Examining antecedents of residents’ support for the European Capital of Culture project – event’s sustainability perception, emotional solidarity, community attachment and brand trust

PurposeThe primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects on support for the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) project development of residents’ perception of the project’s sustainability, emotional solidarity toward tourists, community attachment and brand trust.Design/methodology/approachSurvey research was conducted among 303 residents of Novi Sad, which has been selected to be the ECoC for the year 2022.FindingsThe findings confirmed the positive roles of three aspects of the event’s sustainability and three facets of emotional solidarity in shaping local people’s support for the ECoC event development. Besides, findings show the positive effect of residents’ community attachment and ECoC brand trust in predicting their supportive attitudes for the event development. Finally, results highlight which areas of the event’s sustainability are still unsatisfactory from the residents’ perspective, making it easier for event practitioners to optimally focus their attention and resources on enhancing problematic areas of the event’s sustainability.Originality/valueThe present study contributes to existing tourism literature as it is the first to explore the role local people’s perception of event sustainability, emotional solidarity toward tourists, community attachment and brand trust plays in their support for the ECoC event development. In addition, a unique contribution lies in the confirmation of brand trust as a significant antecedent of residents’ support, as this relationship remained an unexplored area in tourism literature. Practical implications, specifically derived for ECoC event practitioners, which should also find their place in securing residents’ support toward the development of any cultural event that attracts visitors, are discussed in the paper.

Veszprém-Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture Title for Sustainable Cooperation

The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) title enables European citizens to learn about one another's culture, to admire the relics of their common past, and to experience the wealth of European values and the sense of belonging together. Winner cities and regions wish to sustain the effect of the title in order to maintain economic, social and cultural prosperity. Veszprém and Balaton region in Hungary won the title for 2023, which influences local and regional destination management. The aim of the research is to introduce the key role, factors, and pitfalls of local and regional stakeholders' network system and to highlight the challenges of sustainable cooperation.

User Evaluation of a Multi-Platform Digital Storytelling Concept for Cultural Heritage

Digital storytelling platforms have proven to be a great way of bringing cultural heritage closer to people. What lacks is a deeper understanding of the user experience of such systems, especially in multi-platform digital storytelling. For the last three years, we have been developing a project called Spotlight Heritage Timisoara, which is at its core a digital storytelling platform for the city of Timisoara (Romania), soon to be European Capital of Culture in 2023. The project consists of a website, mobile applications, and interactive museographic and street exhibitions. This paper presents a multi-platform usability evaluation study which employed semi-structured interviews, observations, think-aloud protocol, SUS questionnaire, Net Promoter Score and Product Reaction Cards to gather insights from 105 participants and reveal usability problems in the Spotlight Heritage context. We found out that the four platforms, i.e., interactive touchscreen table, desktop/laptop, mobile and Augmented Reality, have very good usability scores, are considered accessible and useful, work seamlessly together, and create user satisfaction and loyalty, across demographic groups, having the potential to bring people closer to cultural heritage.

Digital Technologies for the Promotion of Cultural History Best Practices in Matera, the European Capital of Culture in 2019

The relationship between cultural landscape, history and technology is crucial to understand the new tendency of man to carry out actions based on sustainability and on the intertwining of tradition and innovation. Matera, thanks to the current use of technologies for cultural heritage and Smart Agriculture 5G, of which it is one of the experimental cities, is an interesting case study. European Capital of Culture 2019 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the City of Stones is characterised by a thousand-year history of archaeological evidence, but also by a material and intangible cultural heritage linked to rural culture and its agricultural landscape, now widely accessible to visitors through digital platforms.