Local entrepreneurship through a multistakeholders' tourism living lab in the post‐violence/peripheral era in the Basque Country

Igor Calzada

doi:10.1111/rsp3.12130

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines a transformative tourism case study driven by local entrepreneurship in the coastal and post‐violence/peripheral village of Zumaia, in the Basque Country (Spain). This paper aims at addressing an innovative methodology called “Tourism Living Lab through Multistakeholders' Penta Helix framework” in response to a globalized trend of increasing visitors. The result shows democratic tourism policy‐making practices at the local level, including: (i) a participatory strategic formulation process; (ii) by fostering a local entrepreneurial ecosystem to overcome “tourism‐phobia”; (iii) while renewing local identity; and (iv) through bridging social capital for a new post‐violence era in the Basque Country.

Highlights

POST‐VIOLENCE/PERIPHERAL ERA IN THE BASQUE COUNTRYPeripheral places are often exposed to the influence of changes from market dimensions to data technologies
This paper aims at presenting an evidence‐based experimental and socially innovative intervention methodology based on Living Labs (Kronsell & Mukhtar‐Landgren, 2018) that was applied to tourism practices and policies with the broad participation of a multistakeholder framework in the small coastal, peripheral, and rural village of Zumaia, located in the Basque Country city‐region of northern Spain (Figure 1)
Following the previous section's explanation of the research design consisting of four techniques carried out by following an action research triangulation methodology, this section depicts the intervention results and data for the strategic formulation of the Town Council of Zumaia village

Summary

Introduction

POST‐VIOLENCE/PERIPHERAL ERA IN THE BASQUE COUNTRYPeripheral places are often exposed to the influence of changes from market dimensions to data technologies. From rural peripheral villages to urbanized metropolitan nodes, many territories acquire new economic, social, and cultural functions while becoming tourism destinations. They generate new opportunities for their development, Reg Sci Policy Pract. Translocal mobility reflecting a wide range of motivations, emotions, tools, destinations, and strategies provides new opportunities to analyse, experiment, and propose new smart policies that facilitate the transition to unexplored, sustainable and increasingly democratic tourism models (Wonderful Copenhagen, 2016; World Tourism Organisation [UNWTO], 2017) by overcoming the shortcomings and negative side effects of “tourismification” (Salazar, 2009), known as “tourism‐phobia” (Colomb & Novy, 2017). In the absence of innovative policy frameworks to strike a balance amidst such negative impacts, “tourismification” is largely responsible for forcing irreversible changes upon residents in local areas, resulting in an inevitable devolution into “tourism‐phobia.”

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion