‘Cittáslow’ eco-gastronomic heritage as a tool for destination development

Slow Food has gained considerable attention as a social movement trying to counteract increasing globalisation in eating habits and food production. Cittáslow, a network of towns, are working with qualitative local urban development, based on similar principles as Slow Food. The ‘slow’ movements could be expected to have influences on tourism development. This possible connection has been neglected in the scientific tourism literature. Based on a study in three Cittáslow towns in Northern Italy, this article concentrates on how destination development is conducted in a Cittáslow context, unveiling some contradictions between the commercial sides of tourism and the non-commercial ethos of the Cittáslow movement. The studied towns were involved in various efforts in the field of sustainable planning, thereby also improving destination specific resources and local identity. One example is their focus on ‘slow’ events, mainly based on local gastronomy. Tourism marketing was, however, only of secondary importance; which mirrors some scepticism towards mass tourism and commercialisation, and even against marketing as such. Despite this, the Cittáslow concept may have an indirect potential for tourism development by improving product development and increased visibility. The risks involved concern gentrification and overexploitation.     

Use of explorative scenarios in environmental policy-making—Evaluation of policy instruments for management of land, water and the built environment

In order to achieve the Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives (EQOs), three action strategies have been adopted by the Swedish parliament. The strategy addressed in this paper deals with the management of land, water and the built environment. The paper reports on a project involving authorities and researchers in which policy measures required for achieving relevant targets for the strategy were gathered, structured and analysed regarding their potential assuming alternative futures. Measures with proposed policy instruments were qualitatively evaluated against one business as usual scenario and four explorative scenarios varying along two dimensions; level of governance and level of embeddedness. The results show a heavy predominance of administrative policy instruments. This policy strategy depends on a future development where such policy instruments are accepted. In order to achieve the EQOs regardless of future developments, more robust packages of measures including a larger variation in policy instruments need to be developed.     

Experiences of the development and use of scenarios for evaluating Swedish environmental quality objectives

This paper presents and evaluates a method for encouraging long-term thinking and for considering a variety of scenarios in environmental policy processes. The Swedish environmental policy is based on 16 environmental quality objectives (EQOs) that national authorities are obliged to observe. These objectives are reviewed annually and evaluated in depth every four years. Here we describe and explore a futures study project for introducing more long-term thinking into work on the EQOs, which we tested in the in-depth evaluation in 2008. We found it difficult to design a collective scenario for a case with a wide variety of objectives and individuals with different backgrounds. However, this difficulty makes it even more important to incorporate futures studies into the work of the relevant authorities. Scenario work is often subcontracted, leading to a constant lack of futures studies expertise and thinking within authorities. Despite the difficulties, we found that experts within the authorities did begin to recognise the opportunities provided by futures studies. The project revealed an interest and need for futures studies within the authorities in charge of Swedish environmental quality objectives and our findings show that the authorities need to build up their own skills in futures studies.     

How does bargaining power affect remittances?

This paper examines the factors affecting the amount of remittances by migrants to their home countries, in a context of a family bargaining model. Spanish data does not show the same clear relationship between remittances and migrant income that is captured in the theoretical literature and certain empirical papers. Family bargaining models emerge as a useful framework within which to study remittances, and bargaining power is a key element in determining the level of such remittances. As a consequence of the consideration of bargaining power, the effect of income levels on remittances emerges as non-monotonic.     

Consumer-generated content and source effects in financial services advertising: An experimental study

Although advertising has previously been under the control of organizations and their advertising agencies, recent advances in technology have seen the emergence of what has come to be known as ‘consumer-generated advertising’. Consumers are now creating their own ads for the brands they love and hate, using inexpensive software and powerful personal computers, and then distributing these via social networks such as YouTube. The consequences for traditional advertisers are profound. Although services marketing scholars have begun to pay attention to this phenomenon, little is known about the source effects of these types of ads, for example whether viewers think they were created by firms, or consumers like themselves. This article describes a series of experiments designed to test source effects in the context of consumer-generated ads in a financial services context, in which it is found that some source effects are present. Implications for marketers as well as future research directions are identified.