Dr Heather Skinner
The annual Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places was established in 2014, and is now organized by the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University
The 5th Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places will be held between 16th - 19th April 2018, and will focus on the theme of 'Changing Places: Visions of Utopia or Dystopia?'. The Call for Papers is currently open. Deadline for submission of 1000 word extended abstracts is 11th December 2017. SMART growth, inclusive growth, degrowth, devolution, revitalisation, placemaking, place branding and destination marketing: A list of common place practices or ambitions. But what future do these bring to the towns, cities, regions or nations in which they are adopted? The theme of the 5th Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places is to explore the utopian or dystopian visions associated with the place practices we study, promote or enact. Whilst we do not expect all authors to provide this reflection themselves, time will be devoted, within the symposium, to collectively discuss and debate the potential impact on places tomorrow from the work we do today.
If you are thinking of joining us in 2018, take a look at some fabulous images of our 2017 event that have been put together in a short video by our photographer Ian Southerin of Location Photography.
The 4th Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places focused on the theme of 'Place Making from Various Gazes', reflecting current developments in both the theory and practice of place management, marketing, and branding, along with developments into our knowledge about sustainable places and responsible tourism, all of which rely for success upon the co-ordinated efforts of multiple stakeholders, each of which may have different, and sometimes competing, objectives and purposes.
The 3rd Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places with a focus on 'thinking and re-thinking about places’ considered the way places and spaces are contested, formed and re-formed, the way places are theorised differently in various academic disciplines, and what this means for the practice of managing and marketing places.
The 2nd Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places was concerned with “Connecting People and Places”, reflecting the increasing quest for authenticity in tourists’ experiences, both from a supply and demand perspective. Issues of ‘connecting’ people and places therefore become important for place managers and marketers, for a wide range of tourism-related businesses, and also for tourists themselves. The Symposium explored the ways the tourism product can be created, communicated and delivered in order to increase authenticity through experiential consumption.
The 1st Corfu Symposium on Managing & Marketing Places focused on the theme of "Responses to the decline in Mass Tourism - Engaging Stakeholders and Effecting Positive Change". This theme reflected the global decline in mass tourism as travellers, who are increasingly choosing to travel independently, or with smaller tour operators, seek more ‘authenticity’ in their vacation experiences. However, this preference for ‘unbundling’ the package holiday by certain market segments coincides with a growth in All-Inclusive holiday packages being offered by many larger tour operators.