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Setting the Scene. Developing a Policy Agency for Sustainable Forms of Media Tourism

Project description

Lights, camera… travel

People travel for all sorts of reasons. Some are inspired to travel to locations featured in popular literature, films, music or television. This travel is a multimillion-dollar industry with far-reaching implications for a country’s economy, environment and community. The key is to maintain a balance between the positive and negative impacts of these often-capricious media and tourism flows. In this context, the ERC-funded SETS project will give research-based knowledge and critical and holistic advice to governments to develop effective policies for sustainable, responsible and inclusive media tourism. The project’s aim is to demonstrate the (financial) viability and (technical) feasibility of an envisioned policy development agency, SETS, focused on providing municipalities with products and services to help realise these policies.

Objective

This project focuses on media tourism: the phenomenon of people travelling to places associated with movies, television series and other forms of popular culture. Media tourism has gradually evolved into a multi-million-dollar industry, with far-reaching implications for the related locations, affecting their economy, environment and community. As a result, city governments increasingly seek strategies to manage both the positive and negative impacts of these often-capricious media and tourism flows. However, the extensive research data generated by the ERC project ?Words of Imagination? (WOI), which has been collected in multiple Western and non-Western cities (e.g. Kingston, Seoul, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Edinburgh), confirms (1) the potential of new media tourism initiatives and (b) the need for (humanities) research-based knowledge and critical and holistic advice to develop effective policies for sustainable and inclusive media tourism. Therefore, our goal is to set up a world-leading policy development agency called Setting the Scene (SETS) that is focused on providing municipalities around the world with a set of products and services to develop their media tourism industry in an environmentally sustainable, socially responsible and culturally sensitive manner. While several agencies advising government departments on the industry exist, none of them adopt a critical and holistic (humanities) perspective and focus on the sustainability and inclusivity of media tourism. The ultimate goal of this PoC is to demonstrate the (financial) viability and (technical) feasibility of the envisioned policy development agency SETS in assisting city governments with the search for tailored research-based policies concerning sustainable and inclusive media tourism.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) ERC-2022-POC1

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Host institution

ERASMUS UNIVERSITEIT ROTTERDAM
Net EU contribution
€ 150 000,00
Address
BURGEMEESTER OUDLAAN 50
3062 PA Rotterdam
Netherlands
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Beneficiaries (1)