Staycations, localisation, community and place-making: Edinburgh as a destination in tourism recovery

Project Description

The Covid-19 pandemic devastated Edinburgh’s tourism sector. This research project examines how the city can reimagine the long-term sustainable role of tourism in post-pandemic times. It considers how Edinburgh’s tourism sector can sustainably adapt to the new world, with recovery underpinned by local community engagement. In pre-pandemic times, and as Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh assumed a competitive global position as a leading tourism destination, being a UNESCO-designated World Heritage site; and the ‘world’s leading festival city’. Nevertheless, recent local communities and media discourses criticised commercial agendas of staging year-round festivals in Edinburgh’s historic public spaces, with accusations of their commodification for the purpose of attracting tourists. Collaborating with key city and community stakeholder partners, using co-designed public engagement and Participative Action Research, this project will utilise Placemaking frameworks to co-create strategies for sustainable staycation activity and to develop Local Place Planning initiatives and future strategies for the historic centre of Edinburgh.