This paper examines how a serious game approach could support a participatory planning process by bringing stakeholders together to discuss interventions that assist the development of sustainable urban tourism. A serious policy game was designed and played in six European cities by a total of 73 participants, reflecting a diverse array of tourism stakeholders. By observing in-game experiences, a pre- and post -game survey and short interviews six months after playing the game, the process and impact of the game was investigated. While it proved difficult to evaluate the value of a serious game approach, results demonstrate that enacting real-life policymaking in a serious game setting can enable stakeholders to come together, and become more aware of the issues and complexities involved with urban tourism planning. This suggests a serious game can be used to stimulate the uptake of academic insights in a playful manner. However, it should be remembered that a game is a tool and does not, in itself, lead to inclusive participatory policymaking and more sustainable urban tourism planning. Consequently, care needs to be taken to ensure inclusiveness and prevent marginalization or disempowerment both within game-design and the political formation of a wider participatory planning approach.
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Onderwijs en onderzoek, maar dan midden in de stad en zo uitgevoerd dat burgers en zo uitgevoerd dat burgers, ondernemers en overheid er iets aan hebben – dat is Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam-Noord. Het lab pakt grote vraagstukken op en weet steeds vaker ondernemers en overheden te verleiden om nieuwe producten te realiseren.
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In a matter of weeks last year, discussions regarding tourism in cities changed from how to deal with overtourism to how to deal with ‘no tourism’. Shortly thereafter, a great number of posts on LinkedIn, websites, and blogs highlighted how the tourism crisis that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic could help reinvent tourism, into something more equal, inclusive, and sustainable. And so, online – at leastin mypersonalonlinebubble – there seemedtobe a real momentum for proper, transformative changes in (urban) tourism. How can we rebuild urban tourism in a sustainable and resilient way?
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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.
The tourism strategy of the municipality of Amsterdam and the Destination Management Organisation stress the importance of increasing liveabilty and enhancing a sense of unity through, also by connecting with residents. An important area in which they would like to achieve this, is Amsterdam Noord, a neighbourhood that was historically on the fringe of the city but is now appointed as one of the (to be further developed) multi-cores of the city. As such it is facing a rapid transformation on a social, cultural, economic and infrastructural level with an increasing leisure and tourism offer. The idea is to apply principles of regenerative tourism and community capacity building to ensure a sustainable tourism development, although it remains unclear how to do this in in practice. The current PD addresses this issue by investigating possible regenerative urban tourism principles and practices (here: collaborative interventions) that can be designed to increase local community building capacities, using a living lab setting in Amsterdam-Noord. It follows a participatory action research approach where the researcher is part of a living lab team and local eco system. By participating in local meet-ups as well as desk research and (group)interviews a further contextual understanding of how regenerative tourism can be conceptualised in an urban context is gained. Next, workshops, experiments and design-based interventions with local stakeholders will be done to construct different stories of place and new ways of performing tourism. The PD will contribute to knowledge development creating a conceptual framework for regenerative urban tourism. It will also provide academic and practical insights on with regards to stimulating capacity building and how to measure this within a tourism context (also in relation to co-creation and placemaking practices), what potentials can be tapped into and how small-scall collaborative interventions can influence wider system change.
