This report investigates prior experiences and impacts of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) with the aim of informing preparation plans for Leeuwarden and Fryslân to organize the event in 2018. The longterm benefits that the ECoC tend to be both tangible through improvements in facilities, and intangible as self-confidence and pride increase as the result of celebrating the destination, its culture and history.
This article examines the types of capitals possessed by informal tourism entrepreneurs and locates their value within the field relations that orders their contribution to the tourism system. Bourdieu's theory on fields and capitals was applied to ethnographic narrative accounts of stakeholders in tourism in Chiang Mai, Thailand to assess these roles. Informal entrepreneurs have limited access to resources and their perspectives are excluded from academic debates and policy initiatives. The paper identifies the dynamism, positive social capital, flexibility, and symbolic capital of informal entrepreneurs. These are related to the field conditions that determine and structure their contribution to tourism destinations. The analysis reveals the importance of collaboration between informal entrepreneurs and other stakeholders, concluding with recommendations for policy makers.
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The project is a field study for several diverse hotel chains, including individual properties operated under the Marriott brand, Postillion Hotels. Each brand has unique values, missions, and visions. Therefore, this integration will lead to the development of company-specific sustainability strategies and processes. The study will use the model of levers of control to provide such tailor-made solutions and determine if a generic approach can be developed to match a corporate sustainability strategy with a corporate strategy and develop a supporting management control system for operationalizing the sustainability strategy. Research question: How can a hotel brand formulate and implement a sustainability strategy with a supporting management control system that not only complies with the new CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) legislation but also emphasizes the creation of substantial value in financial and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) aspects, based on double materiality, in line with the organization's corporate values and beliefs? Objective The aim is to develop a validated method, including tools, that hotels can use to create a sustainability strategy in line with the CSRD guidelines. This strategy should create value for the organization, the environment, and society, while aligning with the hotel's values and beliefs. Merely being compliant with the CSRD is not enough for hotels. Instead, they should view the implementation of the CSRD as an opportunity to stand out in terms of sustainability. By creating value in areas such as environment, safety, and governance, or through the six capitals (financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural) that align with the UN-SDGs, and explicitly taking both an inside-out and an outside in perspective (double materiality), hotels can significantly enhance their sustainability reputation.
The main aim of KiNESIS is to create a Knowledge Alliance among academia, NGOs, communities, local authorities, businesses to develop a program of multidisciplinary activities in shrinking areas with the aim of promoting and fostering ideas, projects, workforce, productivity and attractiveness. The problems affecting peripheral territories in rural or mountain areas of the interior regions, compared to small, medium or large population centres and large European capitals, are related to complex but clear phenomena: the emigration of young generations, abandonment and loneliness of elderly people, the loss of jobs, the deterioration of buildings and land, the closing of schools and related services, the disappearance of traditions and customs, the contraction of local governments, which in absence of adequate solutions can only generate worse conditions, leading to the abandonment of areas rich in history, culture and traditions. It is important that these communities - spread all over Europe - are not abandoned since they are rich in cultural traditions, which need to be preserved with a view to new developments, intended as "intelligent" rebirth and recovery.The focus of KiNESIS is to converge the interest of different stakeholders by recalling various skills around abandoned villages to make them "smart" and "attractive".Keeping in mind the triangular objectives of cooperation and innovation of research, higher education and business of the Knowledge Alliance action, the project aims are: i) revitalising depopulated areas by stimulating entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills; ii) creating local living laboratories, shared at European level, in which the exchange of knowledge, best practices, experiences can help promote social inclusion and entrepreneurial development;iii) experimenting new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches in teaching and learning; iv) facilitating the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge at a local and global level.
Value increase by design through the development of an international network in Visual DesignThe VIVID project aimed to create a cross-border virtual network in the Visual Design sector, a sector that creatively translates communication into multimedia applications. This sector is constantly evolving and offers great economic potential for the 2 Seas area, using new media and technology to develop visual communication tools which are more efficient, more understandable and can also be applied internationally. That said, there are two main barriers preventing this sector from expanding in the 2 Seas area: its fragmentation and a brain drain. Of highly educated professionals towards the capitals (Amsterdam, London, Paris, Brussels). The VIVID partnership wants to cluster organisations and to strengthen the sector by: - Promoting cooperation and knowledge-exchange with the participating universities and higher education institutions for new applications in the visual design sector. - Stimulating creative entrepreneurship and supporting start-up businesses, especially young professionals. - Showcasing and profiling visual design to a wider audience, as well as the uses and applications of visual design in trade and industry.Partners: AVANS University of Applied Sciences (NL), House of Visual Culture (NL), Strategic Project Organisation Kempen (BE), Les Rencontres Audiovisuelles (FR), Pictanovo (FR), Southampton Solent University (UK), Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge (UK) and the City of Breda (NL).
