Abstracts for Session 8

 Urban tourism development: challenges and possibilities in the wake of Covid-19

 

 

Title: Urban ecotourism – a niche geared to alter the tourism regime  

Authors: Jane Meged and Jesper Holm

Affiliation: Roskilde University

 

So far, niche tourism has largely been shaped in opposition as well as a remedy to mass tourism (Weeden, 2005, Dinis and Krakower, 2016). According to Robinson & Novelli (2005: 9) Ecotourism is a micro niche within a larger environmental macro niche, but the question is, must the principles of sustainability in ecotourism remain a niche endeavour or is it “A way forward to sustainability?” (Novelli & Benson, 2005: Ch 20) 

The Danish Innovation Fund Project INUT (Innovation and Development of Urban Ecotourism 2017-21) aspired to transcend the divide between niche and mass tourism as an urgent response to the Anthropocene (Lewis & Maslin 2015, UNWTO 2017). The overall aim of the project was to develop a scalable participatory model for development of sustainable urban eco-tourism.  In Nature Park Amager/Copenhagen and National Park Skjoldungernes Land/Roskilde, both parks adjacent to urban centers, the project traced and developed local identities and narratives and identified social, material and ecological resources and needs in the urban nature, in order to elicit the touristic potential of the two areas. Local/regional actors and entrepreneurs from the tourism industry along with researchers, students were brought together to develop a template for sustainable urban eco-tourism and products development. Tourist guides and entrepreneurs were through training and workshops enhanced in their transformational capacity of services to generate a shift in tourist behavior, and at the same time create prototypes of touristic urban eco products.  

INUT was designed on the principles of Transition Theory, that is a school of thoughts developed to promote sustainable solutions in a time where the regime needs a shift but is not ready yet. It has been applied to a variety of sectors, such as transportation, agriculture, construction etc. but hitherto very little related directly to the tourism industry. In Transition Theory operate with the terms niche, regime, and landscape. Niches are special (local) domains where ‘non-standard' solutions, practices and technologies develop. (Smith and Stirling 2010).  The regime is the current practices and norm in the industry and the landscape are the overall societal influences and development.   

The presentation focuses on the results of the INUT project such as the two prospects for each park, produced by the architects. The 11 new urban ecotours produced by the entrepreneurs, a new curriculum at the Tourist Guide Diploma program and a scalable model of urban ecotourism forged by the researchers. It discusses its` successes and shortcomings in relation the R&D methodology. 

 

 

Title: A mediaspace approach to resilience in tourism regions 

Authors: Maria Månsson and Jörgen Eksell

Affiliation: Lund University

 

This research explores how the Covid-19 pandemic has reconceptualised the relationship between the urban and rural in tourism regions. Especially, this paper discusses the relationship between media narratives and tourism flows, and the implications for resilience in tourism regions. This paper departs from theories of mediaspace. Media and communication scholars have this far been largely absent from resilience theorising and research (Houston et al., 2015). Mediaspace explores the interconnectedness of media and space (e.g. Warf & Arias, 2009; Adams & Jansson, 2012).

The data consists of interviews with stakeholders (DMO representatives, managers of nature reserves and tourist attractions) and online news media texts on the region Scania, Sweden. A paradigmatic analysis of narratives that locate common themes or conceptual manifestations was conducted (cf. Polkinghorne 1995). 

The analysis shows the intimate relation between resilience in places and media narratives, and how the latter transform both conceptions and practices about resilience in places. Rural places are contrived as places of physical distance and attractive for visitors. These are constructed as sustainable and safe even with large numbers of visitors. While urban places are portrayed as places unsafe to visit. The mediaspace approach to resilience reveals how the constitution of resilience in urban destinations is moulded by the politics of media and communication practices. 

 

 

Title: Getting a break from tourism? How COVID-19 has impacted resident’s attitudes towards tourism in Iceland

Author: Eyrún Jenný Bjarnadóttir  

Affiliation: Icelandic Tourism Research Centre 

 

In 2019, before COVID-19 pandemic hit, 92% of Icelanders claimed that their community would suffer the consequences if tourists would stop coming. This scenario of a collapse in inbound tourism was unthinkable at the time. 

It is recognised that COVID-19 could impact the thoughts and feelings of tourists and permanently change the way people travel. Comparably, the epidemic could affect the resident’s attitudes. It is widely recognized that tourism and tourists affect the local community when a place transforms into a destination, but how do such major changes in tourism shape the residents’ attitudes? 

This paper focuses on the residents’ experiences of the tourism industry collapse and the sharp decline in inbound tourism caused by the pandemic. A mixed-method study, consisting of semi-structured interviews and a telephone survey, was conducted in four Icelandic communities that are all major tourism destinations. The results bring forward both commonalities and differences in residents’ experiences. For some, the disappearance of tourists, brought on by the pandemic, was initially “a once in a lifetime” brake. However, while residents missed the bustling, vibrant atmosphere, the emotions brought on by unemployment, emigration, closed retail spaces and empty streets were ambiguous. The results reveal that residents look forward to welcoming tourists again to their communities in a post-pandemic world. The case studies bring forward perspectives from residents on what they would like to see happen in the planning and management of tourism when tourists return that could have implications for rebuilding the tourism industry and its future sustainability. 

 

 

Title: Quality of life in urban destinations: A communicative perspective on sustainable urban tourism development

Authors: Jörgen Eksell and Christian Hohlfeld

Affiliation: Lund University

 

Tourism recovery in the post-Covid-19 era is expected to vary considerably on different destination markets (Ioanniedes & Gyimóthy, 2020). Pre-pandemically, increasing urbanization and a growing urban tourism sector have put urban destinations' carrying capacities under particular stress. As tourism's benefits and costs are unequally distributed among involved destination stakeholders (Novy & Columb, 2016), urban destinations will again turn into a hotbed for social tensions and conflicts between different stakeholder groups once tourism restarts. In order to be sustainable, tourism development must contribute to the improvement of destination stakeholders' quality of life, which requires stakeholders' participation in tourism development (Uysal et al., 2016). However, urban destinations commonly lack collaborative development processes that balance stakeholders' conflicting interests (Lalicic & Weber-Sabil, 2021). This paper departs from the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) perspective (Ashcraft et al., 2009; Cooren et al., 2011) and a ritual view of communication (Carey, 2009). The paper discusses how urban tourism development can be advanced by insights from the four flows approach in CCO (McPhee & Zaug, 2000) that posits that organizations are constituted in four intertwined message flows processes: membership negotiation, self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning. By initiating communicative practices as strategic conversations, dialogical communication, and organizational listening (Macnamara, 2014), a stakeholder-centered communication approach is developed that promotes mutual integration of conflicting stakeholder interests. As such, the flows enhance the quality of life in urban destinations. The paper also discusses the significance of sustainable urban tourism development in the context of the tourism industry's recovery and restart in the post-Covid-19 era.

 

Keywords: Sustainable urban tourism development, urban city destinations, quality of life, CCO perspective, strategic communication.