Städtetourismus

254

Methodological

issues

in

the

sampling

of

urban

visitors

1.

Introduction

Since

the

late

1980s,

the

urban

tourism

literature

has

highlighted

the

lack

of

coherent

research

on

tourism

in

cities

and

put

forward

a

range

of

explanations

for

this

perceived

lacuna.

The

difficulty

of

isolating

tourist

activities

from

those

of

the

local

population

was

highlighted

as

a

deterrent

to

urban

tourism

research

(Ashworth

and

Tunbridge,

1990;

Ashworth,

1992).

Shaw

and

Williams

(1994)

and

Blank

(1994)

further

attributed

difficulties

in

describing

urban

tourism

to

the

diversity

of

the

phenomenon,

pointing

out

that

urban

destinations

are

heterogeneous

in

size,

location,

func-

tion

and

age

and

that

each

urban

destination

possesses

a

unique

set

of

facilities.

Much

of

the

existing ...