Bottom-up placemaking in a time of crisis, by the people, for the people

Abstract

Purpose The paper aims to present the case study of Arillas, a small beach resort on Corfu, Greece, where the locals have taken their fate into their own hands in the middle of a crisis. It presents the historical background of the development of tourism in Arillas, the actions that have been undertaken by the local stakeholders to actively participate in the management of the village and to attract alternative, responsible and sustainable forms of tourism to Arillas, and the main players contributing to this process, as well as a look at three important themes contributing to the change. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on an empirical study spanning many years by a local inhabitant who has an affinity with place management and marketing. It also includes some conclusions of a quantitative, questionnaire-based customer satisfaction survey carried out in 2011 and 2012 among 600 visitors. The analysis of the quantitative data was carried out by the Head of the Corfu Department of the National Tourism Organisation of Greece. Findings The paper demonstrates how a shared vision, combined with empowerment and communication among local stakeholders on improving the place, as well as many joint actions carried out on a volunteer basis have, first of all, dramatically increased the level of engagement of the locals in the present and future of Arillas, and second they have attracted and are attracting more individual travellers who are coming for the hospitality, local food and products, music and cultural festivals, walking, yoga and meditation rather than the outdated mass tourism model. Research limitations/implications It would be very interesting to perform another quantitative, questionnaire-based survey now to compare the results to those of 2012. Originality/value This paper demonstrates that a bottom-up, horizontal approach to placemaking and place marketing can yield substantial results even (or especially) in an adverse economical and social environment.

London’s local Olympic legacy

“…Developing a strong, localised brand identity is central to creating and maintaining destination competitiveness and value propositions, to put a place on the map, and encourage tourists to visit (Buultjens and Cairncross, 2015 , 2007). Such view corroborates one of Richard's (2017) central arguments around the fundamental role eventsand an event portfolio of holistic cultural programming -can play in generating a strong local community place and cultural offer as a result of bottom-up community-driven initiatives and top-down cultural programming (Christou, 2017).…”

Rediscovering people, places and traditions: a story of stories

“…See, for example, Kalandides and his idea that "any intervention on places would have to be done with those who inhabit them, defining priorities according to their needs" (Kalandides, 2018a, p. 150). This resonates with Christou's (2017) narrated bottom-up place-making experience. Participation is widely recognized and emphasized also in the place branding literature (Kavaratzis, 2012;Kavaratzis and Kalandides, 2015;Zenker and Erfgen, 2014;Here zniak, 2017), which focuses on the importance of residents, on the involvement of stakeholders as an "urgent need" (Kavaratzis, 2012) and on the role of place identity in place branding processes (Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013).…”

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“…Brojni su i primjeri aktivnoga angažmana lokalnih zajednica oko organizacije različitih događanja s ciljem ostvarenja boljih turističkih rezultata. Nezadovoljni načinom na koji su veliki turoperatori utjecali na turističko upravljanje destinacijom, mještani maloga naselja Arillas na otoku Krfu u Grčkoj odlučili su sami organizirati svoju turističku ponudu, što je rezultiralo nizom aktivnosti, među kojima se isticalo i nekoliko događanja lokalnoga karaktera, koja su upravo takvim formatom uspjela privući stalne posjetitelje (Christou, 2017). Slične inicijative pokrenute su i u povijesnom gradiću Evandale u Ta-Placemaking, local community and tourism Koncept preoblikovanja mjesta, lokalna zajednica i turizam local character (Christou, 2017).…”

“…Nezadovoljni načinom na koji su veliki turoperatori utjecali na turističko upravljanje destinacijom, mještani maloga naselja Arillas na otoku Krfu u Grčkoj odlučili su sami organizirati svoju turističku ponudu, što je rezultiralo nizom aktivnosti, među kojima se isticalo i nekoliko događanja lokalnoga karaktera, koja su upravo takvim formatom uspjela privući stalne posjetitelje (Christou, 2017). Slične inicijative pokrenute su i u povijesnom gradiću Evandale u Ta-Placemaking, local community and tourism Koncept preoblikovanja mjesta, lokalna zajednica i turizam local character (Christou, 2017). Concerned that the town was losing its identity and ability to attract visitors, the local community of the historical town of Evandale in Tasmania started a new festival featuring a penny farthing race, as well as other activities (Sofield et al, 2017).…”