Abstract: The tourist activity of a city changes in time both in terms of demand and sup- ply. The rates of change, however, are different: variations in demand are faster, more dynamic and less predictable than supply adjustments. Moreover the scope and content of a city’s tourism offer reflect an aggregate of its cultural, social, economic and topographic elements. In marketing terms they create a city product, a mix of tangible resources and intangible, abstract elements [Gli􏰂ska, Florek & Kowalewska 2009]. This is a reason why adaptive processes in tourism supply are prolonged, and certain changes and new development conditions are difficult to capture in the short and medium term. All researchers studying life cycles of tourism areas, including Butler [1980], Haywood [1986] and Agarwal [1997], emphasise the need to collect source material covering the longest possible time interval since the life-cycle evolution curve only becomes apparent in the scale of decades rather than years.

Delineation of a tourism area’s development path leads to a better under-standing of processes and phenomena affecting the destination’s present state, and facilitates adoption of suitable strategies and tactical instruments. In this study authors attempt to identify and analyse subsequent development phases of the tourist function of the city of Pozna􏰂 basing the analysis on Butler’s TALC concept [1980]. An additional objective is to identify factors which had the strongest impact on the shaping of subsequent development stages in the analysed period.

Citation: Czernek K., Zmyślony P. (2011). The life cycle of a city’s tourist function: the case of Poznań, in: Determinants of tourism development in urban destinastions and methods of tourism measurement: The case of Poznań, G. Gołembski (ed.), Poznań University of Economics Press, Poznań, 9-32 [PDF][CEEOL – full book]