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URBACT is exploring how smaller cities reliant on tourism can re-imagine their future in the wake of Covid-19, with case studies of two smaller URBACT cities \u2013 Dubrovnik (HR) and Grosseto (IT).<\/h3>\nURBACT is exploring how smaller cities reliant on tourism can re-imagine their future in the wake of Covid-19, with case studies of two smaller URBACT cities \u2013 Dubrovnik (HR) and Grosseto (IT).<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
URBACT writes:<\/p>\n
The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected the entirety of Europe \u2013 but realities have differed both between countries and between cities. In this article, we explore the experiences of two smaller URBACT cities \u2013 Dubrovnik<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(HR) and\u00a0Grosseto<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(IT) \u2013 which are heavily reliant on tourism.<\/p>\n While large cities tend to have greater economic variety to fall back on, smaller European cities that rely on tourism, such as Dubrovnik and Grosseto, have suffered serious economic impacts as that tourism has been cut off. These cities are impacted even in situations where they have escaped the worst of the health crisis itself.<\/p>\n However, URBACT has a long history\u00a0of\u00a0supporting small and medium-size cities<\/a>, and despite their challenges,\u00a0<\/span>these two cities have also demonstrated how resiliency and innovation can emerge from the capacity-building support and knowledge exchange of URBACT networks. Both cities are now looking at how this challenging moment can be harnessed as a turning point to advance and diversify their economic strength and sustainable development.<\/p>\n Dubrovnik, in southern Croatia, is an intensely popular city with tourists who come for its well-preserved medieval Old Town and beautiful Adriatic coastline. In the month of June 2019, there were 1.2 million overnight stays in the municipality, whilst the resident population is only just over 40 000. But as with any tourism-centric city, its success can also be its greatest challenge. Before the pandemic hit, Dubrovnik was struggling with overtourism and the pollution, crowds and waste it brings.<\/p>\n \n But now, after pandemic-triggered global lockdowns and restricted travel, that tourism has completely disappeared, leaving the streets empty and the economy in freefall. According to the city, on 1 June 2020, tourism was 98% lower than the same time last year. With so much income and so many jobs reliant on tourism, the pandemic has hit the city hard, despite the fact that it has not suffered badly from the virus itself.<\/p>\n \n \u201c<\/span>Everyone hoped tourism would go back to normal in summer, but then the summer came and the numbers have stayed as low as about 20% of last year\u2019s arrivals,\u201d says Alisa Vlasic, the city\u2019s URBACT Local Group (ULG) coordinator for the URBACT\u00a0Tourism-Friendly Cities<\/a><\/span>\u00a0network. She explains that other parts of the country have seen tourism by road and rail bounce back more, but international tourists generally come to Dubrovnik by plane \u2013 and those planning to come have cancelled.<\/p>\n \u201cCovid-19 has caused a great economic crisis within our whole country,\u201d says Vlasic, \u201cbut so far, Dubrovnik has been impacted the most.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the grave challenges faced by Dubrovnik, however, Vlasic believes that now is a critical time to re-assess its relationship to tourism. \u201cThe mayor knows that being completely dependent on tourism brings even more challenges in times of economic crisis,\u201d she says. \u201cThis situation is forcing the city to re-think. Up until now, it was often too difficult to make changes, but now we have to.\u201d<\/p>\n Dubrovnik has been part of URBACT\u2019s Tourism-Friendly Cities network since September 2019. \u201cThe network has been helping us to take forward our work of making tourism more balanced,\u201d says Vlasic. \u201cThe city already started those discussions three years ago, but right now is the time to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n The entire network is re-focusing its conversations, explains Vlasic, in response to the pandemic\u2019s impact. Those cities that were trying to tackle overtourism are now collaborating on what sustainable tourism means in the recovery. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to see how every country is trying to re-think tourism,\u201d says Vlasic. Cites like\u00a0Venice<\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u2013 another partner city \u2013 and Dubrovnik have some of the biggest challenges.<\/p>\n Vlasic believes tourism will continue to be the dominant economic force in Dubrovnik in the future, but that this moment can be harnessed to work on diversification of the economy and supporting other sectors. \u201cI don\u2019t see a whole new economy,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I think this gives a lot of perspective to local citizens to start thinking about other things. I envisage us shifting from 90% of people relying on tourism, to perhaps 70%.\u201d<\/p>\n The Tourism-Friendly Cities network continues to be a critical part of Dubrovnik\u2019s recovery. \u201cThe network gives us the connection and external perspective we need,\u201d says Vlasic. \u201cIn the pandemic, it can feel like we are all isolated. But right now is the most important time to be connected. The URBACT network means that on a day-to-day basis we can exchange experiences with other cities and help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n From the very beginning of the pandemic, the city of Grosseto in southern Tuscany \u2013 80 000 inhabitants \u2013 was\u00a0active<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in terms of safety and prevention measures, encouraging people to stay at home and delivering free face masks to citizens. Partly as a result of that, case numbers of Covid-19 have stayed low. Yet, as a historic and picturesque city which relies on tourism, Grosseto has been significantly economically impacted by the pandemic lockdowns.<\/p>\n Luckily, the timing of its engagement with the URBACT Action Planning Network\u00a0iPlace<\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u2013 which is supporting smaller cities to find their niches for sustainable local economic development \u2013 has been a direct and practical help.<\/p>\n iPlace Lead Expert Wessel Badenhorst explains: \u201cGrosseto is a new city to URBACT and establishing their ULG was challenging. They did a lot of hard work and had their first ULG meeting [at the end of 2019]. Then when lockdown hit, they were able to ‘leverage’ the ULG as a single communication platform with their business community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Indeed, the ULG structure ended up being critical. \u201cWhen the pandemic hit in March, the ULG was temporarily enlarged by the administration to a \u2018macro\u2019 ULG, involving not just local associations, but wider institutions and professional bodies,\u201d says\u00a0Annalisa David, the iPlace Communication Officer for Grosseto<\/span>. \u201cIt allowed us to understand local needs from a range of different stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, when the administration has something new to propose, it brings the stakeholders of the macro ULG together and asks what they think. \u201cIt\u2019s a new way for the administration to relate to the citizens,\u201d says David.<\/p>\n The macro ULG was divided into eight smaller working groups tackling different issues in response to the challenges of the pandemic \u2013 from tourism and commerce to construction and communications \u2013 and came up with innovative proposals to help Grosseto. \u201cAlready by May, we had those ideas translated into concrete projects,\u201d says David.<\/p>\n The projects included a wide range of measures. The municipality decided to postpone almost all tax payments from citizens to help people recover financially from the crisis. To guarantee social distancing, the city decreed that businesses such as restaurants and cafes could have free use of public space outside their premises for the whole of 2020.<\/p>\n A marketing project,\u00a0MAreMMA Nel Cuore<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Maremma in your heart) was started to help promote local agricultural produce in Grosseto\u2019s shops and restaurants. A new free app, the\u00a0Ermes Shop<\/a><\/span>\u00a0was developed to help connect people to local businesses so that commercial activities could recover.<\/p>\n Existing civic projects were fast-tracked too. Grosseto\u2019s municipality had already been working on implementing a network of cycling paths to connect the town centre with various key tourist sites. \u201cThe pandemic accelerated that goal,\u201d explains David. As well as the network of cycle paths, more bike racks are being installed around the town and e-bike and electric vehicle charging stations are being implemented across the wider province. David hopes this might bring new tourists to Grosseto.<\/p>\n Both cities are using the experiences of their URBACT networks to support their recovery from the pandemic and build sustainable local futures. This will directly impact the preparation of their\u00a0Integrated Action Plans<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for sustainable urban development.<\/p>\n Even further ahead, in Grosseto,\u00a0Annalisa David believes the macro ULG will continue as a way to discuss issues beyond the iPlace network, as the structure has been so helpful for the city: \u201cThe ULG showed us how to solve problems quickly by ourselves rather than waiting for external help \u2013 and demonstrated how we can best harness resources.\u201d<\/p>\n In Dubrovnik,\u00a0Alisa Vlasic hopes the city will ultimately re-embrace tourism without overtourism. The municipality aims to connect its Tourism-Friendly Cities Action Plan with its existing\u00a0Respect the City<\/a><\/span>\u00a0project, which was launched by the mayor in 2018 to help make tourism more balanced and responsible.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Once a big crisis like this happens, it can lead to two situations,\u201d says Vlasic. \u201cEither people scramble to recover economically and go back to normal at any cost, or they work to incrementally build back better.\u201d Both of these cities are doing the latter and the URBACT programme will continue to support them and smaller cities like them in achieving their goals.<\/p>\nRe-imagining tourism in Dubrovnik<\/h3>\n
ULG innovation in Grosseto<\/h3>\n
Looking to the future<\/h3>\n