Maria SKIVKO, ,
The COVID-pandemic and quarantine restrictions for travelling and social distancing changed how to perceive and define the neighbourhood spaces. On the one hand, restrictions on international tourism forced the development of local tourism practices, stimulated the realization of innovative ideas based on the local heritage and culture. Moreover, it emphasized the need for development and investments in local infrastructure. But, on the other hand, well-known local spaces received new symbolic and social meanings. In other words, the local neighbourhood became the space for local tourism activities and spots for entertainments for locals, exploring of the unknown in regular practices, point of investments, and the way to socially distantiate from others due to the safety reasons – at the same time, not going too far from home according to the quarantine restrictions.
City routes are changing, urban neighbourhoods become the farthest destination. It creates a new fashion of workation and staycation, such as reorganizing spaces, distances, and territories in order to experience something new in the well-known urban context. By limiting international travelling, the pandemic provokes creativity and innovative ideas that positively influence local urban and tourism infrastructure and human-environment interaction.
This research explores how local identity can collaborate with cultural territory branding in order to redefine urban spaces. Based on the cases of local tourism agencies in Samara (Russia), this research: i) explores the local urban spaces play as space for tourism; ii) represents urban spaces as a reason for (symbolic, financial, creative) investments; iii) redefines local urban spaces that participate in the interaction between human and environment.
Mots clés : local identity|cultural territory branding|local tourism|urban neighbourhood|space redefinition
A105186MS