DESTINATION MODELS AND PROPERTY REGIMES

DESTINATION MODELS AND PROPERTY REGIMES

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 587–606, 2009 0160-7383/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Grea...

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Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 587–606, 2009 0160-7383/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain

www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2009.04.002

DESTINATION MODELS AND PROPERTY REGIMES An Exploration Antonio P. Russo University Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona Giovanna Segre University of Turin Abstract: This paper suggests that property regimes determine destination structures; and compares—positioning them in an analytic framework—two destination models based on a different allocation of property rights. It then proposes a third model founded on an altogether different institutional regime, intellectual property, claiming that it could be considered superior to the previous two. In Creative Tourism Districts participation in tourism development is favoured and at the same time competition among a heterogeneous network of producers is prevented from become destructive of place and product. Though the various points of this argument are illustrated by means of real-world examples, this is a purely conceptual paper which inaugurates a research track on property rights and tourism development. Keywords: destinations, sustainable tourism, participation, competition, intellectual property. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION A large stream of the tourism development literature (Butler 1980; Haywood 1986; Ioannides 1992; Knowles and Curtis 1999; Priestley and Mundet 1998; and for a comprehensive collection of applications and variations of the original life cycle model, see Butler 2006) acknowledges that destinations undergo cyclical dynamics, determined by several factors such as variations in land use, property, and control, the nature and quality of the attractions, their degree of resiliency face to increasing visitor pressures, and the timing of tourism policy. Eventually, combinations of these factors may determine altogether different trajectories, and divergent models of tourism development, Antonio Russo is professor at the Tourism School of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona (C. Joanot Martorell 15, 43480 Vila-seca, SPAIN. Email: ), and Director of Research of the Science & Technology Park of Tourism and Leisure. He also collaborates with the European Institute for Comparative Urban Research (EURICUR) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he got his Ph.D. in Economics in 2002. His research interests range from tourism and regional studies to cultural economics. Giovanna Segre is assistant professor of Public Finance and Cultural Economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Turin, where she has received the Doctoral degree in European Economic Studies in 2000. She collaborates with the International Center for Research on the Economics of Culture, Institutions, and Creativity (EBLA Center) at the same University. Her research focuses on welfare economics and cultural economics. 587

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approximating a ‘‘spectrum’’ of situations rather than a deterministic and univocous cycle development, as in Prideaux (2000). The main focus of the analysis of development scenarios has been on tourism marketing and destination planning (Fayos-Sola´ 1996; Weaver 2000). Institutional and governance issues are singularly under-explored in the literature (a notable exception is in Yu¨ksel, Bramwell, and Yu¨ksel 2005). Questions as which kind of property regime supports different (and more or less desirable) development models are of utter relevance in an age of globalised tourism pressures, when the manoeuvre space of national and local governments to steer development is steadily tapered off. This article inaugurates a research track that considers those issues as central. Its main claim is that the structure and development of destinations is to a large extent determined by property regulation regimes. In order to investigate how properly chosen property regulation may induce virtuous development trajectories, this article begins by describing two ‘‘extreme’’ destination models from the perspective of property regimes, and their market structure. These models are positioned within a two-dimensional analytic toolbox, which eventually permits to devise a development strategy based on collective intellectual property, and on their establishment, designing and monitoring as the way to achieve sustainable development. This is a purely conceptual paper, proposing an analytic framework and discussing its value for tourism policy analysis. Though it contains many references to real cases, this is done to better illustrate specific points of our argument rather than to ‘‘demonstrate’’ the validity of the analytic tool, which instead stands on its capacity to link property regimes (and their modifications) with market structures. DESTINATIONS AND PROPERTY REGIMES A Destination Spectrum Model Tourism destinations may be structured according to organisational models which reflect local market conditions and ownership structures. We thus share Prideaux’s (2000) argument that the market structures of destinations and their development trajectories are rather understood as a ‘‘spectrum’’, and we claim that to a large extent these differences can be explained by property regimes and their management. Two extreme models can be devised in this respect. The first may be called the ‘‘5-star’’ model, standing for high-value, property-led development, mainly of the resort type, whose driving economic principle is the exploitation of economies of scope. According to this model, all the components of the tourist experience, from attractions and entertainment to accommodation and other services (wellness, golf, banking, transport, guides, etc.), are produced and consumed in a delimited or even fenced space, thus hindering competition from small local suppliers, and normally under a unified

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property structure. Luxury resorts function as ‘‘microcosm’’ destinations, where high quality products can be supplied (normally at monopolistic prices). The demand attracted to such destinations is characterised by high purchasing power, preference for high quality, and scarce contacts with the host community. This may not depend on lack of curiosity, but rather by risk-aversion and limited time. The 5-star resort visitor maximises its utility through the reduction of his/ her search costs, which is made possible by the concentration of tourist services in a circumscribed and predictable environment. Resorts may even cater for an ‘‘industrialised idiosyncrasy’’ in products, providing an appearance of heterogeneity and improvisation, which is nevertheless justified by the controlled conditions in which it is produced. Deceiving behaviour on the supply side is sanctioned through the informal engagement that the visitor holds with the host entrepreneur: visitors are treated as potentially returning ‘‘guests’’, or fidelised through targeted brand strategies. In terms of property rights, the development of destinations according to the 5-star model is the result of concentrated ownership of land and production plants. This is easier to find in rural areas, which—compared to urbanised areas—are characterised by a relative consolidation of ownership (Capel 1990:98–100); and in developing or non-democratic regions, where redistribution and diffusion of ownership is likely to be hindered by political regimes (Tosun 2000). Among examples of such destinations one can quote well-known destinations such as Dubai, Cancun, and the Maldives (see respectively Henderson 2006; Brenner and Aguilar 2002; and Sathiendrakumar and Tisdell 1989). The second is defined as the ‘‘mass tourism destination’’ model. In this case the driving economic principle is scale economies, to be reaped through increases in the size and capacity of the products on offer, or through the spatial extension of tourism production networks: ‘‘bigger’’ is most profitable in tourism service provision, either at firm scale or at product scale. However, as most original attractions (both tangible and intangible) have limited capacity, sustaining profit margins at a destination level depends critically on the replication of place attributes, either by intensification or extension. That, inevitably, results in a decreasingly ‘‘genuine’’ landscape for mass tourist consumption. The quality of products is thus reduced as size gets larger and personal touch is lost, as is typical of services provided at ‘‘industrial’’ standards. This description conveys the substance of a destination that is pushed to grow in size and density, but is increasingly disconnected from its original cultural landscape. Relationships between demand and supply are structurally asymmetric (Keane 1997): given the high level of tourist pressure, it pays off to deceive visitors serving low quality and exploiting the limited capacity of the demand (mostly consisting of non-returning day trippers) to learn the relative quality of what they consume and sanction moral hazard through future decisions (Caserta and Russo 2002). Under these circumstances, for most suppliers the cli-

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ent is somebody who is better shooed off and never to be seen again after he pays. Of course, such destinations do count a sometimes non-negligible share of repeat visitors and second home owners among their visitors; however, narrations of their attitudes illustrate how they may react to the ‘‘mass-tourismification’’ of their habitual vacation places either by switching to other less concurred locations or developing a ‘‘local resident’’ attitude to avoid tourist traps and cliche´d imageries (Gustafson 2002; O’Reilly 2003). Rather than the controlled production system of the 5-star resort, this model reflects the ‘‘organised chaos’’ of mass tourism destinations, concentrating a very large number of rent-seeking producers with very little coordination at horizontal or vertical level (Gunn 1977; Leiper 1990; Tremblay 1998), as can be observed in the case of tourist areas in large urban destinations (London, Paris, Barcelona), medium-sized heritage cities like Venice, Salzburg or Toledo, and mass coastal resorts like those found in the Spanish, Turkish or Brazilian littorals. This spectrum model is obviously a simplification of reality—as all models are—which nevertheless serves the purpose to ‘‘isolate’’ the effect of property regimes on destination structures and to analyse the impacts of property regulation on their sustainable development. The most evident areas of simplification, apart from the obvious neglect of important destination structure determinants, like scale, accessibility, and technology, are two. The first regards the plausibility of ‘‘hybrid’’ destinations: rather than intermediate situations along the spectrum—which would be characterised by not-so-intense levels of fragmentation of property and the establishment of oligopolistic supply structures allowing for some, but not total, control of over prices and qualities—we refer to destinations which include elements of both, like mass destinations which include luxury complexes, possibly gated, or luxury resorts that allow for some ‘‘spontaneous developments’’ within their boundaries, resulting in a mixed destination model where both articulations between ownership and supply structures are present at the same time. The second argument is more general and regards the validity of this type of analysis face to the post-structuralist critique of ‘‘objective’’ representations of place that neglect the role of tourists’ performances and power forces in the construction of the tourist landscape and its discourse. However we note that the most lucid advocates of the cultural critique to structuralist representations (for instance, Coleman and Crang 2002) acknowledge a number of ‘‘hard facts’’ regarding destination development. Besides, we do consider hosts/guests interplay and the reflexive tactics of performance of place (Crang 2006) as an element of construction of tourist landscapes, as opposed to an ‘‘objectification’’ of destinations, when we unfold our analysis of how property regimes are reflected in different ‘‘demand models’’ and we question the stability of demand/supply relations pressuring for a change or evolution of that model.

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A Descriptive Tool: The Competition/Quality Box

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The two models sketched above are illustrated in the diagram of Figure 1 in terms of the intensity of competition in the tourism industry from numerous and possibly heterogeneous tourism suppliers (X-axis), and of the quality of tourism services (Y-axis). Destinations with a high concentration of different peer suppliers are higher on the X dimension. Operationally it would be appropriate to count the number of companies (not establishments of the same firm) and derive some form of relative concentration index, at the relevant municipal or regional level. It would also be appropriate to correct for the spatial scale and derive some kind of density index. We expect competition to be relatively more intense in urban areas, and in the proximity of some circumscribed and ‘‘non transferable’’ attraction, giving rise to location rents. Destinations with high quality levels stand higher on the Y dimensions. A simple comparable quality indicator should be used as a measure. Keane (1997) proposed that prices in an imperfectly competitive market as tourism are set as a mark-up on production costs (indirectly reflecting quality), so that in the absence of universal quality measures, prices could be used as a proxy. Clearly, the measures on the X and the Y axes tend to exhibit some (negative) correlation, with more intensely competitive destinations offering a lower level of quality. Various theoretical works address this point, as in Caserta and Russo (2002) who argue that there is an endogenous pressure for quality cuts when increasing numbers of day visitors

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Figure 1. Analytical Framework for Destinations, and Two Destination Models

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violate the carrying capacity given by the bed-places in the local accommodation sector. Just as an experiment, in Figure 2 we charted hotel bed densities and their average qualities in various coastal resorts to reveal different positions on this spectrum. We considered three groups of destinations in different geopolitical contexts and stages of development: Catalan resort municipalities (circles), other resorts in the Mediterranean coasts (triangles), and elsewhere (squares). By interpolating the data relative to a first group of destinations, including most Catalan resorts and Benidorm on the coast of Valencia, Arzachena (on the Sardinian Costa Smerlada), Paphos in Cyprus, and the West Indies resort island of Aruba, a convex curve is obtained (1) which fits the inverse relation between quality and intensity relatively well; along the curve, we can distinguish a group of mature mass-tourism resorts (Salou and Banidorm), a group of luxury resorts (Aruba, Arzachena, Paphos, etc.) and some ‘‘intermediate’’ situations like Barcelona, Sitges and Lloret). With the remaining cases, the analysis is more complicated, though the relation still holds within groups which are positioned on different curves (2 and 3); these ‘‘outliers’’ are characterised by a higher degree of maturity or completely different geopolitical regimes or quality indicators (Belize and Sri Lanka). A closer case-to-case analysis on the development history of resorts and the property regimes could explain these differences; that is outside the scope of this paper but will be addressed in future research. This descriptive analysis could be brought to a ‘‘normative’’ dimension if we reflect on the ‘‘desirability’’ of the two models from a sustainable development perspective, and recalling the argument of Hunter

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Figure 2. Density of Bed-Places and Average n. of Starts Per Hotel Bed in Various Coastal Destinations. Various Sources.

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(1997) that tourism sustainability may mean different things in different contexts. How ‘‘good’’ is to be positioned on either side of the curve, or in intermediate positions? And what should destination do to ‘‘improve’’ their situation? Sustainability and Enhancement At a very general level, both models depicted above have been variously described as ‘‘unsustainable’’ in the tourism literature. Though seldom formalised in measurable indicators of destination development within a strict ecological framework, sustainability (or the lack of it) is often referred to, in simplified terms, as the foreseeable capacity to attract visitors and generate profits in the long term. The sustainability literature has focused mostly on the negative impacts of masstourism development: price inflation, crowding out of original residents and economic activities, excessive specialisation of the local economy and erosion of original culture, etc. (Jafari 1989; Knowles and Curtis 1999; Priestley and Mundet 1998). All these factors may bring tourism development to a halt by reducing the qualities of the natural and cultural landscapes promoted as attractions. Yet some authors (for instance; Brenner and Aguilar 2002; Grosspietsch 2005; Holder 1991) also question the sustainability of the ‘‘5star’’ model, on account of its social instability. Given the size of capital assets involved in this kind of development, seldom are the developing agents ‘‘insiders’’, especially in the case of backwards regional economies, which means that also economic impacts are likely to be suboptimal for the local community (Tosun 2000). Indeed, a number of well-known examples could be quoted in which things have gone wrong and the industrial production of tourism services (including primary attractions like museums) taxed creative or identitarian stances: from made-in-Asia ‘‘art’’ glass items sold in Murano showrooms, which result cheap enough to outsell the export designer pieces on the hurried Venetian tourist market (Russo and Segre 2005), to the ‘‘McGuggenheims’’ (Richards and Wilson 2006) echoing Ritzer’s critique of the standardisation of tourism consumption landscapes (Ritzer 1998). In addition, the imaging of places by intermediaries reduce critically the opportunities of trustful host-guest interaction as a counterfeit, conservative landscape is eventually produced (Delgado 2004), negating social dynamism. In a similar way, the expropriation of elements of the tourist product (hotels, travel, restaurants, even events) from local ownership or control is likely to bring about a rupture in the process of integration and delivery of cultural products. Thus, the question arises of the ‘‘enhancement’’ of destinations, or the progress towards more sustainable development, following Innes and Booher (1999)’s interpretation of sustainability as being about process and not a particular vision or criterion. Policies for sustainable tourism are generally about ‘‘greening’’, zoning and planning, inclusion, participation and promotion of entrepreneurship, etc.

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These programmes are sometimes successful, though the metrics of success are frequently blurred and defined from case to case (Brugmann 1997; Garrod and Fyall 1998), making generalisations awkward. In any case, the most popular enhancement programmes can be analysed in the light of our framework, focusing on the two dimensions at stake, the degree of competition in the destination and the quality of its products. In this context, destinations that are subject to heavy tourist pressure and a dangerous tourismification of sites (generally implying a densification and an extension of operation size of supply networks) may embark in ‘‘deceleration’’ policies. These generally target the environment and the social landscape of the tourist city: strict preservation of sites through zoning and flows regulation, enforcement of lower-density building criteria, ‘‘visitor-pays’’ measures to cover externalities, etc. Such measures have indirect effects on the supply model: competition by proximity to attractions is reduced, increasing the rents of the incumbent suppliers who fit the new standards enforced; the local community’s participation is also reduced to the extent that especially in developing regions, the capital needed to refurbish the destination may not be available to local entrepreneurs. Thus, the increased protection of sites is likely to go hand in hand to a process of ‘‘boutiquisation’’ of the local supply and inherently of expropriation of the control over development form the local community, which sometimes may extend to the ‘‘enclosure’’ of public space and the creation of exclusive resorts. This has been the trend in a number of destinations, frequently made possible by interest coalitions of local policymakers and large foreign capital, as in the case of Glasgow’s Merchant City area, discussed by Gomez 1998). Indeed, Healy (1994) discusses the pros and cons of the privatization of (or the strict governmental control over) tourist landscapes as an antidote to the overuse of resources, and gives a number of examples. In our scheme, such ‘‘improvement’’ of the destination is achieved by a reduction of competition and a concurrent increase in the quality of products as with arrow A in Figure 3. Site preservation is achieved at the expenses of participation and inclusion, thus alleviating ‘‘ecological sustainability’’ or the pressure on resources which could violate one of the three pillars of sustainable development, the achievement of intergenerational efficiency in the allocation of development assets; yet it causes a different type of unsustainable development which has to do with ‘‘intra-generational equity’’ in the distribution of the benefits from growth. Thus, the net effect of these policies in terms of the overall situation of the local community may be nil or negligible when both criteria of sustainable development, the ecological and the social, are considered; the destination just ‘‘shifts’’ towards a different model, characterised by more quality and less intense competition, which is positioned on the same sustainability curve. A similar outcome, though with inverted signs, results from the application of ‘‘democratisation policies’’ to alleviate the sense of exclusion and intercept a higher share of tourism development gains for the local community, which may me applied in situations characterised by a dominant ‘‘5-star’’ resort model. These are likely to be undertaken as

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Figure 3. Sustainable Tourism Policies by Site Conservation and Flow Management (A) and ‘‘Democratisation’’ of Destination Development (B)

the result of a political regime change or under the pressure of international organisations engaging in alleviating poverty programs, where a higher level of participation if the local population in tourism enterprises and in the job market is looked for. These policies normally address issues such as land and welfare redistribution, or straightforward redevelopment of resorts, which is generally carried out favouring access to property, resulting in an ‘‘intensification’’ of the destination. Compared with the previous situation, the destination develops as a more competitive environment with a lower quality of products, progressively shifting towards the ‘‘mass tourism’’ model (arrow B in Figure 3), which, mirroring the previous argument, may represent an improvement on social grounds, but is arguably more likely to produce unsustainable ecological impacts. It is thus suggested that the two extreme models could be compared as far as their ‘‘sustainability’’ is concerned; ruling out the possibility of ‘‘measuring’’ or even to establish an objective metrics of sustainability, we have argued that sources of unsustainable development are present in both models, so that no-one could be unequivocally preferred to the other. We also noted that ‘‘intermediate’’ situations, where the level of competition is not so intense and a higher quality of products is sustained, should be preferred. Thus, we nuance a way to include degrees of sustainability in our diagram as convex iso-sustainability curves, with curves that are farthest from the origin (see Figure 4) as characterising higher degrees of sustainability. In this diagram, while switching from a mass-tourist destination to a 5-star resort and vice-versa represents no

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“Increasing” sustainability

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Figure 4. Iso-sustainability Curves and a Superior Destination Model

real improvement for the destination, positioning in an intermediate situation, or even on a superior sustainability curve (where a medium level of competition is sustained compatibly with a satisfactory level of quality of product) does it. It is therefore necessary to investigate what type of tourism policy promises to position destinations to such higher level of sustainability, breaking off the strict rule of trade-off between quality and competition. To this respect, we note that tourism policies traditionally designed to reduce social exclusion in destinations, or to alleviate environmental impacts, implicitly target a specific property type, that is private property over land uses and businesses, and introduce a change in their regulation: either limiting the practical possibilities of small owners to compete, which is likely to result in a consolidation of property (or straightforwardly favouring concentration over diffusion of property); or abating entry barriers and pushing fragmentation, thus reducing the power and control of large owners over destination development. However, regulating private property is not the only possibility. Collective property over the intangible elements which determine the attractiveness of the destination should instead be taken into consideration. Looking for Alternative Development Strategies: The ‘Creative Tourism District’ We now posit a third type of destination model, which we call ‘‘Creative Tourism District’’ (CTD), and characterise it as a production

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system based on the engagement of visitors in the experience of local creative knowledge. This definition—in which the term ‘‘district’’ does not refer to a part of the city, as it is normally the case in the literature on cultural and creative clusters—directly relates to the Marshallian conception of localized industries (Marshall 1890, 1919), as further developed in the industrial districts literature (Pyke, Becattini and Sengenberger 1992). In particular, as suggested by Santagata (2006), the ‘‘district’’ dimension can be applied to the production milieus of culture-based goods, underlining the crucial importance of the quality of inter-firms linkages, supported by physical and socio-cultural proximity that favours informal collaboration and the exchange of knowledge, and leading to the organisation of common services and infrastructure in order to reduce costs. The CTD is structured so as to enhance welfare for the host community through participation in tourism development, and to establish a high quality production environment for the best satisfaction of visitors. Visitor satisfaction derives mostly from participation in manifestations of local culture and knowledge and the experience of culturebased goods, reflecting an empathic attitude of the visitor demand and the practical possibility to learn from—and interact with—local knowledge. The entire tourism supply chain derives its character from local culture and creativity, and builds its strength on the cross-fertilization between different creative production sectors (artistic creations and performances, structural and product design, fashion, gourmet food, superior wine, art and craft). Within this context, the operation of cultural industries and the valorisation of material culture can be regarded as the fuel that feeds not only the growth of the cultural sector itself, but the development of an entire system of access to a territory, ultimately leading to a virtuous cycle of culture-led economic development, where local cultural capital, in its tangible and intangible dimension (Throsby 1994), is the leading asset. We now consider which characteristics of CTDs make them more sustainable destination models than the previous two; or, in other words, their development promises to position them on a superior curve in the scheme of Figure 4. First, the valorisation of local cultural and creative assets through experience-based tourism faces relatively low capital investment barriers, guaranteeing that the local community is actively engaged in tourism development and businesses: the local cultural producers make, are the attraction, as they mediate—through their creative knowledge—between hosts and place. This cannot be easily away from them through restructuring or internationalisation processes. Culture-based attractions have limited capacity: the creative, idiosyncratic staging of culture cannot be scaled up to accommodate a growing demand, and thus the size of the market is endogenously constrained: while the tangible and even the intangible heritage, to some extent, could be re-produced— and its value affected—in the ‘‘staging’’ process, this is hardly possible in the case of the manifestations of local creativity. A dynamic link is established between the past (heritage) and the present human and cultural landscapes (production rather than mere reproduction), which

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prevents tourism supply from fastening on artefact imageries of the past (Richards and Wilson 2006). Secondly, the CTD may be seen to approximate the district model by involving a network of producers tied by cultural values and institutional arrangements, rather than either the large-scale/multiple-specialisation production cluster which is typical of the 5-star resort destination, or the unorganised price-based competition within a constellation of vertically integrated producers which is found in masstourism destinations. The heterogeneity of producers in the CTD is wider than in the 5-star destination model, as creative knowledge extends to various aspects of the local landscape, from art to gastronomy, spirituality, street-life and spectacle. Yet, contrasting with the mass tourism model, competition between local producers is not so ‘‘extreme’’ that cutting quality is the only way to reap higher profits: the coordination in reputation-building for the local network is likely to be stronger if the number of participants is limited. Furthermore, the range of products offered is not boosted ‘‘artificially’’ through the provision of new tourist infrastructure, as irreproducible local cultural heritage remains a core product, and ‘‘context conditions’’ (e.g., the aesthetic quality of the landscape) are a fundamental component of the tourist experience. High quality of accommodation and other visitor services is also likely to be sustained within a context of small operation size, but does not need to be the main issue in visitor satisfaction. If it were, that would probably result in a predictable and controlled environment, as in the 5-star model. Moreover, democratic participation in tourism from empathic visitors of all budget segments has to be guaranteed in the CTD, and that will result in a wider range of options and a lower average quality level; yet it stays higher than in the ‘‘mass-tourism’’ model because cutting quality as a competitive strategy is ruled out by the lowering of information asymmetries implied by the CTD model. The relationship between quality and competition, when local creative knowledge is the focus of development efforts, has a positive sign in the CTD because this model is based on the recognition that diversity stimulates quality. Instead, in the other two models of tourism development sketched above, quality and diversity are at odds: higher quality is achieved through a reduction of diversity in the 5-star model, and greater diversity leads to a decline of quality in mass-tourism destinations. The combination of a reasonably wide range of tourist products and attractions, the extensive network of producers involved, and the average quality of tourism services which are associated to the CTD, are also likely to generate more significant and sustainable community impacts than the other two models, which, respectively, downplay competition and local producers’ networks (‘‘5-stars’’ resort model), and tend to compress the quality of the tourist products (mass tourism). This is represented through a higher position of the CTD in iso-sustainability curves which trade off the quality of the products with the intensity of competition in the destination.

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Thus, in the CTD, visitors are in the ideal conditions to establish emotional links with the cultural capital of the place, tangible or intangible, through an active involvement in its genuine manifestations. Indeed, important business opportunities for preserving and valorising the physical and symbolic landscape derives from the visitors’ increasing interest for ‘‘culturally stimulating’’ environments, where they are likely to be in contact with new ideas, people, products, social rituals, languages, and visual expressions (Maitland 2007). While visitors of the mass tourism destination are essentially gazers whose comprehension of the place and opportunities of choice are subject to increasing time and information constraints (Urry 1990), 5-star resorts may be nuanced as holiday-camps for post-tourists who take part in all kinds of social practices reflecting their tastes and status, and producing a sort of ‘‘videogame’’ world. CTD instead depends on an active engagement of the tourist-prosumer in the very cultural processes that make a place enticing. A creative tourism experience involves reflexive interaction on the part of tourists (Richards and Wilson 2006) in contrast with the classic ‘‘unreflexive’’, gaze of incidental or casual cultural tourists (McKercher 2002). The awareness of visitors guarantees that a trustful relation is established between hosts/producers and guests/consumers, lowering asymmetric information and abating the prize to moral hazard in the provision of tourist products, which in the long term leads to a downward spiralling of qualities in the model of Caserta and Russo (2002). CTD is to be seen as based on creative production and consumption, rather than on the mere endowment with leisure and landscape attractions. In this light, the long-term viability of CTDs could be seen as a ‘‘coordination game’’ played by actors with different strategic horizons. Such game is framed by two key points: - The establishment of emotive links between local products and visitors (Go et al 2004). This may lead to a higher level of resiliency of the tourism development process face to external shocks and endogenous market transformations. - The maintenance of quality and variety within the district face to the ‘‘standardising’’ pressure of the global tourist market.

The Development of CTD: Institutional Framework The creation and development of any destination model in our framework is related to a specific institutional setting. It was argued above that the 5-star and the mass tourism destination models could be ascribed to different regimes in the ownership and control of individual businesses; moreover, shifting from one to the other is not likely to bring on any significant change as far as overall ‘‘sustainability’’ is concerned. In this last section, we address the institutional foundations of a Creative Tourist District. How should property be regulated so as to sustain the desirable structure and performance of the CTD, as nuanced in the previous sections?

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Our description of the CTD suggests that the focus should not necessarily be only on private property over physical or tangible goods, but rather on the ownership of ideas and the control over a business culture within a web of interrelated agents. Property or control over the local brand is not exclusive or identifiable with a single business. It is the nature of stakeholdership that marks a difference, hinting at ‘‘rules of engagement’’ for a community of stakeholders. It was argued above that fragmented property, typical of mass-tourism destination, may well be characterised by substantial involvement of local entrepreneurs, but the opportunities for sustainable development could be frustrated by intense (and occasionally destructive) competition, and by a market attitude that does not reward the curiosity of visitors and their quest for a ‘‘genuine’’ experience of the local culture. It is therefore necessary to turn to consider intellectual property (IP), the class of property arising from human intellectual effort. IP refers to the creations of the mind (inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce) and it is divided into two categories: industrial property—which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographical indications of origin—and copyright. Unlike physical property, intellectual output has a strong public good character and can then be used simultaneously by an unlimited number of people without depriving its owner of its use or enjoyment. IP can be individual and firm-based or collective, according to the ownership structure. Collective rights are generally managed, or owned, by a group of peer agents, who associate for this purpose. It has been suggested that the introduction of collective IP can facilitate the development of culture-based, place-bound, idiosyncratic products (Cuccia and Santagata 2003, 2006; Moreno, Santagata, and Tabassum 2005; Santagata 2006), as a structuring element of cultural districts. Within this framework, the types of collective IP, also relevant for our study, are the Geographical Indication (or its variant, the Appellation of Origin) and the Collective Trademark (i.e., a trademark owned by an association whose members use them to identify themselves, with specific requirements set by the association). Indeed, intellectual property may be seen to perform two important functions to this respect. The first is an information function, which is crucial to recognise and defend original culture-based production against the danger of appropriation by outsiders, through imitation of forging. Note that the owner of physical property has much greater control over it than the owner of intellectual output could ever have in the absence of the legal system of IP. A physical object is stolen only if its possession changes hands, whereas IP is deemed by law to be ‘‘stolen’’ if it is copied, imitated, adapted, or displayed without permission of its creator or owner. Moreover, in the case of goods or services for which quality is not easily detected prior to purchase—Nelson’s (1970) ‘‘experience goods’’—and transactions are not repeated, IP allows consumers to economise on search costs (Posner 2003), and protect them from fraud by signalling and certifying quality standards. This

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is especially relevant when the sector is exposed to global low-cost competition. The information function characterises all types of IP, individual and collective. Even in the case of individual rights, it produces positive sector externalities insofar as it contributes to establish a trustful relation between demand and supply, which is likely to affect the visitors’ attitude towards the place and the level of ‘‘immersion’’ in local culture that they are willing to go, leading to greater viability of product diversification. The second is an organisational function, and is typical of collective IP. This foresees the introduction of rules, standards, inspection procedures and financial mechanisms for business development into an area, a community, or association of producers. In turn, that instils a critical level of trust and cooperation among the local micro- and small enterprises. Hence, a ‘‘business culture’’ may be established, which regulates the ecology of the district, sustaining its competitiveness. In this sense, collective IP is not only important in terms of visitor satisfaction and market development, but may have another remarkable function for the territory: to defend and enhance the viability of locallyembedded production sectors face to the delocalising pressure from global competition. To sum up, just like conservation with regard to tangible assets, collective IP can be seen as an instrument to ‘‘preserve’’ cultural processes and boost their value for the community in a context characterised by globalised production, loosening connections between local and global, free and mobile knowledge. Healy (1994) proposed that ‘‘commons’’ could be an appropriate regime of property rights for the management of natural landscapes subject to development pressures from the tourism industry. Similarly, and shifting our attention to intangible qualities of places, like images, values and knowledge, we propose that collective intellectual property should be introduced— and regulated—to manage the productive and representational system in the best interests of all concerned stakeholders. Through the introduction of collective IP, creativity is anchored and furthered in the location, providing incentives for cooperation between different actors, both within the creative sector and outside. For these reasons, the attribution of collective control over intangible assets as culturally-defined goods and services can be an essential instrument for the establishment of creative districts as tourist attractions, implying a more sustainable model than alternative developments based on individual property rights on ‘‘hard’’ infrastructure and land. However, the valorisation of local creative knowledge needs to be take shape within a ‘‘networked’’ structure of the local production environment, including the full range of visitor services (accommodation, catering, interpretation, etc.). Any effort to base local tourism development on creativity and cultural production cannot neglect the composite nature of the tourist product, and that visitor services not operationally connected with primary cultural attractions are generally offered in markets with thoroughly different structures of interests and stakeholdership (Dahles 2000).

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CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH This paper introduces a new vision of sustainable tourism destinations as ‘‘Creative Tourism Districts’’, which thrive on creative knowledge as a fundamental asset for development on account of the fact that, differently from other tangible or intangible assets, it cannot be easily reproduced or predated by the tourism business. Moreover creative knowledge is deeply embedded in the local community and in the system of relations which structures it. Thus, not only does it engender involvement, which safeguards destinations—especially in emerging markets—against the ‘‘expropriation’’ of development gains by global agents, but it also brings about a favourable environment for quality, innovation and flexibility in tourism production. This model is both more inclusive of community and less ‘‘destructive’’ of place qualities than the other models examined in this paper; and thus, in general more sustainable and resilient to global changes in consumer preferences and competitive pressures. The authors feel that this framework provides an opportunity to address the issue of visitor behaviour and the structure of the local market without ‘‘romancing the host’’, as Aramberri (2001) warns we should be wary of, but rather restructuring the economic mechanisms that regulate the relationships between demand and supply. To defend this argument, we proposed an analytic framework which allows positioning and comparing destination models based on different property regimes. In order to achieve a real enhancement sustainability-wise, it was claimed, looking at individual property over physical assets alone is not sufficient, as regulation models of land use and businesses cannot yield a more cooperative or inclusive production climate. The introduction and regulation of collective intellectual property, instead, has the potential to achieve this. However, it faces a major challenge for tourism development: its applicability over a whole range of goods and services which, together, make up the local tourism product of a destination. To some extent, these all bear some ‘‘reference’’ to the local context where they are consumed or experienced; yet they are embedded in global value chains, and increasingly so, and thus are moved by interests and stakeholderships which may be thoroughly disconnected from the local. If balance is not struck between the conditions leading to a creative district and the global orientation of the destination, culture-based industries and tourism are likely to develop in separate ways, or, worse, tourism may plunder local creativity, altering its value so that it can be commodified in the tourist market in spite of quality. These concerns are a driver for more research on the protection of intellectual property and the promotion of local development based on culture and creativity as foundations of enticing tourism experiences, which is not addressed in this foundational paper. This research will have to deal with the technicalities of collective intellectual property (legal, economic, managerial), the process of implementation and its differentiation according to specific contexts, the nature

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of culture-based goods at stake, the configuration of local tourist markets and the global value chains to which they need to be connected. Acknowledgements—The authors are grateful to four anonymous referees and to the Resource Editor for comments and constructive criticism. We also acknowledge the ATLAS association for inviting A. Russo to present a preliminary version of this paper at the 2005 annual conference in Barcelona. Finally we acknowledge Walter Santagata for inspiring early discussions and research work on this topic.

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Submitted 18 February 2008. Resubmitted 22 January 2009. Final Version 31 March. Accepted 21 April 2009. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Julio R. Aramberri

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