Purpose The paper aims to explore how stakeholder governance dynamics shape public experiences in innovation district spaces. It addresses a gap in the public lifeworld by interrogating the quadruple helix model of innovation and its spatial consequences. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative interviews with community council representatives and residents in two Glasgow innovation districts were analysed thematically through the lens of social space theory. Findings From the public’s perspective, innovation districts are governed unequally. This reinforces the production of districts as territorial enclaves and as spaces of urban colonisation, privileging institutional interests and capitalist logics while marginalising existing communities. Originality/value The study provides a public-centred critique of the quadruple helix model of innovation, linking power dynamics to lived spatial experiences. It conceptualises innovation districts as territorial enclaves and as colonial landscapes. Ultimately, it calls for more meaningful public inclusion to confront enduring urban divisions.
Purpose The purpose of this study is researching into local ambassadors and their sense of place. The connection among these two is established via the place narratives of a group of resident guides. What do these resident guides say about their own place and what are their motivations and backgrounds which make them narrate the place in a specific way? The pursuit of these questions uncovers different types of local ambassadors and how they relate to and promote the place. Thus, questions about guiding and place ambassadorship are unveiled and reframed. Design/methodology/approach A group of volunteer resident guides of the National Park Southwest Friesland, The Netherlands, is studied in-depth via semi-structured interviews and these are processed to find common topics or divergencies. Some observations to understand situational matters round up the fieldwork. Findings Their local ambassadors are classified according to their motivations, types of performance, attachment to the place and how they relate to visitors. Three typologies emerge: the narrating guide, the hosting guide and the visionary guide, each with different goals and motivations - though all belong to the same local network. Practical implications Place marketers and destination organisations have long relied on ambassadors or volunteer guides to promote places. Their work clarifies what can be expected from them and which discourses they may use. For the tourist guiding literature, new visions are offered, based on the conceptual domain of “sense of place”, which may enrich the discussion on guides and their performance. Originality/value This work connects the domains of local ambassadorship and tourist guiding via the analysis of networks of resident guides. Thus, place attachment, ambassadorship motivations and guiding performances are analysed and discussed together. Therefore, the new typology of local ambassadors this paper proposes is of interest to place branding scholars and tourism scholars - as well as to the practitioners of both domains.
Purpose This study explores the factors that drive or inhibit resident participation in place branding initiatives, particularly in places with a negative reputation. It aims to deepen the understanding of different participatory practices in contexts where place image challenges and socio-economic issues intersect. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a multidisciplinary framework combining insights from place branding, public administration and governance. It analyses three place branding campaigns in Luton, UK, using semi-structured interviews with residents and officials and netnographic analysis of online content. Findings The research identifies four major factors influencing participation: residents’ needs and benefits; campaign activities, recruitment and coordination; ownership, misrepresentation and power; and social tensions and lack of trust. The findings show that these factors do not operate as fixed drivers or inhibitors; rather, their role varies across top-down, bottom-up and mixed participatory approaches. Active participation is often driven by a desire to counter misrepresentation and foster community identity, whereas passive participation is more common in top-down initiatives with limited resident influence. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to one location with a negative reputation and may not be generalisable. Future studies should explore different cultural and spatial contexts to broaden the applicability of findings. Practical implications Effective resident participation requires addressing both intrinsic (ownership, trust) and extrinsic (professional benefits, coordination) motivators. Policymakers and place managers must design inclusive processes that balance control with community autonomy, particularly in stigmatised areas. Originality/value This study offers a novel, integrated view of resident participation by identifying how drivers and inhibitors interact across campaign types. It contributes original insights into participatory place branding in contexts of reputational and socio-economic disadvantage.
Purpose This paper aims to introduce the place characteristics framework (PCF), a design-informed tool that reframes place identity models through a symbolic lens to support the identification and organisation of visually and culturally meaningful attributes. The PCF categorises place characteristics across natural, built and social domains to structure early-stage symbolic inquiry.Design/methodology/approach The framework was developed through a multi-phase, mixed-method, design-led research process, including comparative synthesis of existing frameworks, visual analysis of curated national imagery and exploratory testing with practitioners and design students.Findings The study demonstrates how the PCF functions as a structured research scaffold, enabling designers and place practitioners to surface, organise and reflect on place-specific symbolic material prior to visual translation. Initial testing indicates its usefulness in supporting early-stage identity development within participatory and strategic contexts.Originality/value While place branding scholarship recognises the importance of symbolism, existing models provide limited structured support for identifying and organising "symbolic DNA" of place - the pool of culturally meaningful characteristics that can be translated into symbolic form. The PCF contributes a design-oriented perspective to place branding by offering a transferable framework that bridges conceptual place identity models and symbolic exploration.
Purpose In response to growing environmental pressures and evolving visitor expectations, the hospitality sector is increasingly adopting sustainability practices that extend beyond firm-level performance to influence pre-travel destination-level evaluation processes and hospitality brand positioning. This study aims to examine how pro-environmental measures and social influence affect anticipated destination experiences, satisfaction and star-rated evaluations of accommodation brands. It focuses specifically on star-rated hotels (not the wider hospitality sector) in South Africa as places that influence destination experience, an underresearched tourism context. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model linking pro-environmental measures and social influence on star-rated brand outcomes through anticipated destination experience was developed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling on survey data collected from 816 potential guests in Germany and India. Findings The results indicate that pro-environmental measures and social influence positively influence anticipated destination experience, which mediates their relationship with specific hotel brand evaluation outcomes, particularly brand association and uniqueness, as well as visitor satisfaction. However, anticipated experience does not directly strengthen overall star-rated accommodation brand equity unless premium service expectations are perceived as compatible with sustainability initiatives. A perceived trade-off between green initiatives and luxury weakens the effectiveness of sustainability efforts in upscale contexts, while social influence mitigates this trade-off by reinforcing the credibility and acceptance of green practices. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by extending the Stimulus−Organism−Response framework to examine how hospitality sustainability practices function as salient sustainability signals within tourists’ destination evaluation processes. The findings demonstrate how sustainability practices serve as experiential cues that shape anticipated destination meanings and influence specific hotel brand evaluations through pre-travel cognitive appraisal processes, positioning star-rated hotels as influential destination place-brand touchpoints. This study provides practical insights for balancing environmental credibility with premium service delivery in sustainability-driven hospitality positioning and destination marketing communications.
