, in many cases, the term urban tourism has been understood as the revitalization of declining cities or parts of cities into centres of tourist destination. MacCannell’s study (quoted in Stevenson, 2000, p. 100) suggests that local authorities can attempt to discover or reconstruct cultural heritage and the social identity of places through urban tourism initiatives. He believes that many cities become aware of themselves as tourist attractions, such as Las Vegas and New York, because of the urban tourism process. Reynolds (1988 quoted in Miles & Hall, 2004, p.171) says that “the growth of the tourism industry has a great deal to do with the growth of every other industry or business: the opening up of the regions as fine places to visit means that they’re better places to live in – and thus better places to work (…) a higher quality of life benefits employees”.
One purpose of urban tourism approaches is to create landscapes for international comparison (see section 2.2.2.2); they aim to promote images of cities to compete with images of other places located in different urban contexts (Hoffman, Fainstein & Judd, 2003, pp.25-33). According to Stevenson (2003, p.99), what distinguishes urban tourism from traditional tourism is the way that images of places are packaged and marketed. Law (1992, p.599) argues that urban tourism strategies are applied to transform city centres into places of consumption and leisure. Moreover, images of cities divulged by these strategies are used to build user perception and evaluation of places (Miles, Hall & Border, 2000, p.108). As suggested by Ockman (in Lasansky & MacLaren, 2004, pp.227-232), Bilbao in Spain is an example of the application of urban tourism and marketing the city strategies: since 1997 this city has been known as a popular tourist destination mainly because of the postmodern architecture of the Guggenheim Museum. This building immediately became synonymous with the entire city and a symbol of regeneration for a declined region of Spain. The application of urban tourism strategies in order to remake a place can also be seen in places such as the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in Australia, Costa del Sol in Southern Spain, Pattaya and Phuket in the Gulf of Thailand, and Bali in Indonesia (Thorns, 2004, pp.143-144).
Urban tourism is also related to “tourism shopping”, a term applied by Page and Hall (2003, pp.133-139). According to the English Historic Towns Forum (1992), there is a relationship between tourism and retail activities as the majority of tourist destinations combine shopping and visiting attractions. Many successful cities in Europe have applied urban tourism strategies and promoted unique leisure shopping to establish their popularity as international destinations. In this context, the overall significance of the visual quality of public spaces is considered as essential to promote tourism in historic city centres: usually users look for a unique shopping experience which can be created through the design of shop windows, shopfronts and building facades. Page and Hall (2003, p.137) also suggest some issues that could be considered by city centre managers in order to promote urban tourism: (i) image of the place, leisure setting, display of goods on the streets, street musicians and artists, (ii) aesthetic value, image of maintenance and safety, (iii) architectural design of buildings, streets, shops, windows, sign boards and lighting, (iv) animation, entertainment, amusement and surprise. Moreover, these authors also describe that the following factors could be considered by local authorities to attract visitors to historic city centres: (i) marketing the destination based on an identifiable theme, using historic and cultural attractions of a place, (ii) investing in attractive shopping galleries, facades, shopfronts, layout and design of the built environment and in the preservation of the historic architecture.
The importance of the concept of urban tourism is related to its influence on the operation of commercial signage controls adopted in historic city centres. In many cases, commercial signage controls are incorporated in urban tourism strategies as a tool to create or reinforce the visual character of a historic city. Usually, one of the aims of this kind of commercial signage control approach is to develop the local tourist economy of the city by attracting visitors. This type of control can help to promote historic city centres as tourist destinations with unique identity. However, in some cases, this can also be applied to promote a manufactured character of city centres. Examples of commercial signage controls influenced by the application of urban tourism strategies, and designed to reinforce the manufactured image of the city promoted by the local authority to attract tourist, consumers, potential residents and/or investors can be found in Gramado and Campos do Jordao in Brazil, in Celebration and Sea Side in the United States, and in Bicester Village in England.
