Tourism-Dominated Spaces ? The Strategic Potential of Hotel Lobbies

Today, tourism has become a crucial factor in urban economies, and the extended presence of tourism facilities within the urban fabric has generated a new basis for planning decisions. However, the phenomenon of tourism has primarily been discussed by sociologists, ethnologists, geographers and not least by economists. The architectural voice in the general tourism-related discussion, in a very wide sense, has been relatively vague. The aim of this article is to discuss the strategic potential of a specific tourism programme, namely the hotel lobby as well as the immediate urban context of this lobby. From a qualitative architectural point of view the article examines the evolution of specific lobby-qualities at Miami Beach; from the pre-war Art Deco hotel lobby to the post-war MiMo1 resort lobby. In particular, the study highlights ‘extraordinary’ qualities of tourism-dominated spaces (as opposed to ‘ordinary’ everydaydominated spaces). The article addresses the phenomenon of tourism at a very local planning level, and touches on the concept of ‘positive interference’. Positive interference is understood as the friction between tourism-related and everyday-related activities and is launched as a ‘potential desirable quality’ of the tourismdominated space. Overall, the article points towards an untapped strategic planning potential of specific architectural tourism-related programmes. (This article is rooted in theories presented in the PhD-dissertation Tourism and Strategic Planning which was defended in October 2012).