Szilvia Gyimóthy

The digital collaborative economy is one of the most fascinating developments to have claimed our attention in the last decade. Not only does it defy clear definition, but its historical links back to non-monetised sharing and gift economies and its contemporary foundations in monetising idling or spare capacity make it difficult to theorise. In this chapter, we lay the foundation for a social science approach to the exploration of the collaborative economy and its relationship with tourism. We argue that " collaborative " and " economy " should be conceptualised in a broad and inclusive manner in order to avoid narrow theorisations and blinkered accounts that focus only on digitally-mediated, monetised transactions. A balance between individual and collective dimensions of the collaborative economy is also necessary if we are to understand its societal implications.

ABSTRACT Despite ten years of strategic focus on growth through sustainable tourism, few research projects generated understanding of how development policy initiatives contributed to community benefits locally. This article addresses this research gap and explores how the aims of local development and cultural sustainability defined in the Mexican national tourism program Pueblos Mágicos are put into practice. The analysis is focused on how citizenship, local participation and democracy are operationalized and what are the local consequences of this governmental program in the community of Álamos. By following the constitution and decision-making processes in the local Pueblos Mágicos committee, we demonstrate how different groups bargain on behalf of the ‘community’ and how they seize the opportunity to promote different development priorities. In particular, we address the role of a North American migrant community in shaping sustainable tourism development as cultural brokers, social entrepreneurs and mediators of market knowledge. The paper criticizes the notion of homogenous local communities as an instrumental condition of sustainable and participatory development.

ABSTRACT Despite ten years of strategic focus on growth through sustainable tourism, few research projects generated understanding of how development policy initiatives contributed to community benefits locally. This article addresses this research gap and explores how the aims of local development and cultural sustainability defined in the Mexican national tourism program Pueblos Mágicos are put into practice. The analysis is focused on how citizenship, local participation and democracy are operationalized and what are the local consequences of this governmental program in the community of Álamos. By following the constitution and decision-making processes in the local Pueblos Mágicos committee, we demonstrate how different groups bargain on behalf of the ‘community’ and how they seize the opportunity to promote different development priorities. In particular, we address the role of a North American migrant community in shaping sustainable tourism development as cultural brokers, social entrepreneurs and mediators of market knowledge. The paper criticizes the notion of homogenous local communities as an instrumental condition of sustainable and participatory development.

URL: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SAJL_LqUdKewv

Models of service encounters are often fraught with reductionism, describing business relationships as mathematical combinations of dyadic constellations. Metaphors of ideal social relationships (marriages or friendships) are highlighted to stress normative aspects of equal, balanced and long-term business partnerships. However, these approaches are limited in their analytical sensitivity, as they cannot address the complexity of multipart relationships, where meanings, roles

House swapping, ridesharing, voluntourism, couchsurfing, dinner hosting and similar innovations epitomize the collaborative economy. The rise of the collaborative economy, also known as collaborative consumption, the sharing economy and peer-to-peer consumption, has been fuelled by a range of social, economic and technological factors, including a shift away from ownership towards temporary access to goods; the use of technology mediated transactions between producers and consumers; direct host-guest relationships that contribute to a higher level of perceived authenticity of tourism experiences; and higher levels of consumer risk-taking balanced against mechanisms such as peer-to-peer feedback designed to engender trust between producers and consumers. This paper explores and critically assesses the collaborative economy and its implications for tourism industrial systems. It achieves this by mapping out the current knowledge dynamics characterizing tourism and the collaborative economy, paying particular attention to the asymmetries of knowledge that are emerging. The paper then identifies and critically discusses five pervasive claims being made about the collaborative economy, arguing for a balanced assessment of such claims. Highlighting these claims allows us to pursue a more reflective research agenda and leads to a more informed, evidence-based assessment of the collaborative economy and tourism.

This study is part of an ongoing research project entitled “While Waiting for the Dawn,” which explores the role that gender plays in the lives of women scholars and students in the tourism academy.  This report maps gender equality in the tourism academy through a series of key indicators that reflect leadership in the field. These indicators include editorial positions in journals, positions on conference committees, and keynote speakers, among others. Results clearly show a gender gap within the tourism academy and an imbalance in the influence of women and men in key leadership roles, and suggest that tourism scholarship mirrors the patriarchal structures that characterize the global academy. Gender imbalances are not self‐correcting, and proactive policies and initiatives need to be implemented to tackle the gender gap and to avoid the perpetuation of unequal opportunities. We hope this report will help to raise awareness and contribute to creating a more just academy, where women have equal opportunities to shape the present and the future
of tourism scholarship.

The article presents and discusses the contemporary transformation in nation branding practices, noting the shift from streamlined uniqueness narratives to pluralist and performative events of endorsement. This shift highlights the need for developing a culturally sensitive relation to the audience. Using the case of Welfairytales , The Danish pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, we argue that cultural sensitivity and a higher level of refl ection are needed when nation branding events seek to include the audience. The dilemma of including the audience versus
managing coherence is presented and the implications of performative branding practices are elaborated upon.

ABSTRACT The intention of this article is to understand inter-organizational collaboration in a meeting destination context and explain the failure of such collaborative networks. We demonstrate how meeting tourism actors in two smaller Scandinavian cities fail to form long-term collaborations. Major players and organizations in the destination promotion triads [Sheehan, L., Ritchie, J.R.B., & Hudson, S. (2007). The destination promotion triad: Understanding asymmetric stakeholder interdependencies among the city, hotels, and DMO. Journal of Travel Research, 46(1), 64–74] were interviewed in order to map cooperative activities, intentions or latent tensions among these. Based on a constructivist framework of network analysis, we identified the lack of convenor legitimacy and low levels of trust and commitment as reasons for collaboration deficiencies. The findings contribute to Larson's [(2009). Joint event production in the jungle, the park, and the garden: Metaphors of event networks. Tourism Management, 30(3), 393–399] model of event networks, identifying yet another metaphor – the desert – illustrating a network consisting of loosely coupled actors that co-exist but do not interact. The findings also indicate that collaborative dynamics may follow cyclical loops, entailing shifts between turbulence and stability over time.

A patients' hospital meal experiences can be complex and often difficult to capture using traditional methods. This study investigated patients' hospital meal experiences using participant-driven-photo-elicitation (PDPE). PDPE invites respondents to photograph their daily lives and combines this with interviews, which can provide deeper insight into multisensory experiences beyond verbal or written discourse. The sample consisted of eight hospitalised patients. Patients completed a photo-essay of their hospital meal experience during a single day at a Danish hospital and afterwards participated in an open-ended interview. Two inductive analytical approaches were selected to assess the patients' reflections on their hospital meal experiences. First, the interview transcripts were analysed using the Semiotic Analysis approach using qualitative data analysis software NVivo 9. Second, the 91 produced photographs and the participants' engagement with the photographs were analysed by means of a Reflexive Content Analysis. The study found that PDPE is a research method that can be used for expanding the conceptualisation of hospital meal experiences, revealing the significance of the meal context, materiality and memories beyond food per se.

There is a widespread acknowledgement among European policy-makers that higher education may potentially contribute to enhancing competitiveness of tourism. This has led to a sheer explosion of specific measures encouraging knowledge transfer with the private sector. Despite the importance of knowledge flow processes, the role of universities and students has been little researched or linked to the understanding of innovation defectiveness in tourism. Followed by a critical review of knowledge transfer and learning processes in generic development and tourism literature, the chapter presents an illustrative case from an innovation course on a Danish Master program in tourism. The case describes and discusses challenges in working with, creating and implementing innovation through student-practitioner collaboration. It is argued that successful innovation is not solely, as previously argued in innovation literature, conditioned by either geographical or social/relational proximity, but also by what we have termed proximity of practice.

This article applies the multiscalar ‘staging mobilities’ framework from the emergent subfield of mobilities design to analyse an enduring European rail travel phenomenon, interrail. This discussion extends and contributes to tourism mobilities research. Second, the article enriches previous studies of rail travel, by exploring how interrail travel is embedded in, and (im)mobilised by socio-material environments and institutional design decisions. More precisely, it explores the affordances of three objects that shape interrail mobility: the interrail pass, the RailPlanner application and seat reservations. To reach these aims, the research design intertwines multi-sited ethnography, netnography, survey and interviews. The conclusion offers theoretical reflections pertaining to the role of mobilities designs and methodical hybrids in tourism mobilities research.