Sustainable heritage tourism: Towards a community-led approach Mina Dragouni UCL PhD 2 3 I, Mina Dragouni confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 4 Abstract This doctoral thesis explores community participation in heritage tourism planning as a sustainable solution to real-world cultural heritage problems, such as neglect and degradation at economically-deprived areas. In particular, the study examines how the strategic design of heritage tourism can accommodate the active involvement of destination hosts, such as local residents and business owners, and their meaningful collaboration with heritage managers and policymakers. The literature suggests that destination communities are heavily affected by tourism activity and their contribution to tourism planning is vital for achieving commitment to sustainability goals. Although the theoretical grounds of community involvement are well set, heritage tourism management has been slow in applying participatory approaches. Consequently, there is little empirical work on the practical implications of realising a more pluralist governance for heritage tourism and limited evidence to convince current ‘power-holders’ such as state officials to share their power with non-expert stakeholders. This project aspires to fill this void by exploring the process and particularities of instigating community participation at destination level in areas with no previous participatory experience. By adopting the case-study approach, it explores Kastoria, a peripheral emerging destination in Greece, conducting for the first time an ex-ante assessment of the challenges and complexities involved in pursuing community involvement on Arnstein’s (1969) rungs of ‘citizen power’. Following a novel mixed methodological approach, the study generates primary fieldwork data through semi-structured interviews, an attitudinal questionnaire survey and a quasi-field economic experiment applied to the tourism field for the first time. By doing so it provides important empirical evidence and draws useful theoretical and practical conclusions that increase our knowledge of community- inclusive planning in critical issues, such as the drivers of participation and the dynamics of collaborative decision-making. 5 Contents List of tables 9 List of figures 13 Acknowledgements 15 Publications 16 Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 Setting the problem 17 1.2 Research aim and objectives 19 1.3 Originality and contribution 28 1.4 Outline of thesis 30 Chapter 2. Community-inclusive sustainable heritage tourism planning: defining the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ 2.1 Introduction 35 2.2 What is heritage tourism 36 2.3 The relevance of sustainable development to heritage tourism 39 2.4 Community participation in heritage tourism planning: Conceptual 42 perspectives 2.5 The levels of community participation 46 2.6 Community participation in heritage tourism planning: The 50 implementation difficulties 2.7 Concluding remarks on the theory and practice of participatory 56 planning Chapter 3. Theoretical framework 3.1 Introduction 59 3.2 Participatory governance theories 61 3.3 Theoretical concepts for instigating participation: Combining 67 economic frameworks with ideas from political sociology 3.3.1 Social exchange theory 68 3.3.2 Common-pool resources theory 70 3.3.3 Social interpretivism 75 3.4 Building a framework for instigating involvement: A synthesis 79 3.4.1 Why to participate? 80 3.4.2 Why to cooperate? 82 3.4.3 How context shapes behaviour? 83 6 Chapter 4. Research philosophy and methodological design 4.1 Introduction 86 4.2 Pragmatism: Bridging the dichotomy between Positivism and 87 Interpretivism 4.3 Mixed methods research strategy 89 4.4 Community discourses: Collecting and analysing qualitative data 4.4.1 Design of interviews 92 4.4.2 Qualitative data analysis 96 4.5 From small to large scale: Conducting and processing a quantitative survey 4.5.1 Survey design 98 4.5.2 Quantitative data analysis 101 4.5.2.1 Factor analysis 103 4.5.2.2 Regression model 106 4.6 Unravelling stakeholders’ behaviour: Generating and interpreting experimental evidence 4.6.1 The rationale of employing an economic experiment 107 4.6.2 Experimental design: Treatments and scenarios 109 4.6.3 Questionnaire data on subject’s preferences and views 113 4.6.4 Main experimental procedure and data 116 4.7 Limitations and ethical considerations 118 Chapter 5. The case study of Kastoria: place biography and indications of unviability 5.1 Introduction 120 5.2 Profile, location and demographics 120 5.3 Historic background and local heritage 5.3.1 Kastoria Region 123 5.3.2 Kastoria Town 131 5.4 Local economy and tourism 5.4.1 Economic landscape 140 5.4.2 Tourism sector 141 5.5 Local management 5.5.1 Civil and tourism governance 144 5.5.2 Heritage governance 146 5.6 Concluding remarks and a way forward 148 Chapter 6. Talking to the community: Exploring local heritage narratives and stakeholders’ relations 6.1 Introduction 150 6.2 ‘Official’ heritage, stewardship and materialism 151 7 6.3 Activism, alienation and intentional neglect 158 6.4 ‘Unofficial’ heritage and natural landscape in subconscious identity 163 formation 6.5 Community sentiment towards the political status quo 166 6.6 Beyond pessimism: Crisis, reflexivity and heritage as drivers of social 169 transformation Chapter 7. Drivers of participation: Exploring the factors that shape community intentions for getting involved 7.1 Introduction 172 7.2 Overview of the sample 173 7.3 Profiling the willing and the unwilling 176 7.4 Heritage values as drivers to participation: What matters and for who? 180 7.5 Tourism effects as rather ‘weak’ motivators 185 7.6 Community ideals as the key for mobilising participation 186 7.7 Deconstructing the drivers to participation 187 7.8 Altruism, attachment and structure of feeling: New insights 193 Chapter 8. The dynamics of collective decisions: A comparison of governance structures for heritage tourism planning 8.1 Introduction 196 8.2 Validation of methodology 198 8.3 Group performance across treatments 200 8.4 The interplay between deliberation, conflict and consensual outcomes 205 8.5 Personal preferences and heterogeneity effects on group performance 208 8.6 Conflict negotiation: Exploring group discussions and dissenting voices 214 8.6.1 Strategic marginality 217 8.6.2 Institutional distrust 219 8.6.3 Power clashes 220 8.6.4 Project quality 222 8.6.5 Location rivalries 225 8.7 Participatory planning in action: Concluding remarks based on 226 experimental evidence Chapter 9. Instigating community-led planning: A synthesis 9.1 Introduction 228 9.2 Broader context: Heritage that unites and heritage that divides 229 9.3 Why to participate: Community incentives as values of social exchanges 9.3.1 Heritage values: Drivers or barriers to participation? 232 9.3.2 Expected tourism impacts of a marginal tourism sector 236 9.3.3 Community attachment and the spatial dimension of heritage 237 8 9.4 Why to cooperate: The dynamics of collaborative decision-making 9.4.1 Participatory versus non-participatory decisions 241 9.4.2 Destructive conflict versus constructive conflict 243 9.4.3 Traditions of mutual distrust 244 9.4.4 When and why people refuse to cooperate 247 9.5 Community participation as a process of policy and social 249 transformation Chapter 10. Towards a community-led approach: Conclusions, implications and further research 10.1 Introduction 255 10.2 Towards community-led heritage tourism planning: Findings and 256 implications 10.3 Making communities partners to planning: An empirically-informed 263 framework 10.4 Limitations and future research avenues 266 10.5 Final conclusion 268 Appendices Appendix A. Interview questionnaire Sample 269 Appendix B. Questionnaire survey design 271 Appendix C. Principal component analysis: Extracted factors 277 Appendix D. Questionnaire sample used during the experiment 279 Appendix E. Questionnaire survey sample analysis 282 Appendix F. Deconstructing the drivers to participation: Non-parametric 292 tests results Bibliography 324 9 List of tables Table 2.1 Incentives for pursuing community participation in heritage 43 tourism planning. Table 2.2 Engagement and participation methods based on grey literature. 49 Table 3.1 Schools of political and economic thought that influenced 62 participatory governance studies. Table 3.2 Guidelines for community participation based on Gianchello 84 (2007). Table 4.1 Interviewees’ coding and group profile. 94 Table 4.2 Common sampling methods for research. 95 Table 4.3 Themes emerged during interview data analysis and their 98 respective number of sources and references. Table 4.4 Principal component analysis results. 102 Table 4.5 Variables used to predict individual preferences during the 114 experiment. Table 5.1 List of traditional Kastorian mansions and their current condition. 139 Table 6.1 Interview sample that illustrates the antitheses between official 155 and unofficial heritage narrations. Table 7.1 Demographic characteristics and their influence on intentions for 177 participation. Table 7.2 Factors driving community willingness to participate, based on full 181 sample regression analysis. Table 7.3 Attitudinal factors driving willingness to participate based on 183 demographic subsamples. Table 7.4 Tests on median differences of responses to statements 188 comprising collective identity and memory values (HER2) among demographic sub-samples. Table 7.5 Tests on median differences of responses to statements 190 comprising emblematic and accessible value (HER3) among demographic sub-samples. Table 7.6 Tests on median differences of responses to statements 191 comprising participation values (COM1) across demographic sub- samples. Table 7.7 Tests on median differences of responses to statements 192 comprising respondents’ expression of altruism and attachment (COM2) across demographic sub-samples. Table 7.8 Tests on median differences of responses to statements reflecting 193 confidence in collective power (COM3) across demographic sub- samples. Table 8.1 Descriptive statistics of group composition and experimental data 199 for Treatments 1 and 2.