Implementation of hallmark events among tourism stakeholders: the
discourses of Umeå’s bid for European Capital of Culture 2014
Ulrika Åkerlund*
Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeå University, Sweden
Regional competitiveness has become a truism for many places today. In line with this ‘competitive
discourse’, strategic planners in Umeå, Northern Sweden, are seeking to create a ‘sticky’ place
where capital and people are attracted by enhancing the cultural sector through the hosting of
tourism hallmark events. By implementing the bid for the title of European Capital of Culture in
2014 through a positive growth-oriented discourse, it is hoped that Umeå’s culture, business,
political and other sectors will come together in a network of “co-creation”, and enhance an image
of the city as a creative and gushing place with endless development possibilities. This article
studies the way the public sector constructs an “official”, boosterist discourse for creating positive
expectations and engagement among tourism stakeholders. It further explores how this discourse is
received among the stakeholders, what new discourses emerge around the bid, and how the various
discourses interact. The results of this study show that implementation is not merely a marketing
process, but different types of discourse will evolve that may contest the “official” one, and that the
outcomes of the implementation strategy may be hard to control unless the “official” discourse is
consciously elaborated to adapt to these counter-discourses.
Keywords: tourism hallmark events; implementation; stakeholders; discourse analysis; “cocreation”; counter-discourse
Introduction
”We do not wish to consider Umeå as a spot on the map, but as a force for development of ideas,
attitudes and democratic approaches to making things happen. A force that supports our children and
our citizens, our culture actors and culture institutions, our students and our universities, our
entrepreneurs and businesses, our rich sports culture with their leaders and our public associations.
In the venture for European Capital of Culture we wish to further strengthen this force by inviting
collaboration partners from around Europe. Our ambition is to enhance European collaboration
through the method of Open Source that facilitates co-creation, contributes to border-crossing
expressions of culture and strengthens democracy.” (Umeå2014, 2008 p. 15, author’s translation)
Growth and economic development are the key words of many societies and political
institutions, indeed it is argued that “the very essence of a locality is its operation as a
growth machine” (Molotch, 1976 p. 310), because the expansion of industries and the
labor force, growing population numbers, increasing commerce and communications are
seen as crucial factors for the sheer survival of places. Because of improvements in
technology, increasing consumption and the rise of wealthier middle classes in many
parts of the world, tourism has become a major sector of economic development for
many places and regions (Hall, 2005). Events and festivals are popular ventures to boost
the tourism sector, indeed it is suggested that “every region, at least in the developed
world, have sought to develop festivals” (Gibson & Connell, 2005 p. 215). While most of
*Email: ulrika.akerlund@geography.umu.se
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these are of a very small scale, however, large scale events and festivals are promoted as
tools for development by many leading actors and politicians. Special events are
generally used for the promotion of favorable images of the region, and as means of
making the place ‘sticky’ (Markusen, 1996), or in other words; attractive for people and
investment. Partly because of their high visibility, and partly because the limited time
period during which they are hosted – which may be thought to lessen the risk for
negative impacts – large scale events pose a significant component of place promotion
and competition in the increasingly hardening and globalized market for the mobile
capital and people (Hall, 2005; 2006). To strive for competitiveness has become a crucial
truism for places, in what has been called a hegemonic discourse – the ‘competitiveness
hegemony’ (Bristow, 2005).
Scholars have argued that sustainable development of an economic sector may
only be successful if local entrepreneurs and stakeholders are genuinely engaged and
involved in the process, not least in decision-making and other processes of
empowerment (Faulkner, 2003; Murphy & Murphy, 2004). To encourage engagement
should therefore be crucial to public developers and project leaders. For example, the bid
made by the municipality of Umeå for European Capital of Culture 2014 is enhanced as a
“Co-Creation” venture, where local stakeholders are invited to engage themselves in the
event, which is promoted to ensure the future growth and prosperity of the city and region
of Umeå. It is therefore important to scrutinize what role discourse plays in encouraging
or discouraging engagement, and how these discourses are created.
The opening quote gives a short illustration of how the event is promoted by the
political leaders of the municipality as a tool for development of the city. The event is
argued to have a positive effect not only in the economic sector but a boost also for
cultural and social capital, in an attempt to create positive attitudes among local
stakeholders. Further, the surrounding region is also argued to gain from the event. A
main argument forwarded in this paper is that stakeholder expectations play a key role in
the implementation of a tourism development proposal, and that these expectations are
formed by discourse. The study will hence analyze how the implementation strategies of
bidding for a large scale event is received by tourism stakeholders, by exploring
discourses among stakeholders and the public sector. The case studied for this text is
Umeå’s bid for the European Capital of Culture event (ECOC) for the year 2014. Key
aim is to find how stakeholder expectations and engagement are shaped by present
discourses, and how these discourses might be consciously developed to encourage or
discourage involvement.
To guide the analysis, the following research questions were asked: a) What
discourses are present among tourism stakeholders around the bid for ECOC 2014? b)
How are these discourses interacting? c) What expectations and attitudes do the
discourses create among tourism stakeholders concerning ECOC 2014? The first question
aims to pinpoint and present the existing discourses, among tourism stakeholders, as well
as the public planning office’s discourse. It further aims to compare them. The second
question asks how these discourses are shaped by power relations, and how they evolve
in interaction with each other. Further, it questions whether the discourses are
consciously being used to influence others in a certain direction. The third research
question explores the effects of the discourses; what expectations do the stakeholders
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hold for the event, and what role have discourses played in creating these expectations?
Can discourse be used to make stakeholders act, to encourage or discourage engagement?
The remainder of the article first outlines relevant theoretical aspects of tourism
and culture as well as cultural tourism events and the role of discourse in shaping
stakeholder expectations and attitudes. Thereafter empirical results are presented, starting
with a description of the ECOC event, and followed by the results of the discourse study.
The data is analyzed with a method of discourse analysis inspired by critical discourse
analysis (CDA) which pinpoints the power relations, and ‘interdiscursive analysis’
(Fairclough, 2003; 2005), emphasizing the interaction between various discourses.
Conclusions and discussion follows hereafter, where the settings of this case is discussed
in relation to the prior theoretical knowledge.
Culture and tourism – starting points
The study field of tourism is vast, and draws from many disciplines. Concerning culture
and tourism studies, two main aspects stands out because “culture can be perceived both
as an aspect of life and a sector of activities” (Sjøholt, 1999 p. 339). Much of the
literature has been dominated by the social sciences, focusing on the cultures and
identities of host communities and tourists, and on heritage tourism (e.g. Ashworth &
Larkham, 1994; Richards, 1996). A special interest have been the promotion,
presentation and staging of culture; particularly indigenous cultures (e.g. Butler & Hinch,
2007; Pettersson, 2004; Ryan & Aicken, 2005). Indigenous rights, commodification and
empowerment are among the keywords of this field of research. Another body of
literature regarding culture and tourism can be found in economics and management,
with an emphasis on measurable effects, and the management of the touristic
consumption of arts and heritage (Prentice, 1993; Hughes, 2002), where it is argued that
culture and tourism enjoys a beneficial symbiosis because “the arts create attractions for
tourism and tourism supplies extra audiences for the arts” (Meyerscough, 1988, as cited
in Hughes, 2002 p. 164). These two branches of research may both have interest in
cultural events, or festivals, where tourism can be considered both a contributor to
development, and a risk for imposing a negative effect on the community in terms of
cultural change or commodification.
Event tourism and hallmark events
In the context of cultural tourism; festivals, meets and special events are popularly
organized in regions, destinations, and places, to celebrate local persons or traditions, to
offer the local inhabitants a feast, or to boost economic development, particularly in
terms of tourism revenues. In terms of tourism development, festivals and events are
thought to present a good opportunity for several reasons. They are limited in time, which
lowers risk in terms of congestion, environmental degradation or large financial
investments related to, for example, the building up of permanent facilities. Festivals and
special events also provide chances of experiences considered to be out of the ordinary,
which may attract visitors from outside of the destination’s normal market segments.
(Getz, 2005; Gibson & Connell, 2005) Though almost all places have sought to organize
and develop festival and event tourism, most of these happenings are small in scale.
However, some places organize events of a larger scale, referred to as mega-, or hallmark
events. Hallmark events have caught the interest of several authors in the last two
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decades, focusing primarily on the economic or social effects of the events (e.g. Ritchie,
1984; Hall, 1989; Richards, 2000; Getz, 2005), or the marketing and organizing of events
(Larson, 2003). While the title of ‘mega’-event are normally referred to for events of
extraordinary significance, scale, and reputation such as Olympic Games or World Fairs,
the definition of a hallmark event might be more appropriate in this case. Ritchie defined
a hallmark event as a major event of limited duration, relying on “uniqueness, status, or
timely significance to create interest and attract attention” (1984 p. 2), hence, hallmark
status might be given an event that is so widely noticed that it becomes conceptually
connected to the place where it is held. The large scale impacts these events bring in
terms of economic effects, marketing, physical or social impacts, as well as the level of
international attention, is what constitutes the basis for the label of “hallmark” event
(Hall, 1989). Examples of hallmark events may be the Mardi Gras of New Orleans, the
Wimbledon in London, the Roskilde Rock Festival in Denmark, or mobile recurring
events like large scale international sporting events, or the European Capitals of Culture.
The ECOC as hallmark event
The mobile hallmark events, such as the examples stated above, might cause a definition
problem when considering the conceptual connection to place as a decisive factor.
However it will be argued that these events indeed fall under the label of hallmark event,
and that the notion of place even in these cases is an important one. The large scale
international sporting event proves a good example of this. The Olympic Games, i.e.,
might be argued to be highly globalised and “media-ised” (Luow, 1995 as cited in
Wilson, 1996 p. 603), and perhaps even disconnected from the place where it is held,
since it is so firmly rooted in its own traditions. However, Wilson (1996) argues that
place plays a key role in representing the “hostly” and logistical capacities of the nation,
rated on the success of the event. The event is assigned to one city each time, and the
long term of the social, physical, marketing and economic effects on the host city indeed
grants the present event hallmark status, despite the mobility of the event as such. In the
case of the ECOC event, it could be argued that, in particular, the marketing mileage of
the event characters it as hallmark. Here, the assigned city represents both the own
nation, and its role in a European perspective. Indeed, by the labeling of the host city as a
capital of Europe, the place connection becomes very strong even though the event itself
is mobile. Another potential problem is the definition of a hallmark event as short-term.
The ECOC event is normally held under the duration of one full year, however it is here
argued that the mobility of the event makes it an arrangement distinguished from the
normal activities of the host city, hence it reaches the uniqueness and timely significance
of a hallmark event.
When exploring the arguments put forward by policy-makers as well as
researchers for hosting hallmark events, main motives are usually the increase of
economic, social and cultural capital. For example, though the original ideas for the
ECOC event was to lift the idea of a common European culture, and make it accessible
internationally, a major argument for cities to host the event has been to increase tourism
revenues, to improve the city’s representation and encourage economic investment
(Richards, 2000). The EU is also promoting growth and development within the regions
of the Union by enthusiastically adopting regional competitiveness as one of the
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Commission’s policy goals (Bristow, 2005); a goal that the bidding process of events like
the ECOC certainly contributes to.
Tourism and culture, as noted above, is by many policy-makers argued to benefit
mutually from this type of ventures. Culture is generally seen as something that creates
understanding between peoples, and it is argued that culture may be used as a tool to
facilitate dialogue, interaction and cooperation (CEC, 2007), within and crossing regional
and national borders. Since the development of culture has shown such good
connotations, it is often promoted by political institutions. Indeed, “the promotion of
culture has become a centrally important theme in special events in all post-industrial
cities” (Ward, 1998 p. 203), and in the EU; the development, promotion and exposure of
culture is proposed to be acted upon. In its 2007 communication, An agenda for culture
in a globalizing world, the Commission suggested further action on the designation of
European Capitals of Culture, a recurring one-year event that cities in the member states
are competing to arrange. The reasons for the EU, and the designated cities, are stated as
above; to uplift the cultural sector and encourage international understanding, access to
culture and cooperation (CEC, 2007).
However, this approach is somewhat critiqued by some scholars who argue that
“the dominant power in society seeks to demonstrate and reinforce its values, or to win
support […] political controversy often surrounds the funding of events or bidding on
events at the community level” (Getz, 2005 p. 9), and that the “efforts made by an urban
elite to refashion collective emotion and consciousness within cities in order to legitimate
political projects” (Boyle, 1997 p. 1975) is largely in pursue of benefits for the elites’
own interests. Popular, public events are an effective way of turning the public opinion
positive, in a strategy named by Eisinger (2000); with reference to Roman history, as ‘the
politics of bread and circuses’, and the importance of culture as a source of growth and
economic development has also been noted by Richards, who argues that “larger
financial investments in the event are justified largely by the economic returns it is
expected to generate, rather than the cultural benefits the event may produce” (2000 p. 4).
As city marketing, even the bidding process for a hallmark event might be a beneficial
strategy. Even if the title is not won, the city might have earned marketing mileage by
being taken seriously as a contender (Ward, 1998).
Implementation and stakeholder engagement
While the planning, bidding and organizing efforts of event tourism often lies on the
public planners’ board, this top-down planning perspective is by scholars argued to be a
misunderstanding of the nature of tourism development, since the tourism stakeholders
(businesses, network coalitions, local inhabitants etc.) are the ones that in reality shape
the tourism products and experiences (e.g. Hall, 2000; Elbe, 2002; Murphy & Murphy,
2004). Any planning efforts that are imposed on stakeholders, rather than developed
together with them, have little effect on outcomes. “Creating and maintaining dialogue
therefore becomes a critical role of the tourism planner” (Hall, 2000 p. 189). The network
idea seems to be prevailing in successful events, where organizers, public planners and
various types of stakeholders together use their assembled contacts to mobilise and find
the necessary resources to arrange the event (e.g. Elbe, 2000; Larson, 2003), and as will
be shown later, this idea is also adopted by the planners of the Umeå2014 project. One of
the main challenges though, for a public planner aiming to organize an event, is to be able
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to engage and involve stakeholders in the planning process. The obvious way to
encourage stakeholders is to try and turn their expectations of the event positive because,
as is noted, there is a relationship between attitudes and support for the development of
tourism (Andereck & Vogt, 2000). This network idea, however, has not been adopted
generally for event planners and organizers, especially if the event is one of high
visibility and primarily promoted by the public sector: “mega-events are almost always
sought after by the community’s elite who stands to benefit the most, whereas ordinary
residents are seldom consulted” (Getz, 2005 p. 10), if it is not for the sake of showing off
positive polls. This may lead to clashes between stakeholders and planners when it comes
to implementing the strategies, especially if the goals and expectations are different. This
happened when Glasgow was organizing the ECOC in 1990, where the goals of the
planners in the government did not meet the expectations of some local groups, causing
protest and disquiet around the symbolic contents of the event, which was not thought to
be in line with the traditional image and the residents’ view of the city (Boyle & Hughes,
1994). This has parallels with tourism development in relation to indigenous peoples,
where commodification and exploitation of the indigenous culture as an “exotic”
attraction can pose a risk for conflict between planners and indigenous stakeholders
(Pettersson & Viken, 2007), if the goals and expectations of tourism development do not
coincide. This also could perhaps be avoided if the network idea is implemented already
in the planning stage of development.
Building a network on expectations – the role of discourse
How then could this network idea be implemented, and stakeholders encouraged to be
involved already in the planning process of tourism development? The argument that
expectations and engagement is much shaped by discourses around a certain project or
development proposal, is here forwarded. The origin of this idea is the notion of
language’s role in shaping norms of societies and individuals. In this term, language
might be understood as “a tool for social action” (Bathia, Flowerdew & Jones, 2008 p. 1),
drawing on social psychological theory, where discourse can be seen as a function that
constructs and forms social and individual identities (Fairclough, 2001). Drawing from
the works of Foucault (1971), critical discourse analysts (e.g. Wodak & Meyer, 2001;
Fairclough, 2003) have argued that this construction of identities and ideas are results of
power structures embedded in the use of language. As surely as one could argue that
“everything is discourse” (Derrida, 1978, as cited in Howarth, 2007 p. 10), even though
that notion might be contested, it could also be argued that underlying every structure in
society are power relations. While most advocates of critical discourse analysis focus on
inequity and social injustice, one must not forget the productive uses of power where
discourse might renovate unmodern traditions and structures (Flowerdew, 2008).
Could then discourse be consciously moderated to encourage stakeholders to
engage in planning and organizing activities? The following case study will shed more
light on this question, first however; the role of discourse in shaping expectations must be
discussed. Hall (2006) explains this as the role of the ‘neoliberal competitive discourse’,
which builds on the ideas and structures of neoliberal objectives of community
development, entrepreneurialism, business vitality, the attractiveness of places and
regions, and competitive advantages. By appealing to wider ‘community needs’ of
development, the sense of ‘citizenship’, “the strength of the neoliberal discourse of
6
competitiveness and the ‘necessity’ to become a place in which capital ‘sticks’” (Hall,
2006 p. 67), stakeholders and local residents may be apt to nurture hopeful expectations
and positive attitudes towards the bidding and staging of events. However, as truly as the
tourism experience is shaped by its many producers, it can not be said that stakeholder
expectations are shaped by one ruling discourse. Power structures are always weighed
between the powerful and the powerless ‘rebels’, and even though there might be a
widespread ‘official’ discourse, it can “never fully articulate all elements because there
will always be forces against which it is defined” (Howarth, 2007 p. 120), i.e. ‘counterdiscourses’. Further, the role of collaboration and networking through different sectors
will be noted. Murphy and Murphy (2004) pointed out the gaps that most often exist
between public planners and other stakeholders, and that they hinder the planning,
implementation and development processes in tourism planning. “Network arrangements
and conflict resolution are two spheres in which the tourism planner is extremely active
in working with relationships with planning stakeholders. […] Tourism planners are
therefore more often than not in these more entrepreneurial times involved in ‘linkmaking’ work between stakeholders, establishing relationships through the social glue of
trust” (Hall, 2000 p. 188-9). Expectations and engagement can here be shaped in the
interaction between the public ‘official’ discourse and the counter- or even nondiscourses that exist among the stakeholders. With non-discourse it is here meant when
the stakeholders simply do not know or care about the development.
Methodology
Discourse analysis
In this case study, the CDA perspective has inspired the discourse analysis inasmuch as
accepting the claim that power relations are present and in work in all human interactions
(Foucault, 1971). Perhaps is it even more so in this case, where the “pro-discourse” is put
forward by the public sector, that can be argued to hold an authoritative position in
society. Another influential perspective on discourse for this case has been the
“interdiscursive analysis” (Fairclough, 2003 p. 3; 2005 p. 920), where the interaction of
differing discourses is key to understanding texts and social structures. Key aim in
analyzing the discourses of the case study has been to explore the motives of the
stakeholders to take, or not take, interest in the bidding for ECOC 2014. By comparing
the arguments for doing, or not doing so, with the arguments put forward in the “official
discourse” of the project leaders, one may find out to what extent the discourse has been
influential, and what other discourses has influenced the stakeholders.
The body of discourse analysis research is relatively large, and the method has
repeatedly been used in tourism studies, however mostly in the study of rural tourism
settings, and/or third world destinations, or from the individual perspective of tourists or
local populations. Focus has mostly been on power relations in community-based tourism
development (e.g. Wearing & McDonald, 2002), discussing identity and gender issues
connected to travel or issues regarding tourist gazing and relationships between tourists
and natives (e.g. Bruner, 1991; Norton, 1996; Aitchison, 2001). Some studies have also
concerned tourism stakeholder reactions to tourism development proposals (e.g.
Markwick, 2000); however, this field is not thoroughly studied. Therefore, the author’s
knowledge of this method, to make it more comprehensive, has been drawn from a
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variety of literary sources, and several disciplines such as tourism, urban studies,
organizational studies, psychology etc.
Case study
The data material for the discourse analysis is collected from a set of open interviews
with tourism stakeholders and project organizers for the Umeå2014 project, and from the
application of Umeå to the EU for the title of ECOC 2014. Firstly, the project leader of
the Umeå2014 project was consulted and an hour-long interview carried out, to pinpoint
the “official” discourse. Issues that were discussed during this session regarded motives
for hosting the event, communications with stakeholders, the “co-creation” strategy,
perceived interest and attitudes from the stakeholders etc. Following were interviews with
various tourism stakeholders, which sought out how the “official” discourse is being
received, and whether there are any counter-discourses present among the stakeholders.
The interviewees were drawn from a variety of tourism stakeholders, including hoteliers,
activity providers, Sámi tourism providers and museum personnel. Both stakeholders in
Umeå and from outside of the city were consulted. Depending on the level of knowledge
about the event, these sessions spanned from about 10-30 minutes in length, and covered
issues such as expectations of the event, personal interest and engagement, attitudes and
how the stakeholders perceived the project organizer’s motives and ways of
communication. All interviews were fully transcribed. For the sake of ethical
considerations, and to allow respondents to speak freely about their thoughts, all tourism
stakeholders were granted full anonymity.
The Capital of Culture event and earlier studies
By desire to “bring European citizens closer together” (www.ec.europa.eu), the idea of
European cities of culture was launched in 1985 on the initiative of Greek minister of
culture Melina Mercouri. The first City of Culture was, perhaps not surprisingly, Athens,
and the event was deemed successful and worth continuing. The idea of the event is to
enhance European culture during one year, hosting cultural events that are of a scale
which draws international interest. A certain level of quality and significance is required,
and in combination with the high visibility and competitive advantages the event might
give the host city in terms of place marketing, bidding for the license to host the event has
become a million-euro affair (Garcia, 2005).
In the literature, there are several cases of studies that have exemplified the ECOC
from perspectives such as urban studies and strategic planning (Balsas, 2004; Garcia,
2005; Deffner & Labrianidis, 2005), civic policy (Boyle & Hughes, 1994; Boyle, 1997),
marketing (Evans, 2003), and cultural policy studies (Sjøholt, 1999; Richards, 2000).
Most studies have been carried out after the event was held, and focus on measuring
strategic planning efforts or economic, social, cultural or political effects of the event.
There are, however, case studies that, like this present case, analyses the bid prior to the
event; for example Jones’ and Wilks-Heeg’s (2004) exploration of political, economic
and social contexts of Liverpool’s bid for ECOC 2008, where it is claimed that one of the
reasons for winning the competition was the firm engagement of a majority of the city
residents in the bidding process.
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Umeå´s bid and implementation of the event
Organization
The municipality of Umeå is responsible for the bidding and strategic planning of the
event. A political steering committee is assigned to coordinate collaboration within the
public sector, lay down guiding principles and has the final decision-making power. A
project leader is responsible for coordinating a variety of actors and leading the bidding
process work (www.umea2014.se). As the title of the application, “Curiosity and Passion:
The Art of Co-Creation”, indicates, a main idea of the bid is collaboration. Therefore
there are several work groups responsible for the planning of concrete events and
happenings for the event year. The work groups consist of various culture sector workers,
entrepreneurs, artists, musicians and so on. The organization seeks to formalize a network
structure where all work groups are interconnected through a process of decentralization
and distribution of contacts within the system (figure 1).
Figure 1. Formalization of a decentralized and distributed network.
(Publicized with permission of F. Lindegren, 2009)
Initially (A), the system is centralized, where the project group has to handle all
communication with all actors (“stations”), which is inefficient. In the decentralized (B)
system, the actors are divided into work groups where communication runs through
references within each work group. These work groups can be found in the application
itself, where they build up eight themes, including for example Sami culture, sports
culture, storytelling, identity, and Nordic arts. The goal of the process is a distributed
network (C), where the work groups are interlinked; creating highlight events that has ties
to several of the application themes.
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Official discourse
The project leader discourse, which is here called the “official” discourse, is mainly put
forward through the webpage; where also the application itself is publicized, in the
media, and in open meetings and workshops. The use of language is boosterist; a positive
perspective on growth is emphasized. The language is poetic, and metaphors and wordplaying is used; such as “Talking Architecture”, “Burning Snow”, “She’s Got the Beat”,
“Treasures in Leisure” (Umeå2014, 2008 p. 15). This perspective is also enhanced in
general by the municipality webpage, where it is stated that: “Umeå. Wants more.”, and
“We win in Umeå” (www.umea.se). As mentioned above, the main point of the official
discourse is that Umeå is a city where collaboration and creativity is merged into a
culture of “Co-Creation”, in which all its actors and inhabitants are participants. A vision
is put forward of a “Culturized City”: “The Culturized City is our vision of a society
where culture permeates and respires in all human action” (Umeå2014, 2008 p. 11
author’s translation). This “culturization” of the society is meant to facilitate creativity
and lay the foundation for a city that is empowering its citizens to participate in shaping
its future development, as argued by Landry: “The creative city (or society) has
embedded a culture of creativity where everyone is potentially creative” (2008, oral
presentation in Umeå 2008.05.14).
It could be argued that the “co-creation” discourse put forward in the application
may only be an empty play of words that is used to make the application more attractive,
however, the project leader claims that such empty rhetoric is avoided if possible, and
that this perspective stems from real activities. The project, which has been running since
2006, works from a method called “Open Source”; where it is argued that the “source
codes”, borrowing a concept from computer programming, to culture manifestations
might be laid open, understood and elaborated through the “co-creation” process. Open
meetings and workshops have been carried out, to which municipality representatives,
culture institutions and practitioners, entrepreneurs and local inhabitants have been
invited to discuss their perspectives on culture. These meetings have dual purpose; to
bring knowledge and creative ideas into the project, and to distribute information about
and make the bid visible to stakeholders and inhabitants of Umeå. However, if “cocreation” is to be real, it needs to be visible not only in the discourse of the project group,
but also among stakeholders, actors and local inhabitants. It is understood that the private
sector’s benefit for participating in the bidding process is low, why this discourse is a
challenge to sell in at this early point, and it is a matter of finding the right wording; “we
need to be even more concrete before we can ask the business sector for a dance”.
Therefore, much effort in this initial bidding process is put in the spreading of
information and in making the project visible; to create a “mental preparation” before
asking the businesses for concrete actions. A challenge for the project group is to build up
a perception of culture as development tool among entrepreneurs, and thus phrases such
as “investment in culture”, rather than “donations for culture projects” are used.
Stakeholder discourses
Quite naturally, several different stakeholder discourses are found, and the stakeholders
may also be referring to various discourses regarding different issues (table 1).
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Table 1. Overview of discourses
“Official” discourse
Counter-discourse
Non-discourse
Language use
Poetic, metaphors,
wordplay
Egocentric, determined,
“Us and Them”
Uninterested
Main themes
Boosterism, growth, “cocreation”
Identity, profit, lifestyle,
power relations
Lack of knowledge,
lack of benefits
Expectations
Growth, enhanced cultural
sector, competitive
advantages
Profit, equality,
education
None
There is a clear counter-discourse, where the bid is seen as totally irrelevant, and is
thought to bring no benefits at all to the tourism sector. However, this viewpoint is not
generally shared, but the “official”, boosterist discourse is partly evident among some
stakeholders. The initiative as such, to enhance culture and organize events, is repeatedly
discussed in positive terms, even though there are expressions of mistrust in benefits for
the own company. This is especially true among stakeholders outside of the city.
Elements of a non-discourse is also found, where the stakeholders deem their knowledge
about the bid to be too small to have an opinion: “I am not sure that I’m really aware
about what it would mean […] I don’t know really who would come here, and why”. The
main channel of information has been through media, and interest has initially been quite
low: “probably I have seen something sweeping by very fast”. The information picked up
from media is not trusted as concrete and stakeholders claim they would turn to other
sources, such as the municipality webpage or other more authoritative sources for further
information, were they interested to have it.
When it comes to the issue of “co-creation”, the “official” discourse certainly has
had varying influence. It has been difficult to engage entrepreneurs as early as in the
bidding process, simply because the time frame of getting paid back for the effort is too
long. The non-discourse is here very distinct: “I do not believe that it will effect me and
my small company one bit, so I have not been involved in this either”. Others argue that
they will get involved later, closer in time to the actual event. Some stakeholders have
begun to take action, or are planning for it. Some state their motives closer in line with
the “official” discourse, whilst others have other goals in sight: “I have to try to in some
way contribute and see if it is possible to turn around or make something better or, well,
change in some way”. This counter-discourse was especially evident in the case of the
Sámi theme, where fear of being portrayed in the wrong way, or a wish to educate about
one’s lifestyle are strong motives for involvement.
Discourse influence and stakeholder expectations
The “official” discourse is clearly developed and elaborated consciously to influence
stakeholder attitudes and create positive expectations. Whether this has succeeded varies
among different tourism stakeholder types. In more typical cultural sectors (institutions
such as museums), influence seems to be higher than in more traditional tourism
businesses such as hotels and activity providers. Regarding power relations, a clear
counter-discourse is evident through many arguments of unequal power and control over
the development. There are arguments in line with the project group, that stakeholder
11
involvement may indeed be influential “if we arrange or participate in the organization
of events”, however there are also among various actors a notion of not being able to
influence. For some this notion is not necessarily negative: if there will be effects, they
will be positive but it is up to someone else to steer the direction. Others have more
concern about the negative consequences of unequal power, especially concerning the
region (non-city stakeholders in fear of being “used” for the success of Umeå), regarding
the enhancement of the Sámi culture (“what does it mean, who presents it?”), and
regarding different sectors (e.g. will only fine arts be enhanced? Will only hotels and
restaurants profit? Does the business sector have anything to say beside the cultural elite
or the public authorities?). In those cases where sector-crossing contact has been made,
however, the discourse is generally positive and early notions of “co-creation” may
indeed exist.
One stakeholder group that has indeed been effected by, however not necessarily
in line with, the boosterist discourse, is the group where identity and lifestyle issues are
stronger than tourism development motives. These motives have evolved into the
strongest counter-discourse, where the idea of “selling the exotic” has been turned into
presenting and educating about the reality behind the unique lifestyles. The counterdiscourse’s influence on the “official” discourse is shown in a higher concern for the way
the Sámi culture is presented and made as attraction: “the Sámi will play a very important
part of our application, but it has to be handled by Sámi representatives”. The interaction
between this counter-discourse and the “official” discourse has meant that both are
affecting the other, and expectations are formed by it both among the stakeholders; “we
can open some doors”, and the project group “in 2015 the Sámi culture will have a
completely new status in Europe”.
Among the stakeholder groups where business goals are most prevalent, the
boosterist discourse has had stronger impact on expectations. Even though not all
entrepreneurs think that they personally will benefit, the expected outcomes in general
are positive: “it could be a marketing strategy for the city of Umeå”, “all businesses in
the city will benefit from this”. But this is not, by own means, a strong motive for
engagement, at least not at this point. There are, though, some notions that indicate that
the information and “mental preparation” strategy have succeeded: “I’m thinking that we
will… that we can get involved a bit later, in some… that is to say, when things really
start to happen”.
Conclusions
In this article it has been showed how, in line with the ‘competitive discourse’ (Hall,
2006) that many regions adhere to today, strategic planners in Umeå are seeking to
become a place where capital and people are attracted by uplifting the cultural sector
through the arrangement of hallmark events. By implementing the bid for ECOC 2014
with a positive growth-oriented discourse, it is hoped that Umeå’s culture, business,
political and other sectors will come together in a network of “co-creation” and enhance
an image of the city as a creative and gushing place with endless development
possibilities. The organization of an event of the scale that ECOC falls under is a
complex and long-term process that will effect and be effected by a wide variety of
actors. The results of this study show that implementation is not merely a marketing
process, but different types of discourse will evolve that may contest the “official” one,
12
and that the outcomes of the implementation strategy may be hard to control unless the
“official” discourse is consciously elaborated to adapt to these counter-discourses.
There is evidence that discourse indeed is influencing the expectations of actors in
Umeå. Among tourism stakeholders, this “official” discourse has had some influence in
creating positive expectations of the effects of the ECOC event. Especially among
businesses, the growth perspective has been quite easily forwarded, for example when the
language was modified to use phrases of “investment” rather than “donations”. But other
discourses have also evolved that contests the positive boosterist discourse. Several
counter-discourses are found, that questions the spread of benefits, power relations, the
ways of presenting unique lifestyles and so on. Elements of a non-discourse are also
found, where stakeholders claim no interest at all in the event. The interactions between
these varying arguments have created a whole set of new links in the distributed network
system, that might be difficult to control for the project leader. This, however, may not be
a problem as long as communication and power relations between the project leader and
work groups are not infected by conflict about differing goals.
It can be argued that the conscious creation of discourse may be an effective tool for
implementation of new development strategies; however it demands ability to form types
of language use that can both make and hold promises to stakeholders, and it demands
ability to adapt to emerging counter-discourses. In this case, the adaptation from a
“selling the exotic”-perspective to a perspective that certain types of attractions are best
developed with other goals than growth in mind, makes a good example of this ability.
To further elaborate this article, more research on the matter is called for. Stakeholder
discourse mapping and designing a conceptual framework for ‘interdiscursive analysis’
for the tourism sector are suggested fields of special interest.
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