Purpose
There is a need to rethink destination competitiveness research, which tends to overlook local impacts of events and new developments. Conducting pre-event research challenges researchers to ...move beyond analyzing competitiveness as an end (concerning strategy, tangible outcomes, economic deliverables and value for visitors) to assessing competitiveness as a beginning (through perceptions of place management and local impacts).
Design/methodology/approach
Survey research with local residents explores competitiveness pertinent to perceptions of place management and local impacts. Participation, enthusiasm and information availability are independent variables to assess whether statistically significant differences exist among residents’ perceptions. In total, 454 surveys were collected; the analysis involved exploratory factor analysis and t-test.
Findings
Factor analysis revealed two factors for place management (organizational competencies; managing awareness) and local impacts (awareness of social benefits; local interest and support). Enthusiasm and information availability have stronger influences on residents’ perceptions than participation in pre-event activities.
Practical implications
More emphasis needs put on ensuring information availability promotes enthusiasm, to help encourage participation. These three variables are a necessary basis for exploring residents’ pre-event perceptions – a key starting point to guide decision-making through later stages of an event life-cycle.
Originality/value
Events and competitiveness studies focusing specifically on information availability and enthusiasm of residents is little-explored. By exploring these variables and extending insight on participation, this paper contributes to the literature by assessing pre-event resident perceptions of place management and local impacts (with data collected as event developments were being realized).
This study critically discusses the entanglements between World Heritage and geo-politics. It deconstructs the geo-political gaze which, it is argued, characterises the articulation of the UNESCO ...World Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) programme in the Republic of Croatia. The study of ICH specific to the case of Croatia is significant in political geography because it entails how cultural heritage is instrumentally used to promote nation-building while seeking to overcome past suppression of its culture. The article takes the Foucauldian concept of governmentality and Todorova's notion of Balkanism as epistemological frameworks. The aim is to understand what discourses are in play for Croatia as an independent nation to self-reflexively represent itself in the UNESCO international community and establish its geo-political positioning among other European nations through the transactional device of ICH. We argue that UNESCO acts as a supranational body which interacts with Croatia in the matter of ICH safeguarding. It therefore contributes to an emphasis on a governmentality discourse; at the same time, Balkanism can be regarded as a backdrop against which Croatia has constructed its own identity and legitimised its European aspirations.
The development of food tourism, with an emphasis on authentic gastronomy, is important to ensure the long-term sustainability of tourism, especially in rural areas. Success in developing this type ...of tourism is largely dependent on strong stakeholder commitment. This study aims to understand the dynamics of the mechanisms of collaboration between different categories of stakeholders in the local development of authentic gastronomy for the purpose of tourism development, using a single rural region as an example. The case study method was selected to obtain a better understanding of the complexity of relationships among rural tourism stakeholders and the Ravni Kotari region in Croatia, as a rural area in the hinterland, with significant gastronomy tourism potential. Content analysis of available secondary sources was conducted to reveal cooperation patterns among different categories of stakeholders that are relevant for authentic gastronomy, together with onsite semi-structured interviews of representatives of different stakeholder categories. The research findings revealed a significant level of cooperation among public sector stakeholders, especially in terms of cooperating on projects that promote local gastronomy. However, the lack of horizontal cooperation among stakeholders from the private sector is also noted as a big challenge. This research provides valuable insights into the roles’ relationships and the collaboration mechanisms among key local stakeholders in the provison authentic gastronomy tourism.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the local community in small-scale sport events in rural areas, from the perspective of contestants and sport event organisers.
: Six small-scale ...sport events in the region of Gorski Kotar, Croatia, were analysed. Authors employed quantitative and qualitative methods in order to understand perceptions of contestants and event organisers.
The local community as a partner in small-scale sport events can increase satisfaction of contestants with the event. Organisers of those events are often not aware of that and although their approaches to local community support differ, most of them focus predominantly on the economic benefits while neglecting the social impacts and importance of those impacts on satisfaction of contestants.
Research results underlining the importance of local community engagement in small-scale sport events can be useful for planning sport events in other rural destinations in Croatia and abroad. Direct evidence of the significance this engagement has for the overall satisfaction of contestants can motivate event organisers to focus more on the social impacts of the sport events they are organising and to re-think their contribution to the regeneration of hosting rural areas.
Purpose
More research is needed to consider residents’ perceptions prior to hosting large-scale events. This paper contributes new insight on residents’ perceptions of placemaking analysed by ...considering awareness, enthusiasm and participation prior to hosting a large-scale event. Placemaking is becoming increasingly important and this insight can help planners understand how locals perceive change and event planning preparations.
Design/methodology/approach
454 residents of Rijeka, Croatia completed a survey (seven-point Likert scale) of 17 placemaking principles, asked in three ways: (1) how you feel; (2) how you believe people near you feel and (3) if you feel that planning/preparing for ECoC 2020 has made a difference. The data analysis considers socio-demographics and the significance of awareness, enthusiasm and participation as factors affecting residents’ perceptions of placemaking.
Findings
The study found respondents originally from Rijeka expressed statistically significant higher level of agreement. Where statistically significant differences exist, female respondents expressed statistically significant higher levels of agreement. For six statements, the distribution of results was not similar for all age groups. Awareness and enthusiasm seems to influence placemaking principles to a greater extent than participation in this study, but all have proven to have statistically significant positive impacts on the placemaking principles assessed.
Practical implications
Planners need to focus on effective promotional activities aimed at awareness and enhance enthusiasm to help increase perceptions of placemaking and increase local quality of life.
Originality/value
explores perceptions of “self” and “how others feel” by assessing principles of placemaking associated with the case of Rijeka. This allows researchers to explore understandings of how people perceive the attitudes of their fellow residents.
This paper aims to propose business models for different outdoor sport tourism experiences, based on insights from active sport event participants and sport event organisers. The proposed business ...models are integrated into a single framework suitable for future usage by academics and practitioners. To design the business models, empirical examination was conducted in three phases, followed by the integration and interpretation of the results. Results imply that active outdoor sport event tourists are not homogenous regarding their motivations and that ‘Moderate recreationists’, ‘Nature lovers’ and ‘Enthusiasts’ differ in terms of their preferences for distinct business model elements. Event organisers have identified several other business model elements as being important. The proposed framework, as an integration of the results gathered from the perspectives of active outdoor sport event participants and event organisers, provides a better understanding of the business model concept in general and sport event tourism in particular.
•Attitudes of active outdoor sport event tourists and event organisers were examined.•Three market segments of sport tourists were identified based on their motives.•Tourist segments differ in preferences to distinctive business model elements.•Importance of business model elements was evaluated from organisers' perspective.•Three business models for active outdoor sport tourism experiences were revealed.
Methodological and theoretical advances are necessary to better understand the complex and heterogeneous nature of residents' perceptions and attitudes towards tourism in cities. This study provides ...a novel approach, challenging some of the postulates of the Social Exchange Theory. The study was conducted in the capital city of Croatia, Zagreb, and residents’ attitudes were gathered through self-administered questionnaire. The level of agreement with the statement that ‘tourism generates more benefits than costs for residents’ was used as a criterion for segmenting respondents into three groups: sceptics, neutrals and believers. Analysis revealed that the three groups did not significantly differ in perception of most of the negative impacts, but do differ when it comes to positive impacts. Results indicate that in cases where a urban destination is not (yet) exposed to overtourism, perceived positive tourism impacts play a more important role than the negative tourism impacts, as potential key opinion-changers in terms of future support for tourism development. Importance of this study lies in transforming the ordinary approach to residents’ perceptions and providing alternative framework for research, with more emphasis on relations between perceptions of positive and negative tourism impact, rather than factors affecting those perceptions. Policy implications include the need for city planners to foster residents’ participation in tourism planning and development, strengthen information campaigns on tourism impacts, and more regularly monitor resident perceptions of the effects of tourism development on their well-being
In light of the challenges of the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, the topic of overtourism has been temporarily pushed into the background, but unsustainable tourism practices, which often ...include ignoring residents, one of the key stakeholders in tourist destinations, remain an important issue for sustainable tourism development in the future. This is a particularly important task for local tourism governances in terms of developing mechanisms for involving residents in planning and decision making. This research focuses on gaining insights into the relationship between the tourism dependency of residents and their perception of local tourism governance in terms of satisfaction with the organization of local public and private tourism stakeholders, as well as with the involvement of residents in tourism planning and decision making. The added value of the research lies in comparing the attitudes of residents in a highly-visited destination and a destination in the early stage of development. Both selected destinations are seaside destinations. with prevailing private accommodation and residential type of tourism. Responses were analyzed using ANOVA and the t-test, and the obtained results indicate that residents with no connection to tourism are the most dissatisfied with the local tourism governance dimensions. Also, residents who live in highly-visited destination had lower mean values of perceived local tourism governance than those living in less-visited destination.
This case study describes Mon Perin Ltd. - unique tourism enterprise owned by the local community in Bale (Istria, Croatia). The origins, distinctive characteristics of the enterprise, its business ...performance as well as direct and indirect impact on local community are described in order to foster discussion and encourage reading and further research on possibilities of local communities to develop sustainable tourism by directly owning and managing tourism infrastructure.
Rapid tourism development accompanied by exponential increase in the number of tourists and visitors in destinations can disrupt the life of destination residents and negatively affect their support ...for (future) tourism development. On the other hand, residents economically dependent on tourism might have different attitudes toward tourism in comparison to those who are not economically involved in tourism. Several studies have found that economic dependence on tourism induces more positive perceptions of tourism impacts and higher degree of support than non-dependence. Another potential valuable predictor of tourism support could be residents’ subjective well-being, enhancing our understanding quality of life under the influence of tourism. The purpose of this study is to better understand local residents’ support for tourism development by exploring their well-being, involvement in tourism activities and perceived overall value of tourism development. In order to gain a specific perspective of island tourism destination, a sample of residents living on a small Adriatic island Vir (Croatia) was chosen. Vir is high seasonal and mature destination with annual number of visitors around 30 times bigger than the number of permanent residents. It was found that those residents who are directly or indirectly economically benefiting from tourism have significantly higher scores in personal and national well-being domains and also exhibit higher support towards future tourism development, than those who don’t experience economic benefits from tourism. Regression analysis of an island well-being perception index, revealed that tourism generates more benefits than costs and economical involvement in tourism positively affect residents’ tourism development support. On the other hand, demographic predictors (age, gender, education, income) and personal well-being index are not associated with tourism development support. The results provide important insights for researchers and practitioners on understanding residents’ perceptions of tourism in mature destinations and how those perceptions can be related both to subjective well-being and the level of involvement in tourism activities.
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