The thesis strives to reveal the dynamics between a central and a peripheral shopping area in Kalmar, Sweden. The establishment of larger shopping centers has become a hallmark of postindustrial cities. Cities globally are at risk of creating an urban economic rift between the central and peripheral shopping areas. By establishing major shopping venues around the traditional central business districts, cities hope to create a larger customer hinterland and thereby also increased economic growth. The aim of this thesis is answered by two research questions regarding collaboration and competition between two shopping areas; the central Kvarnholmen and peripheral Hansa City Mall. As it theoretical framework, the thesis mobilizes discussions on the postindustrial city as well as additional economic theory concerning the so-called Disneyization. An overview over previous research is provided, and empirical data was produced through the following methods; Semi-structured interview, structured interview, simple observation and document analysis. The results were analyzed using a universal approach.   The thesis concludes that the dynamics between the two shopping areas are fluctuating; sometimes characterized by cooperation, other times by competition. Kalmar municipality’s retail strategy aims and encourages the shopping areas to collaborate. When seeing Kalmar on a smaller scale, this is surely the case: the shopping areas are seemingly united, with common image production and working together towards their hinterland. Viewing the dynamics on a larger local scale, however, a strong competition between Kvarnholmen and Hansa City Mall is evident; as both shopping areas strive to retain their consumers on their specific area of trade.

Manufactured, experiential, consumption environments are increasingly mimicking the design techniques and principles on display within the Disney theme parks. One particular example of an experiential consumption environment which has been influenced by the Disney-style approach to business is the shopping mall. These commercialized attractions offer a distant alternative, and distraction, to everyday life. The theoretical concept of Disneyization offers insight into what visitors to these manufactured experiential consumption destinations are (assumed to be) searching for - and in-turn receiving. This thesis specifically focuses on 1) the development and design of the New Zealand shopping mall by assessing the extent to which identified elements of the Disney theme parks are replicated within the country's shopping destinations 2) the degree to which experiential consumption environments are being developed within New Zealand. Based upon the review of completed fieldwork, the 'System of Objects' theory proposed by Baudrillard and image association perspectives of Eco are added to the theoretical analysis as a complimentary aside to the Disneyization concept. These works also further highlight the link between experiential consumption environments and those who visit them.

Servicescape is a physical setting where the performance, delivery and consumption are exchanged within a service marketplace. It includes sensory components, such as the theme of the place that has a high impact on customer perceptions and purchasing decisions and providing them with extraordinary experiences (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler, 2009). Therefore, the Disneyization concept which is influenced by the previous was applied as it focuses on providing differentiated services. However, the purpose of this research was to explore how theming and performative labour have been used in Small-Medium-Enterprises (SME) cafés as a differentiation strategy, thus only 2/4 Disneyization principles were looked into. Together with their teamwork differentiation was established against homogenised Fika cafés in Sweden. Three sub-questions have been created to allow the authors to answer the main question accurately. Deductive reasoning has been adapted for theory collection, while qualitative research was used when collecting primary data, through purposive sampling, due to criteria having to be met. A total of seven cafés participated through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis was followed to analyse, code, review, and define themes. The themes in the findings were cross-referenced with the literature review, thus the use of both interpretive and positivist research has shown slightly different results from previous studies. The findings state that when theming, all cafés cared about the different sensory elements such as interior design, sounds and smell for creating uniqueness. However, different from big enterprises, the passion of owners towards the theme was a significant factor in creating a successful theme as well. Nevertheless, theming alone was found to be not efficient enough as a differentiation strategy. Performative labour is needed to complement it which includes the concepts of emotional and aesthetic labour. Aesthetic labour had not a high effect on differentiating services, rather the extent of its application depends on the place and theme itself. On the contrary, emotional labour, which was connected with the service provided had a significant effect on instead, through interaction. Interaction is what is found to provide a unique service, creating a customer experience, thus loyal ones. Furthermore, the execution of theming and performative labour through a strong team is what creates a differentiation strategy in the face of competitors. Therefore, a Differentiation Strategy (DS) model for SME cafés was developed from the Disneyization model to include interaction and teamwork. The empirical data suggest that if a SME café successfully implements the model, it will create a differentiated strategy for itself.

Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian—the most profitable cruise lines today—emerged between the late 1960s and early 1970s, as the elitist leisure ocean travel industry attempted to recover from economic downturn. These mass-market lines targeted an American middle class that increasingly had the desire and financial means to travel. They secured much of this untapped market by creating packaged vacations that responded to the needs and tastes of a middle-class clientele. Drawing on cruise advertisements, newspaper articles, ephemera, industry documents, travel writing, and memorabilia books, this dissertation analyzes how these three companies used cultural and geographic referents to produce cruise vacations, responding to an increased consumer interest in cultural sampling as an accruement of economic globalization. Findings suggest that cruise ships offered their owners a space to arrange simulated interactions with global cultures—a practice that soon extended to Caribbean cruise ports as these companies gained the market power to influence encounters there. This complex collision of global cultures was advanced by a goal to offer passengers opportunities to discover new worlds. However, many of the cultural representations displayed on cruise ships were pastiches—essentializations drawn from popular media forms and based in Eurocentrism. These were meant to be entertaining, not accurate, representations. Nevertheless, as themed environments gained momentum, these cultural forms helped to transform ships into destinations in their own right—a process through which cruise lines produced a captive audience to siphon passenger spending from the Caribbean. At the same time, cruise lines leveraged their mediating power and economic influence to hide from passengers the supposed poverty, crime, and disease at Caribbean ports, and even the mundanities of daily life there, while increasingly installing mechanisms to appropriate spending from those who chose to debark the ship. These processes intensified as the decades advanced. This study thus finds that cultural homogenization did not result in an immediately apparent reduction of difference, because difference was profitable and central to the mass-market cruise industry’s advertising strategies. However, the surface-level cultural heterogeneity that cruises offered was reduced through a homogenizing vision that balanced novelty with passenger comfort, engagement, and convenience in support of corporate profits. The resulting cultural production process was not suggestive of glocalization, but rather a new phenomenon meriting further research.