Challenges and dilemmas of creative tourism in the 21st century: How can we preserve it from the massive offer?

Although there are not data to attest to the growth of various Creative Tourism experiences worldwide, the expectation of their increase is consistent with the strength of the nowadays markets and the strategies and changes needed to sustain this growth at the twenty-first century. So, it will be relevant to follow the new trends, changes and challenges that will shape the future path of Creative Tourism. In the context of the European Union, economic prosperity and well-being should respond to twin digital and green transitions that should prepare society to mitigate problems that arise from pandemic situations, such as the recent COVID-19. How do we follow new and future experiences, and how can institutions be positioned without jeopardising the massification of this segment? As with cultural tourism, this segment of creative initiatives can and should develop ways to avoid these possible mass derivations and adjust the preservation of its sustainability in the future. What strategy needs to be adapted so that future risks of vulgarisation will be avoided even within the possible new trends? What will be the role of the Southern European countries? This final chapter envisages promoting critical thinking about the role of Creative Tourism for local and regional development. The discussion focuses on how to prevent massification and how to respond to new challenges and saturated formulas and in accordance with the digital area of the twenty-first century. Also, it promotes some solutions based on short-term strategies to be outlined and on a TIN (Think, Integrate and Network) model, which can be replicated in many countries in Europe and in the rest of the world. © 2022 Paula Remoaldo, Vitor Ribeiro, Juliana Alves, Elaine Borges Scalabrini and Helder Lopes. All rights reserved.

European State Aid during COVID-19

Summary During the COVID-19 unexpected pandemic crisis, to minimalize socio-economic damages within the Member States, the European Commission has taken several steps to increase the flexibility of the support framework and include more diversified forms of aid and extended time-frames for granting them. Implementing urgent measures, in particular for the sectors that are mostly affected by the economic shock and unpredicted limitations pushed them to increase their resilience to be more stable for emergencies. In order to ensure the EU internal market is not fragmented and the level of playing field stays intact, as well as to avoid harmful subsidy races to the detriment of cohesion within the Union, the use of State Aid proved its necessity in various diversified forms of aid. The article discusses State Aid in the context of the global pandemic and tries to find out raised questions. © 2022 Turan Jafarli, published by Sciendo.

The Covid-19 Emergency and the Risk of Social Fragmentation in the Palermo Case.

The global Covid-19 crisis has shown its impact on all the aspect of life: health, social, economic, and politic. The attention mainly reserved to the economic and politic aspect musts also take into account the risk of social fragmentation. In which way this emergency has impact on communities where social fragilities were already existing? In which way, social dynamics are changed by the fear of the pandemic and the physical isolation imposed by governments to contain it. In which way local associations and citizen are coping the new challenges imposed by this emergency? In this article, the Sicilian context will be explored with a specific view on the Palermo capital. This Italian region has a peculiar and complex social asset determined by interrelated socio-economic phenomena such as mafia, unemployment and poverty. Fortunately, the existence of problematic and historical social phenomena has to face with the constant activities organized by local associations, civil society and authorities to fight them. There is one element that must to be consider: a global event like a pandemic oblige to be careful to the new ways in which phenomena we are accustomed to can manifest. Inequalities and racial matter can be exacerbated even in a multicultural context like Palermo one if social balance is missing. New form of poverty and the higher number of people exposed to this risk can give to mafia-type organizations more instrument to establish their control on the territory. The same introduction of economic measures aiming to support people can be manipulated and have a distorted effect when concretely applied. It is a great challenge because the lack of a complete comprehension can determine a failure of the adopted measures and a lack of cohesion of the social tissue. Starting from the context definition, the analysis will explore the perspective and the experiences of associations working with people belonging to the weaker part of the community, thanks to semi-structured interviews to representatives of the main local associations as privileged witness. In this way, the analysis will try to highlight how local actors' activities and how dynamics of solidarity are influenced by the global Covid-19 phenomenon.