New JPMD special issue explores alternatives to growth-driven tourism
A new special issue of the Journal of Place Management and Development explores how tourism can support community wellbeing, cultural heritage and locally led development, moving beyond a narrow focus on visitor numbers.
Overcoming Overtourism? Proximity-Based Tourism, Cultural Heritage and Bottom-Up Place-Based Innovation is guest edited by Francesca Bragaglia, Luca Tricarico and Fabrizio Aimar.
The collection examines proximity tourism—tourism closer to home—as a potential alternative to growth-driven approaches. It considers how governance, cultural participation and local innovation can shape tourism development in ways that respond to the needs of places and their communities.
The seven papers explore a range of settings and approaches, including:
- Participatory governance and the role of organisations in supporting sustainable destination development.
- Arts-based approaches to place-based innovation, through a film residency in Cassine, Italy.
- The relationship between place and mobility in Italian artist residencies.
- Cultural participation and its potential to encourage proximity tourism.
- Connections between pilgrimage routes and nearby cultural heritage in Europe.
- Cultural asset regeneration at Taiwan’s Yuejin Lantern Festival.
- Tourism-led initiatives in shrinking villages, looking beyond urban and growth-oriented perspectives.
Together, the contributions explore how places can balance visitor pressures with community wellbeing through cultural heritage, community involvement and locally grounded development.
For place managers, policymakers and practitioners, the issue offers an opportunity to consider how tourism success is understood and whose needs it serves. It also connects with wider discussions about taking a place-first approach: understanding a place, its people and its assets when shaping its future.
Access to the Journal of Place Management and Development is a benefit of IPM membership, helping members connect research with their everyday practice.
Dr Nikos Ntounis encourages members interested in alternatives to growth-driven tourism to explore the collection, and thanks the guest editors, authors and reviewers for their contributions.
