This open access book presents a selection of the best contributions to the Digital Cities 9 Workshop held in Limerick in 2015, combining a number of the latest academic insights into new collaborative modes of city making that are firmly rooted in empirical findings about the actual practices of citizens, designers and policy makers. It explores the affordances of new media technologies for empowering citizens in the process of city making, relating examples of bottom-up or participatory practices to reflections about the changing roles of professional practitioners in the processes, as well as issues of governance and institutional policymaking.
Creativity has become increasingly important for the development of tourism in cities in recent years. As competition between cities grows, they increasingly seek to distinguish themselves through creative strategies. In the field of tourism, however, such strategies may arguably be counter-productive, as the race to produce distinction often results in cities adopting similar creative development models. In particular, many cities rely on the ideas of creativity 'gurus' such as Richard Florida and Charles Landry to provide creative solutions to a wide range of cultural, social and economic problems. However, by following such exogenous prescriptions, adopting forms of 'fast policy' and copying ideas from other 'creative cities' through 'policy tourism', the result is often a form of serial reproduction, unattractive to the very tourists cities seek to attract. This review article examines the search of many cities for distinction through creativity, and analyses the development of different forms of creativity, including creative industries and creative cities strategies and creative tourism. It argues that the shift away from tangible to intangible competitive advantage is continuing, with a trend towards relational forms of tourism based on creativity and embedded knowledge. These processes are illustrated by reviews of the literature relating to cities around the world.
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City authorities worldwide have sought to rejuvenate and diversify their tourism product offerings by dispersing visitors into less familiar and frequented locales. Despite calls to understand such ‘new tourism areas’ (NTAs) in urban areas, few researchers have examined visitor responses to the implementation of NTA strategies, particularly outside Europe. This quantitative approach considers the profiles, attitudes and behaviours of NTA visitors in an Asian city that was undertaking dispersal efforts pre-pandemic in the context of mass inbound Chinese visitation. Distinct profiles are found for NTA visitors relative to other city arrivals in response to Hong Kong’s branding propositions. It is found that NTAs appeal to repeat visitors seeking cosmopolitan experiences and may help tourist dispersal and product differentiation, though the proposition that NTA visitors are more highly educated was not supported
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The impacts of tourism on destinations and the perceptions of local communities have been a major concern both for the industry and research in the past decades. However, tourism planning has been mainly focused on traditions that promote the increase of tourism without taking under consideration the wellbeing of both residents and visitors. To develop a more sustainable tourism model, the inclusion of local residents in tourism decision-making is vital. However, this is not always possible due to structural, economic and socio-cultural restrictions that residents face resulting to their disempowerment. This study aims to explore and interpret the formal processes around tourism decision-making and community empowerment in urban settings. The research proposes a comparative study of three urban destinations in Europe (The Hague in the Netherlands, San Sebastian in Spain and, Ioannina in Greece) that experience similar degree of tourism growth. The proposed study will use a design-based approach in order to understand tourism decision-making and what empowers or disempowers community participation within the destinations. Based on the findings of primary and secondary data, a community empowerment model will be applied in one the destinations as a pilot for resident engagement in tourism planning. The evaluation of the pilot will allow for an optimized model to be created with implications for tourism planning at a local level that can contribute to sustainable destinations that safeguard the interests of local residents and tourists.
The IMPULS-2020 project DIGIREAL (BUas, 2021) aims to significantly strengthen BUAS’ Research and Development (R&D) on Digital Realities for the benefit of innovation in our sectoral industries. The project will furthermore help BUas to position itself in the emerging innovation ecosystems on Human Interaction, AI and Interactive Technologies. The pandemic has had a tremendous negative impact on BUas industrial sectors of research: Tourism, Leisure and Events, Hospitality and Facility, Built Environment and Logistics. Our partner industries are in great need of innovative responses to the crises. Data, AI combined with Interactive and Immersive Technologies (Games, VR/AR) can provide a partial solution, in line with the key-enabling technologies of the Smart Industry agenda. DIGIREAL builds upon our well-established expertise and capacity in entertainment and serious games and digital media (VR/AR). It furthermore strengthens our initial plans to venture into Data and Applied AI. Digital Realities offer great opportunities for sectoral industry research and innovation, such as experience measurement in Leisure and Hospitality, data-driven decision-making for (sustainable) tourism, geo-data simulations for Logistics and Digital Twins for Spatial Planning. Although BUas already has successful R&D projects in these areas, the synergy can and should significantly be improved. We propose a coherent one-year Impuls funded package to develop (in 2021): 1. A multi-year R&D program on Digital Realities, that leads to, 2. Strategic R&D proposals, in particular a SPRONG/sleuteltechnologie proposal; 3. Partnerships in the regional and national innovation ecosystem, in particular Mind Labs and Data Development Lab (DDL); 4. A shared Digital Realities Lab infrastructure, in particular hardware/software/peopleware for Augmented and Mixed Reality; 5. Leadership, support and operational capacity to achieve and support the above. The proposal presents a work program and management structure, with external partners in an advisory role.
Nature areas in North-West Europe (NWE) face an increasing number of visitors (intensified by COVID-19) resulting in an increased pressure on nature, negative environmental impacts, higher management costs, and nuisance for local residents and visitors. The high share of car use exaggerates these impacts, including peak pressures. Furthermore, the almost exclusive access by car excludes disadvantaged people, specifically those without access to a car. At the same time, the urbanised character of NWE, its dense public transport network, well-developed tourism & recreation sector, and presence of shared mobility providers offers ample opportunities for more sustainable tourism. Thus, MONA will stimulate sustainable tourism in and around nature areas in NWE which benefits nature, the environment, visitors, and the local economy. MONA will do so by encouraging a modal shift through facilitating sustainableThe pan-European Innovation Action, funded under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme, aims to promote innovative governance processes ,and help public authorities in shaping their climate mitigation and adaptation policies. To achieve this aim, the GREENGAGE project will leverage citizens’ participation and equip them with innovative digital solutions that will transform citizen’s engagement and cities’ effectiveness in delivering the European Green Deal objectives for carbon neutral cities.Focusing on mobility, air quality and healthy living, citizens will be inspired to observe and co-create their cities by sensing their urban environments. The aim to complement, validate, and enrich information in authoritative data held by the public administrations and public agencies. This will be facilitated by engaging with citizens to co-create green initiatives and to develop Citizen Observatories. In GREENGAGE, Citizen Observatories will be a place where pilot cities will co-examine environmental issues integrating novel bottom-up process with top-down perspectives. This will provide the basis to co-create and co-design innovative solutions to monitor environmental problems at ground level with the help of citizens.With two interrelated project dimensions, the project aims to enhance intelligence applied to city decision-making processes and governance by engaging with citizen observations integrated with Copernicus, GEOSS, in-situ, and socio-economic intelligence, and by delivering innovative governance models based on novel toolboxes of decision-making methodologies and technologies. The envisioned citizens observatory campaigns will be deployed and fully demonstrated in 5 pilot engagements in selected European cities and regions including: Bristol (the United Kingdom), Copenhagen (Denmark), Turano / Gerace (Italy) and the region of Noord Brabant (the Netherlands). These innovation pilots aim to highlight the need for smart city governance by promoting citizen engagement, co-creation, gathering new data which will complement existing datasets and evidence-based decision and policymaking.
