Mega Events As Catalysts For Regeneration

An analysis of the European Capitals of Culture in 2012 in Guimarães (Portugal) and Maribor (Slovenia), based on visitor and resident research.

Contents
Chapter 1: Researching the European Capital of Culture
Greg Richards 3
Chapter 2: Guimarães European Capital of Culture 2012
Visitor Research
Greg Richards, Johan Ferla and Carlos Fernandes 6
Chapter 3: Maribor European Capital of Culture 2012 Visitor Research
Greg Richards, Miha Lesjak and Mitja Petelin 49
Chapter 4: Guimarães and Maribor 2012, some comparisons
Greg Richards 78

Les expositions universelles, une utopie touristique toujours d’actualité ? World’s Fair, The Renew of Touristic Utopia? ¿Exposiciones universales, una utopía turística siempre de actualidad? À travers les expositions universelles récentes et passées et plus particulièrement les expositions de Milan 2015 et de Port-au-Prince 1949, nous rappelons que cette pratique touristique du voyage d’agrément dans une grande ville remonte au XIXe siècle, elle accompagne les origines de notre tourisme moderne, tout en devenant un instrument de géopolitique et de marketing touristique de première importance pour les villes et les pays hôtes. Les expositions peuvent être considérées comme un levier urbanistique, mais aussi un moyen de faire voyager et de comprendre notre monde à travers un système de représentation des identités locales et mondiales proposant toujours une mise en valeur de la découverte scientifique et de l’expérience culturelle à travers les pavillons nationaux. Ces manifestations géantes reposent sur une mise en scène et en récit à partir d’un thème universel questionnant généralement le concept du développement durable et de l’attractivité touristique renouvelée de la destination. Notre analyse porte sur la plus récente des expositions universelles et une exposition oubliée appartenant à l’aire culturelle des caraïbes permettant de dégager trois dynamiques associant le tourisme de méga-événement et l’utopie des voyages initiatiques, à savoir : les expositions universelles se réinventent et retrouvent un certain succès de fréquentation impliquant une redéfinition des champs et des usages d’une utopie contrariée. Faire voyager est un acte à la fois scénographique et symbolique à travers le pavillon impliquant des artifices et des déclinaisons de plus en plus numériques, la quête de cette pratique durable du voyage se confronte à son héritage et à son souvenir à différentes échelles et temporalités. Through the recent and past universal exhibitions and more particularly the world’s fair of Milan 2015 and Port-au-Prince 1949, we recall that this tourist practice of the pleasure trip in a large city dates back to the XIXth century, it accompanies the origins of Our modern tourism, while becoming an instrument of geopolitics and tourist marketing of prime importance to cities and host countries. Exhibitions can be seen as an urban lever, but also a way to make travel and understand our world through a system of representation of local and global identities that always emphasizes scientific discovery and cultural experience through the national pavilion. These giant events are based on a staging and narrative based on a universal theme generally questioning the concept of sustainable development and the renewed attractiveness of the destination. Our analysis focuses on the most recent of the universal exhibitions and a forgotten exhibition belonging to the cultural area of the Caribbean, which reveals three dynamics associating mega-event tourism with the utopia of initiatory journeys, namely: reinvent and regain a certain success of frequentation implying a redefinition of the fields and uses of a disrupted utopia; to make travel is an act both scenographic and symbolic through the pavilion involving artifices and more and more digital declensions, the quest for this sustainable practice of travel is confronted with its heritage and its memory at different scales and temporalities. A través de las exposiciones universales recientes y pasados y, especialmente, la Feria de Milán en 2015 y Puerto Príncipe en 1949, recordamos que esta práctica de turismo de viaje de placer a una gran ciudad se remonta al siglo XIX, que acompaña a los orígenes de turismo moderno, mientras que convertirse en un instrumento geopolítico y comercialización del turismo de las principales ciudades y países anfitriones. Las exposiciones pueden considerarse una palanca urbana, sino también una manera de viajar y entender nuestro mundo a través de un sistema de representación de las identidades locales y globales que todavía ofrece el desarrollo de los descubrimientos científicos y la experiencia cultural a través pabellones nacionales. Estas manifestaciones gigantes basados en una puesta en escena y la narrativa de un tema universal en general, cuestionando el concepto de desarrollo sostenible y renovada atractivos turísticos del destino. Nuestro análisis se centra en las últimas exposiciones universales y una exposición olvidado que pertenecen a la zona cultural del Caribe para identificar tres dinámico entre el turismo mega-evento y la utopía de los viajes iniciáticos, a saber: las exposiciones universales reinventar y encontrar un cierto éxito de asistencia que implica una redefinición de campos y utiliza una utopía alterada, para viajar es un acto tanto teatral y simbólico a través del pabellón y declinaciones cada vez más digitales, las la búsqueda de este viaje práctica sostenible se enfrenta a su artificialidad y su memoria en diferentes escalas y marcos de tiempo. Index géographique : Europe, Caraïbes, Italie, Haïti, France, Milan, Port-au-Prince, New York, Osaka Mots-clés : exposition universelle, utopie, tourisme, architecture, urbanisme Palabras claves : expo, utopía, turismo, arquitectura, urbanismo Keywords : world’s fair, utopia, tourism, architecture, city-planning Patrice Ballester, Les expositions universelles, une utopie touristique toujours d’actualité ? World’s Fair, The Renew of Touristic Utopia? ¿Exposiciones universales, una utopía turística siempre de actualidad?, Études caribéennes 37-38, Août-Décembre 2017 Tourismes, voyages, utopies, pp.1-26.

Using Rio de Janeiro as the case study city, this book highlights and examines issues surrounding the development of mega-cities in Latin America and beyond. Complex dynamics of urbanization such as mega-event-driven development, infrastructure investment, and informal urban expansion are intertwined with changing climatic conditions that demand new approaches to sustainable urbanism. The urban conditions facing 21st century cities such as Rio emphasize the need to revisit urban forms, reintegrate infrastructure, and re-evaluate practices.

With contributions from 15 scholars from several countries exploring urbanism, urbanization, and climate change, this book provides insights into the contextual and environmental issues shaping Rio in the age of globalization. Each of the book’s three sections addresses an interdisciplinary range of topics impacting urbanism in Latin America, which will be accessible to researchers and professionals interested in urbanization, urban design, sustainability, planning, and architecture.

Planners, politicians, boosters and other elites often use mega-events like the 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup as a strategy for urban development. This was also the case with the World Cup, hosted in eleven Russian cities and designed to modernize Russia’s peripheral host cities. While the idea of developing cities through mega-events is common, the Russian experience displays much that is new.
This paper examines urban development in the World Cup as an example of mobile policy, exploring how this mega-event was imported from abroad and how this policy mutated as it was implemented on the ground in Russia. The specificities of the Russian experience were due in large part to the ways in which the World Cup organizing committee was created and operated as an extension of the central government in Moscow. What appeared at first to be a way for Russian peripheral host cities to differentiate themselves through urban development in a form of inter-urban competition, turned out to be a reestablishment of the central state in regional spatial planning. In this way, even as certain material conditions in the host cities were improved, the World Cup represented not an expression of regional democracy, nor even a strategy for inter-urban differentiation, but rather one more instance of development dictated from the center and from afar.

This article considers processes of urban development within the context of mega-event preparations in Rio de Janeiro. We begin with a brief overview of these development processes, highlighting their connections to political and economic change in recent years. Proponents of these mega-event-led initiatives argue that Rio is undergoing a period of inclusive growth and integration: a perspective we call here a ‘post-Third-World city’ narrative of urban renewal. Critics, however, contend that urban officials are harnessing mega-events (e.g. the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games) to push forward a neoliberal agenda of socially unjust policies benefiting the interests of capital and marginalizing the city’s poor and especially its favelas (i.e. the ‘city-of-exception’ thesis). In this article we explore the insights of these two perspectives and consider why they have grown popular in recent years. Though we side generally with the city-of-exception thesis, we argue that import...

Italian abstract L'adozione di politiche di sviluppo urbano focalizzate sulla cultura, sia dal lato dell'offerta (realizzazione di infrastrutture e sostegno alle industrie culturali e creative) sia da quello della domanda (campagne di promozione turistica, programmazione di eventi) è prassi corrente nel capitalismo cognitivo. Intorno al nesso tra cultura e sviluppo economico si è coagulato un vasto dibattito scientifico che fa da sfondo e giustificazione per l'adozione di politiche pubbliche conseguenti, in particolare, ma non solo, alla scala urbana. In realtà, la produzione e il consumo di cultura sono però spesso associati a fenomeni tra loro molto diversi e non di rado conflittuali. Secondo alcuni autori (Bridge, 2006; Kaasa e Vadi, 2010; Scott, 2000), lo sviluppo del settore culturale contribuisce soprattutto alla crescita economica e al vantaggio competitivo urbano, attraverso la generazione di nuova conoscenza per l'innovazione e la creatività ma, anche, effetti positivi su altre attività economiche correlate. Altri ne enfatizzano le potenzialità inclusive, adatte alla costruzione dei diritti di cittadinanza e alla promozione di una società più giusta e coesa (Stern e Seifert, 2007), altri ancora assumono una posizione intermedia, attribuendo alla cultura sia un vantaggio competitivo che un beneficio per l'inclusione sociale, senza però riuscire a chiarire appieno il rapporto tra queste due dimensioni dello sviluppo (Sacco e Segre, 2009). In questo articolo si inquadra e analizza il caso di Matera 2019 all'interno del progetto di Capitale Europea della Cultura ed alla luce delle teorie legate allo sviluppo urbano trainato dalla cultura. L'analisi del caso di Matera 2019 si pone l'obiettivo di misurare gli impatti attualmente osservabili nella città sotto il profilo socio-spaziale e di indagare le modalità con cui i cittadini materani hanno interagito con l'evento, attraverso un'analisi della loro opinione circa il percorso svolto e le possibilità future della città. English abstract

... 2005; Geis 2005; Greiffenhagen and Neller 2005, for a research overview see Vetter 2007 ... a public community,'Stadtumbau Ost'cannot be afforded,”(vhw 2003: 67; own translation). ... for Urban Development (Senatsverwaltung f€ ur Stadtentwicklung) and the housing corpora-tion. ...

Events are becoming more complex as their range of functions grows, as meeting places, creative spaces, economic catalysts, social drivers, community builders, image makers, business forums and network nodes. Effective design can produce more successful business models that can help to sustain cultural and sporting activities even in difficult economic times. This process requires creative imagination, and a design methodology or in other words ‘imagineering’.

This book brings together a wide range of international experts in the fields of events, design and imagineering to examine the event design process. It explores the entire event experience from conception and production to consumption and co-creation. By doing so it offers insight into effective strategies for coping with the shift in value creation away from transactional economic value towards social and relational value which benefit a range of stakeholders from the community to policy makers. Mega-events, small community events, business events and festivals in eight different countries are examined providing an international view of social issues in event design.

A wide selection of current research perspectives is employed, integrating both theoretical and applied contributions. The multidisciplinary nature of the material means that it will appeal to a broad academic audience, such as art and design, cultural studies, tourism, events studies, sociology and hospitality.

"Australian Leisure 4e provides an introduction to and analysis of a broadly defined concept of leisure. It integrates Australian and international knowledge so that the book is an Australian interpretation, based largely on local sources, but which engages with relevant international research and theory. This edition has been extensively reviewed and updated and includes new chapters on social networks, global cultures and events.

Leisure is not just sport, or the arts, or outdoor recreation, it is all these things and more, including tourism, gambling, hobbies, television watching, entertainment, play and doing nothing in particular.

The purpose of the text is to illuminate leisure and its place in past, present and future Australian society. The text is designed to lead students into the subject and provide pointers to more detailed study, through discussion questions and guides to further reading."

Preface
Contributors

PART I INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY

1. This thing called leisure
2. Historical perspectives

PART II STUDYING LEISURE
3. Studying leisure
4. Contemporary patterns of Australian leisure
5. Providers in the mixed economy of leisure

PART III LEISURE SECTORS AND FORMS
6. At home at leisure
7. Social media and leisure
8.  Arts and culture
9. Sport
10.  Outdoor recreation
11. Tourism
12. Special events
13. Leisure and health
14. ‘Deviant’ leisure

PART IV LEISURE AND DIVERSITY
15. Human rights, disability and leisure
16. Leisure and Aboriginal culture from Federation
17. Global cultures and ethnicity
18. Gender and sexuality
19. Leisure, youth and ageing

PART V LEISURE AND THE FUTURE
20. Working in leisure
21. Leisure and the future

Index

▶ The book presents the role of festivals in relation to the urban spaces
▶ Provides the overview of the origins, history, and the main factors of
festival development
▶ Presents the case study of the city of Lodz, Poland
▶ Provides a model for studying the role of festivals in the
development of the city space
▶ Multidisciplinary work, intended for a wider audience
▶ Comprehensive and multifaceted publication, which covers both
theoretical and practical issues regarding festival studies
This is a multi-disciplinary scientific monograph referring to urban geography, urban
regions management, event studies, tourism geography, cultural anthropology and
sociology. It covers issues which are typically related to the most popular type of
events: festivals. This book studies the origins, history, and the main factors of festival
development, as well as the concept of a festival in the context of various scientific
disciplines. It presents the existing festival typologies as well as the author's own
comprehensive typology. The theoretical part concerns the basic research methods and
approaches used in the analysis of these events, as well as their impacts on the urban
space in the physical (festival facilities), social (a place where people may pursue their
interests, meet with family and friends) and cultural aspect. The economic aspect of
festivals (generating jobs and income from tourism, using festivals for city branding,
etc.) is also discussed. The book presents practical examples in sub-chapters, references
to literature (further reading) and the case study of the influence of festivals on urban
space management and urban development, using the example of Łódź – a Polish postsocialist
city. It may also be treated as a supplementary course book for students of urban
geography, urban regions management, tourism, event management and, to a certain
extent, anthropology of culture and sociology. 

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

Events and festivals have become increasingly important policy tools for cities and regions. They are able to produce a wide range of externalities, including economic impacts, image change, social capital and cultural regeneration. All of these event-related externalities have impacts and effects on the places in which they are staged. In many cases, these event-related impacts are analysed separately, but in fact the most powerful effects of events are more holistic, able to impact not just on individual economic sectors or social groups, but on places as a whole. Over time, the use of events by cities and regions has grown more sophisticated and complex. The range of policy goals for which events are utilised has expanded, and the range and type of events staged has increased as well. Increasingly, public administrations seek to coordinate the events in their jurisdiction to create synergies between events and to maximise the benefits generated. Event policies make frequent references to the development of programmes or " portfolios " of events (Antchak, 2016). The ability of events to effect a broad range of changes in different places has added to their attractiveness as a placemaking tool, and has led to more cities developing " events units " and other forms of event-based

Events can be differentiated into many types based on the category, size and domain such as public events which has a big number of audience and participants or private events which revolve around the primary interest of individuals, small or miniature private groups. Such types of event can be considered as mega events which are organized in a large scale and can cater a huge cluster of people gathered in a single place. Carnivals are fall under the category of cultural celebrations. Although there are many carnivals celebrated in different locations of the globe, including different locations in Brazil as well as many other catholic countries but Rio de Janeiro’s carnival is extremely popular all over the globe due to its gargantuan size and flamboyant performances. In this report, we will discuss the complexities involved in organizing Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival in 2014, its SWOT analysis, risk management and services available in the carnival.

Urban development has always been affected by regeneration processes, especially after the World War II. After several decades’ experiences of urban regeneration, urban image, quality of life, and urban environment are now recognized as prerequisites and catalysts for the economic development of cities1. Today we face changes in needs, technology, spatial texture, life quality and the economy especially in the urban settlements on a daily basis. The economic development, the push of the urbanization and the capitalist approaches towards the land uses are often debated. The gates and cores of the cities such as the waterfronts, riverbanks, harbors and squares have been involved in urban regeneration projects with the intention to make them the symbols of the city. The aim of this article is to investigate the transformation processes of today and discuss the new methods of regeneration. The main focus will be on the use of titles, events, and activations as a promoting element and a tool of the regeneration.

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The study addresses the beneficial ownership concept in the OECD ModelTax Convention as an economic and legal instrument of granting tax benefits. Elements of a potencial authorised OECD approach on beneficial ownership are introduced in this research.

The conventional view is that visitors create wealth in an economy and contribute to GDP through direct, indirect and induced spending on retail, hospitality etc. As such, they are viewed as valuable commodities, which some cities proactively recognise and exhort the benefits of, under a process of ‘entrepreneurial urbanism’ (Harvey, 1989). As a result the hosting of mega-events and creative activities as new tourism products has been fought with much competition in recent years and many locales have developed their offer to appeal to new visitors and new mobile capital. Whilst the literature on the impact of tourism and leisure, including mega-events and festivals is now quite extensive especially on revenue generation (e.g. Roache, 1984; Burbank et al, 2002), legacy of investment (e.g. Lees, 2008, 2012), and cultural change (e.g. Garcia, 2004; Wilks-Heeg, 2007; Foley et al, 2011), this has been at the expense of wider macroeconomic research on the impact visitors have on local economies more generally, which is examined here through a review of urban change in East London. Urban change is viewed through the actions and impact of those who consume urban space, which perceives visitors or tourists as actors in social spaces. In doing so, the paper views the changes occurring in one of the most rapidly changing and talked about world cities from the perspective of the visitors who occupy, consume, and then shape spaces, which in East London manifests as re-gentrification and changing neighbourhood boundaries.

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

This project examines the urban development impacts of bidding to host Olympic Games. While there is a well-developed scholarship on legacy in Olympic host cities, less is known about the urban legacies of unsuccessful Olympic candidatures. The study addresses this by analyzing land use legacies of bidding in Olympic applicant and candidate cities, during host city elections over a twenty year period (80 bids for Games between 2000 and 2020). It draws on content analysis of bidding documents, and spatial analysis of land use change in bid cities using historical planning documents and maps. The study demonstrates that bids to host Olympics, even when unsuccessful, provide a means for formalizing local development strategies. Likewise, bid plans are often implemented to some degree regardless of a candidature’s success because local stakeholders leverage one sports development plan for use in multiple Olympic and non-Olympic bids, engaging in incremental and speculative investment along the way. The study identifies policy processes that facilitate or hinder urban development legacies after the bid, concluding with recommendations for building local capacity to coordinate across various bids, and for monitoring the urban impacts of unsuccessful bids in cities that bid for the Games multiple times. The paper is available in open access the following archive: http://doc.rero.ch/record/209795

Preferred citation is: Lauermann, John (2014) Legacy after the bid? The impact of bidding to host the Olympic Games on urban development planning. Lausanne: Olympic Studies Centre. <http://doc.rero.ch/record/209795/>

À partir d’une géographie de la mémoire, j’aborde les stratégies de planification urbaine en relation avec l’organisation, la tenue et le bilan des méga-événements. Leur souvenir, remémoration et manipulation par les élites locales rentrent dans une politique urbaine sur le long terme pour justifier parfois des choix hasardeux ou judicieux. J’aboutis à trois résultats corollaires de la forme, du fond et de la fonction des méga-événements à partir d’une recherche archivistique, d’une enquête de terrain sur les sites olympiques à Barcelone et d’une revue de littérature renouvelée sur le sujet : une complémentarité entre les Jeux olympiques et les Expositions universelles s’observe avec l’importance du palimpseste urbain fonctionnant comme un système intégrateur, une mémoire collective des méga-événements reste prégnante grâce au tourisme de masse et de niche, les qualités de l’éphémère de la manifestation se font ressentir dans la production matérielle et immatérielle forgeant une mémoire collective.

The memory of the mega-events as an instrument of urban planning

From a geography of memory, I discuss urban planning strategies related to the organization, conduct and review the mega events. Their memory, recollection and manipulation by local elites fall into an urban policy in the long term to justify sometimes bad or good choice. I end up with three corollaries results from the form, substance and function of mega-events from archival research, field research at Olympic venues in Barcelona and a review of literature on renewed topic: complementarity between Olympic Games and the World Exhibitions is observed with the importance of urban palimpsest functioning as a system integrator, a collective memory of mega-events remains pregnant with mass tourism and niche qualities transience of the event are felt in material and immaterial production forging a collective memory.

Patrice Ballester, « La mémoire des méga-événements comme instrument de la planification urbaine ?  », Téoros, 33, 1,  2014 8-19.

State leaders in the Arabian Peninsula have increasingly sought to host globalized sporting events to broadcast a cosmopolitan and modern image of the region. These efforts are typically interpreted as examples of states exercising 'soft power'. This article challenges the state-centric assumptions built into the soft power approach by employing an event ethnography of the 2016 UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Doha. Advancing a more grounded geopolitics of elite sport in the Gulf, I examine how geopolitical identity narratives about Qatar, and the Gulf region more broadly, circulate at various scales and through countless contingent encounters at the event. I ask specifically how these identity narratives are constructed and challenged, both materially and discursively by athletes, spectators and urban residents. Sporting events, I argue, are key sites of geopolitical encounter: where subjects and spaces are not predetermined, but actively constituted through people's interactions in the host cities and countries.

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

Experiences are becoming increasingly important in events and festivals, which are prime manifestations of the experience economy. However, research on event experiences has generally been concerned with economic impacts and visitor motivations (Gursoy, Kim, & Uysal, 2004). Few studies have attempted to operationalize and quantitatively analyze experiences, and there is no consensual definition regarding the essence of experiences (Walls, Okumus, Wang, & Kwun, 2011). This article develops an Event Experience Scale (EES), for event experiences. In this exploratory study the item generation and selection for this scale are presented in three phases: specifying the domain of construct and generation of items, item selection, and scale purification. An 18-item scale, comprised of 4 dimensions: affective engagement, cognitive engagement, physical engagement and experiencing newness, with satisfactory values for Cronbach’s alphas (.83, .86, .86, and .87), emerged. Implications for theoretical and practical research are discussed.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

• Purpose This paper examines developments in the use of events by places from a predominantly place branding role based on image and economic impacts towards a broader placemaking approach aimed at holistic improvements in place quality. • Design/methodology/approach The research is based on a single case study approach, with the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) as the focus. Data sources include resident surveys, depth interviews and analysis of policy documents. • Findings The Den Bosch case illustrates the emergence of a more holistic approach to the use of events as a placemaking tool. The city shifted from an ad hoc events policy to the development of a multi-annual programme designed to produce economic, image, social cultural and network effects. This approach seems to have been successful in stimulating visitation, increasing visitor spend and raising the international profile of the city. At the same time, the city has developed many activities designed to mobilise local stakeholder groups and increase social cohesion, which provide essential support for the necessary investment. • Research limitations/implications There are indications that sustaining such a programme over the longer term is difficult in the face of political and economic change. Adoption of a holistic approach also requires the mobilisation of a wide range of stakeholders. • Social implications The Den Bosch programme helped to increase social cohesion in the city by involving residents and local cultural groups in different projects. However, this required a differentiated approach based on the needs of each group. • Originality/value

World Expo and Tourism - a new Utopia? From London 1851 to Dubai 2020.

Through the recent and past World expo and more particularly the World expo of Milan 2015 and Port-au-Prince 1949, we recall that this tourist practice of the pleasure trip in a large city dates back to the XIXth century, it accompanies the origins of Our modern tourism, while becoming an instrument of geopolitics and tourist marketing of prime importance to cities and host countries (branding). Exhibitions can be seen as an urban lever, but also a way to make travel and understand our world through a system of representation of local and global identities that always emphasizes scientific discovery and cultural experience through the national pavilion. These giant events – mega-events - are based on a staging and narrative universal theme generally questioning the concept of sustainable development and the renewed attractiveness of the destination. Our analysis focuses on the most recent of the World expos and a forgotten exhibition belonging to the cultural area of the Caribbean, which reveals three dynamics associating mega-event tourism with the utopia of initiatory journeys, namely: reinvent and regain a certain success of frequentation implying a redefinition of the fields and uses of a disrupted utopia; to make travel is an act both scenographic and symbolic through the pavilion involving artifices and more and more digital declensions, the quest for this sustainable practice of travel is confronted with its heritage and its memory at different scales and temporalities.

English translation of the article published in French,
Patrice Ballester, « Les expositions universelles, une utopie touristique toujours d’actualité ? », Études caribéennes [En ligne], 37-38 | Août-Décembre 2017, mis en ligne le 15 novembre 2017, consulté le 19 février 2018. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/11239 ; DOI : 10.4000/etudescaribeennes.11239