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The implementation of the Smart Specialisation approach was expected to require an especially challenging commitment to policy learning in less advanced regions compared with advanced ones. This pa...

In the present paper, we intend to provide a preliminary framework to analyze the process of digitalization in opera consumption, by exploring the analogies with digitalization in luxury markets. Two main issues are discussed. First, we consider digitalization as a tool for market expansion and possibly “democratization” through increased accessibility. Evidence suggests that, rather than generating new opera audiences, digitalization provides an extension of opera experience for the existing customer base, that is especially relevant for second and third “tier” customers. Second, we look at the early stages in the adoption of digital marketing approaches and especially at the creation of online communities based on social networks.

This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary research work on the emergence and impact of virtual technologies on the valorization of cultural experience. After reviewing the literature on immersive museography and the concepts of immersion, interaction and social interaction within a cultural experience, we focus our analysis on the drivers of the users’ satisfaction through a three-step research path. Firstly, we realized a preliminary qualitative overview of users’ reactions to virtual environments in a series of selected cultural experiences. Secondly, we designed a model focusing on immersion and social interaction as the two potentially critical drivers of satisfaction. Thirdly, we realized a quantitative study of a project concerning an intangible cultural asset. The results of this study give evidence to the link between immersion and emotion and emphasize the essential mediating role of social interaction. These conclusions are consistent with present technological and market trends, concerning the integration of virtual reality and social networks.

Tourism is one of the most important industries in the world. On the one hand, tourism activities provide a significant boost to many national economies but on the other hand, they severely impact the environment. Tourism SMEs are therefore needed to transform their activities from a linear economy to a circular economy (CE). However, the tourism industry has not yet shown a clear and decisive transition towards CE. There is no or very little academic discussion on why the tourism industry has not yet adopted CE and how tourism SMEs can adopt CE. In this context, we analyzed a sample of 256 tourism SMEs (hotels and accommodations, travel agencies, tour operators, and reservation service activities) based in Cyprus, France, Italy, and Spain. Our survey reveals a ruthless situation regarding the adoption of environmental certifications. There is a very low demand to adopt an environmental certification in the tourism industry. Moreover, the adoption of CE among tourism SMEs is not so high. The main factors that hinder the adoption of green or CE practices are lack of funds, lack of information about potential partners, and lack of skilled personnel. Nonetheless, many tourism SMEs perceive that CE adoption leads to various positive outcomes. Our study provides some suggestions to facilitate the transition towards CE in the tourism industry.

The paper aims to reach insights into city branding in the Covid-19 context to discuss the projected brand propositions and their reliance oan sustainable brand attributes and values. This study explores the immediate response of overtouristified cities to the post-pandemic crisis by focusing on four iconic cultural cities in Italy, which are Florence, Milan, Rome, and Venice, and the related Facebook communication in summer 2020, right after the end of the lockdown following the first wave of contagion in the country. A content analysis of the official Facebook accounts of these cities provided an explorative insight into different destination brand approaches to dealing with the pandemic threat, revealed fading urban characters of the tourism experience and an expansion of the destinations from a spatial perspective, towards city-region destinations. The findings suggest potential configurations of the sustainable destination brand whose formation, in the case of the overtouristified cities, deserves further attention throughout the evolution of the Covid-19 crisis.

Le dossier thématique de ce numéro de la revue Téoros se veut une contribution à une réflexion sur le phénomène du tourisme urbain et l’impact à long terme de ce dernier sur les territoires. Il s’agit de réflexions ponctuelles qui, tout de même, abordent des questions clés, surtout sur le plan de l’encadrement conceptuel. Quatre articles composent ce dossier thématique. Ils répondent, chacun à sa manière, aux mutations et aux transformations continues que le tourisme fait aux villes. The thematic file of this issue of the Téoros journal is intended as a further reflection on the phenomenon of urban tourism and its long-term impact on host locations. These periodic reflections address key questions, especially in terms of establishing a conceptual framework. Four articles make up the thematic file. Each article represents a unique response to the continuous mutations and transformations that tourism brings to urban space.

This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary research work on the emergence and impact of virtual technologies on the valorization of cultural experience. After reviewing the literature on immersive museography and the concepts of immersion, interaction and social interaction within a cultural experience, we focus our analysis on the drivers of the users’ satisfaction through a three-step research path. Firstly, we realized a preliminary qualitative overview of users’ reactions to virtual environments in a series of selected cultural experiences. Secondly, we designed a model focusing on immersion and social interaction as the two potentially critical drivers of satisfaction. Thirdly, we realized a quantitative study of a project concerning an intangible cultural asset. The results of this study give evidence to the link between immersion and emotion and emphasize the essential mediating role of social interaction. These conclusions are consistent with present technological and market trends, concerning the integration of virtual reality and social networks.

This chapter focuses on the profile of the new generation of Chinese creative entrepreneurs in the fashion and luxury industry and investigates, in an exploratory way, the mix of endogenous factors that support their growth in the specific context of the city of Beijing. Based on a review of the elements characterising the present stage of development of this industry and on the results of interviews of two emerging brands within a concept store hosting them, the authors argue that in the struggle to affirm the positive value of Chinese creativity, this new breed of entrepreneurs is developing a syncretic mix of Chinese, Asian and Western elements rather than proposing a nationalistic rediscovery of Chineseness. A Beijing effect is also visible, giving evidence of the relationship between art and fashion. Finally, their growth and success appears in tune with the government’s domestic and international policy.

This chapter investigates the most recent trends of industrial policy in Italy and questions to what extent the government led by Matteo Renzi (February 2014 – December 2016) introduced discontinuities – and which these were – in this area of public policy.

Tourism is undergoing fundamental changes with regard to market, industry structure and the product itself; changes driven by an even more fundamental transition to ‘post-modern’ patterns of consumption that makes tourism one of the benchmarks of modes of production and consumption in the knowledge economy. Tourism plays, quantitatively and qualitatively, an unprecedented role in shaping economic development, while consolidated tourism models should rapidly adapt themselves to a new and changing reality. This chapter introduces and provides the background for the discussion developed in this book, which addresses multiple interconnections between tourism and the city from a policy-oriented research standpoint. After an overview of trends characterising city tourism in the global context, the chapter focuses on Europe, where city tourism has been the most dynamic tourism segment. However, besides EU engagement with the development of a tourism policy framework, urban tourism seems to play a secondary role in the European tourism vision, in which tourism is interpreted as a potential economic alternative for lagging areas where other economic drivers have been historically weak. Through discussion of possible explanations, the chapter develops an analysis of the EU Urban Portal to outline tourism representation in connection with the urban agenda of the European Union and concludes by presenting this book’s structure.

This chapter draws conclusions by stressing that, through the wide coverage of different perspectives, this book describes the ‘burst’ of the city tourism concept, showing the several and relatively uncontrollable—and thus difficult to manage—nuances of tourism(s) in the urban context. In particular, the chapter discusses what tourism research is supposed to suggest to policymakers. It distinguishes three plausible scenarios in which the weight of urban tourism in development strategies may vary, i.e. marginal tourism, dominant tourism and surrogate tourism, and articulates them by emphasising different features and variations in how synergies between city tourism and urban development take place.

005 Riassunto Muovendo da una rassegna della letteratura, l'articolo si propone di applicare il paradigma relazionale aldi luogo. Definito il concetto di brand reticolare, gli autori propongono una procedura di analisi per un suo utilizzo nella ricerca empirica. Tale strumento interpretativo č utilizzato nell'analisi del caso Val di Cornia (Toscana), una rete di comuni che cooperano per lo sviluppo locale. Grazie alla- che costituisce una novitÀ metodologica in tale ambito di ricerca - gli autori riflettono sulla capacitÀ della rete di favorire un cambio di immagine e, dunque, effetti didell'area mediante la definizione di un nuovo spazio fisico da cui vengono estrapolati nuovi elementi identitari. Oltre a testare gli strumenti analitici proposti, i risultati della ricerca consentono di dimostrare l'effettivo processo diin Val di Cornia e suggeriscono l'importanza di una strategia di marchio ben definita ai fini di una sua sostenibilitÀ.

This article is based on the case study of the establishment of the campus of Tongji University (TU) in Florence, Italy, in 2014. This is the first offshore campus of a Chinese university in a Western country, showing an innovative trend, in particular concerning the legitimacy within the host sociopolitical and economic context. This article frames the case in the scenario of academic internationalization and Chinese higher education. The article analyzes the internationalization strategy of TU and the peculiar evolution of Florence as an “education hub,” and gives a detailed account of the process leading to the establishment of the campus. Conclusions emphasize the innovative features related to Tongji’s choice to follow a delocalized platform approach and to network with local actors. This imposes a more complex view of the impact on the host region.

Competition in global markets shapes a multi-dimensional space so that a given geographical context can imply the simultaneous presence of very different competitors. Research and innovation are acknowledged to play a key role in maintaining sustainable levels of growth and employment. Restoring sustainable growth will only be possible if the EU boosts competitiveness and promotes innovation in the industry and services sectors. In recent years, the so-called “smart specialisation” has assumed great importance in the policies for economic growth of European regions. The smart specialisation strategy defines itself as a flexible and dynamic innovation strategy for a new phase of development, which passes through the global transformation of the economic environment.

Two cases of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) colitis with pseudoneoplastic appearance are described. Patients presented with abdominal pain, fever, and diarrhea. Colonoscopy revealed a stenosing lesion in one patient and a broad-based, vegetant mass in the other patient, and histopathological examination of colectomy specimens revealed exuberant inflammatory masses with infiltration of mononuclear cells and ulcers with granulation tissue. Typical intranuclear HCMV inclusions were numerous. Peculiar to both patients was the lack of any apparent causes of immunodeficiency, such as human immunodeficiency virus infection or previous organ transplantation.

The use of ultrashort-pulsed lasers for molecule delivery and transfection has proved to be a non-invasive and highly efficient technique for a wide range of mammalian cells. This present study investigates the effectiveness of femtosecond photoporation in plant cells, a hard-to-manipulate yet agriculturally relevant cell type, specifically suspension tobacco BY-2 cells. Both spatial and temporal shaping of the light field is employed to optimise the delivery of membrane impermeable molecules into plant cells using a reconfigurable optical system designed to be able to switch easily between different spatial modes and pulse durations. The use of a propagation invariant Bessel beam was found to increase the number of cells that could be viably optoinjected, when compared to the use of a Gaussian beam. Photoporation with a laser producing sub-12 fs pulses, coupled with a dispersion compensation system to retain the pulse duration at focus, reduced the power required for efficient optical injection by 1.5-1.8 times when compared to a photoporation with a 140 fs laser output.

We thank the UK EPSRC for funding, the CR-UK/EPSRC/MRC/DoH (England) imaging programme, the European Union project FAMOS (FP7 ICT, contract no. 317744) and the European Union project IIIOS (FP7/2007-2013, contract no. 238802). We thank Tayside Tissue Bank for providing us with the tissue samples under request number TR000289. K.D. is a Royal Society-Wolfson Merit Award Holder. Optical spectroscopy and imaging methods have proved to have potential to discriminate between normal and abnormal tissue types through minimally invasive procedures. Raman spectroscopy and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) provides chemical and morphological information of tissues respectively, which are complementary to each other. When used individually they might not be able to obtain high enough sensitivity and specificity that is clinically relevant. In this study we combined Raman spectroscopy information with information obtained from OCT to enhance the sensitivity and specificity in discriminating between Colonic Adenocarcinoma from Normal Colon. OCT being an imaging technique, the information from this technique is conventionally analyzed qualitatively. To combine with Raman spectroscopy information, it was essential to quantify the morphological information obtained from OCT. Texture analysis was used to extract information from OCT images, which in-turn was combined with the information obtained from Raman spectroscopy. The sensitivity and specificity of the classifier was estimated using leave one out cross validation (LOOCV) method where support vector machine (SVM) was used for binary classification of the tissues. The sensitivity obtained using Raman spectroscopy and OCT individually was 89% and 78% respectively and the specificity was 77% and 74% respectively. Combining the information derived using the two techniques increased both sensitivity and specificity to 94% demonstrating that combining complementary optical information enhances diagnostic accuracy. These results demonstrate that a multimodal approach using Raman-OCT would be able to enhance the diagnostic accuracy for identifying normal and cancerous tissue types. Publisher PDF

Bianchi Giuliano, Bellini Nicola, Négrier Emmanuel. La programmation du développement régional. Des velléités à l'utopie réaliste : le cas de la Toscane. In: Pôle Sud, n°8, 1998. Elections et politiques régionales, sous la direction de Emmanuel Négrier . pp. 98-113.

Chinese nationals already make up one quarter of global luxury consumption and therefore represent the biggest group of luxury consumers worldwide (Bain & Co, 2012). It seems that there exists a considerable imbalance between the Chinese consumption and production of luxury. Many Western luxury consumers can hardly name a single Chinese luxury brand. However, although it is not on the radar of many experts and most consumers yet, the luxury business community in China is already emerging in big steps. China became an important manufacturing hub for semi-finished luxury products, which already helped building-up industry-specific know-how. The country is also best representing the entrepreneurial spirit in the luxury segment; there is a variety of Western and Chinese market players setting up China-specific luxury brands. New Chinese luxury brands include, for instance, Longio (watches), Mary Ching (shoes), NE Tiger (wedding dresses), Qeelin (jewelry) and Shang Xia (apparel, interior decoration; Heine and Phan, 2013). For the last decades, consumers and marketers strongly believed in the basic principle: Western stuff is hot – and Chinese stuff is not (O'Cass and Siahtiri, 2013). So are Chinese consumers actually ready for Chinese luxury brands? The objective of this paper is to analyze the challenges and strategies of Chinese luxury start-ups – with reference to the attitudes and preferences of Chinese luxury consumers. As Chinese luxury consumers and brands are still underexplored objects of investigation, which cannot be understood adequately by mere quantitative research, we employ an explorative approach with reference to the Grounded Theory. Based on a selection of (potential) Chinese luxury brands, we derive criteria that help answering the question: What are actually Chinese Luxury Brands? The “Chineseness” of a luxury brand depends, for instance, on the location of its headquarters (Mainland, Hongkong or even Taiwan) and the nationality of key people involved including the founders, designers, artisans and the CEO. Based on an analysis of potential Chinese luxury brands, we identified nine major types of players in the Chinese luxury market and their strategies to create Chinese luxury brands. Major Chinese luxury players include, for instance, Western luxury corporations, Chinese designers and Chinese (state-controlled) corporations. It already became quite common for Western luxury corporations to set-up their own more or less “Chinese” luxury brand. For instance, Hermes created Shang Xia and Estee Lauder Osiao (cosmetics). Other options for Western luxury brands include taking over Chinese luxury ventures (such as Shanghai Tang by Richemont) or acquiring Chinese premium brands or traditional Chinese handicraft brands in order to upgrade them into luxury brands. This is done, for instance, by LVMH group, who acquired a majority share in the time-honored winemaker Changyu. Many well-known Western luxury brands such Chanel or Dior were set up by designers. Accordingly, there exist already some successful Chinese fashion designer brands such as NE Tiger (since 1992 by Zhifeng Zhang), Maryma (by Mary Ma since 1999), Rose Studio (by Guo Pei since 1997), and Xander Zhou (since 2007), who may develop into (international) luxury brands. Similar to entrepreneurs, some big Chinese (state-controlled) corporations corporations aim expanding into the luxury segment because they expect attractive business opportunities, but may also aim to improve their corporate and/or brand image. Examples include Shanghai Vive by Jahwa group and SheJi-Sorgere by China Garments group. The combination of market players and their desire and strategies in creating country-specific luxury brands is truly unique to China. For instance, big luxury houses such LVMH never perceived another market such as Germany or the US as that specific and above all relevant enough to set up a specific luxury brand especially for that market. In the subsequent section, the paper shifts its focus to the Chinese luxury consumers. At the very core of this discussion lie the mobile and multi-faceted (and sometimes ambiguous) associations of China with luxury perception (Rovai 2014). These relate to both consumer behavior (the Chinese market for luxury) and production (the reputation of Chinese producers of luxury goods and services). Based on a content-analysis of current literature and press, we categorize and discuss the factors that may impact the attitudes of Chinese consumers towards Chinese luxury brands with reference to the major luxury consumer segments in China. These factors include, for instance, the increased sophistication of consumers, the international exposure of Chinese consumers, the rejection of “potlatch behaviour”, the empowerment of women in Chinese society, the emergence of a creative class in China, the slow fashion movement, the reversal of intergenerational influences, and the “sinofication” trend – the New Cultural Revolution led by the “young emperors” (or “Sugar Generation”), the generation born after 1978 (Wang and He, 2014). Subsequently, we are analyzing the attitudes and preferences of Chinese luxury consumers with a small-scale qualitative survey. We concentrate on the “young emperors” generation and especially on the segments of white collar workers and the second generation rich. We conducted several in-depth interviews about their luxury preferences and then, following an empathic research approach, we went shopping together with the respondents to develop a better and real-life understanding of these luxury consumer segments. The results are content-analyzed and presented with reference to case studies of Chinese luxury brands. On the one hand, the sophistication and sinofication trends of the Chinese creative class may threaten the big Western luxury brands, but on the other hand, they create a basis for the development of Chinese luxury start-ups and increases the chances of Western luxury SME’s and connoisseur brands in China. Based on our analysis of the Chinese luxury consumer behavior, the paper concludes with some recommendations for the development of luxury brands in China.

This chapter aims at framing ‘creativity, culture and taste’ as soft aspects of knowledge creation and accumulation, and as drivers of innovativeness, a ‘fertile ground’ for niche specializations for many regions (Camagni and Capello, 2013: 362). Creativity, culture and taste are, in fact, often overlooked in the discourse on innovation in Europe, despite their great potential in geographical contexts that are rich in cultural heritage and cultural diversity. There is a need to reflect on regional innovation and entrepreneurial innovativeness by considering ‘cultural inputs’ (Amin and Thrift, 2007) as impulses to economic value creation. This occurs in cultural industries that, inextricably based on cultural production and consumption, have an economic as well as a cultural presence in contemporary society (Pratt, 2008). As this chapter will show, beyond cultural industries, an enlarging set of entrepreneurs consciously appropriates and recombines cultural inputs in order to enrich and innovate their products and services. In so doing they produce cultural meanings, symbols and aesthetic values that, as we shall see below, may become part of regional cultural heritage.

Preface Nicola Bellini and Ulrich Hilpert Part I: Introduction 1. Europe's Changing Regional Geography: The impact of inter-regional networks Nicola Bellini and Ulrich Hilpert Part II: New Challenges and New Patterns of Collaboration 2. European Macro-Regions as a New Dimension of European Geography: Networks of collaboration in the light of culture, history and language capabilities Alexander Nagler Part III: Europe's New Regionalisation: The integration of regional activities through macroregions 3. The Baltic Sea Region: Who cooperates with whom, and why? Carsten Schymik 4. Towards a `Wide Area Co-operation': The economic rationale and political feasibility of the Adriatic Euroregion Alberto Bramanti and Paolo Rosso 5. A Typology of Agents and Subjects of Regional Cooperation: The experience of the Mediterranean Arc Antoni Dura i Guimera and Xavier Oliveras Gonzalez Part IV: Europe's Re-Regionalisation Across Borders 6. Transnational Infrastructure Projects and Their Impact on Region-Building in the Southwestern Baltic Sea Region Magdalena Schoenweitz 7. Incentives and Obstacles to Cross-Border Cooperation in Post-Communist Central Europe Gergo Medve-Balint 8. The Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion: Policy networks and institutional capacities Pilar Rodriguez Francesco Morata and Andrea Noferini Part V: Conclusions 9. Europe's Changing Geography in Perspective Nicola Bellini and Ulrich Hilpert