Public-space tactical intervention as urban

tourist allure

Aristeidis Gkoumas and Federico D’Orazio

Abstract Aristeidis Gkoumas is based at

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the art-based project of Full Llove Inn as a tactical the Department of Hospitality
urbanism intervention and urban tourist attraction. The project consisted of an elevated room-car, displayed and Tourism Management,
in the public space of Amsterdam from August 2006 to September 2007. InterNapa College,
Design/methodology/approach – The research was conducted between December 2017 and November Sotira, Cyprus.
2018 in Amsterdam. The study applied the methodological tools of semi-structured interviews, textual Federico D’Orazio is based at
analysis and participatory observation. the International College,
Findings – Full Llove Inn provided an extraordinary allure for visitors and residents. It created a sense of
Burapha University,
intra-personal and inter-personal existential authenticity for local and non-local guests, respectively, while
Bangsaen, Thailand.
introducing a pop-up hotel as a new form of tactical initiative.
Research limitations/implications – Due to the inability to contact non-local guests for interviews, the only
source of data was based on tourist experiences about Full Llove Inn derived from the hotel guest book.
Practical implications – The research suggests that pop-up hotels may be used by Destination
Management Organizations as a means of strengthening the brand image and creating a competitive edge
for cities.
Social implications – The research indicates that art-inspired tactical interventions in the public space
of civic environments could constitute a social capital while generating interactions between residents
and visitors.
Originality/value – For the first time in the tourism literature, this study investigates the impact of tactical
projects on destination branding from the perspective of both locals and visitors.
Keywords Civic intervention, Existential authenticity, Pop-up hotel, Public-space art, Tactical urbanism,
Tourist attraction
Paper type Case study

1. Introduction
The idea of using creative industries to develop new tourism attractions in metropolitan areas is
not new. Seeking for differentiation and boosting for competitiveness were fundamental
components of tourism branding. In their efforts to create spaces for tourists with a high degree
of visitation many urban destinations have employed “formulaic mechanisms of local culture
reproduction, heritage mining and thematization” (McCarthy, 2002; Richards and Wilson, 2006;
Richards and Marques, 2012; Rogerson, 2006; Smith, 2007; Swarbrooke, 2000). Nurturing
creativity in urban tourism sites has gained significant importance over the years, leading to the
emergence of cultural tourism and its sub-category the creative tourism (Smith, 2007; Richards
and Marques, 2012; Richards and Raymond, 2000; Rogerson, 2006).
Creative tourism though is closely related to the emerging trend of local creative industries,
comprising of a broad range of services, products and activities associated with the cultural,
artistic or recreational identity of each place (Caves, 2000). These industries have a significant Received 10 May 2019
impact on placemaking, forming new, creative spaces for tourism consumption. However, in Revised 14 July 2019
22 August 2019
several cases, the creative spaces have commissioned various inter and trans-disciplinary art Accepted 16 October 2019
forms to stimulate tactical intervention and civic engagement and not to attract tourists (Courage, © International Tourism Studies
2013; Pfeifer, 2013). The goal of tactical initiatives is to enhance the involvement of residents Association

DOI 10.1108/IJTC-05-2019-0066 Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2056-5607 j INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM CITIES
 toward the co-creation of innovative, interactive urban experiences, which will improve the quality
of life of the community (Courage, 2013).
However, in the case of popular tourist destinations, the intervention involved not only the locals
but also the visitors. Several studies have extensively analyzed the impact of art formulations on
re-shaping the public space of urban destinations. Yet, they examined only the level of civic
participation of the urbanites while systematically ignoring the contribution and the involvement of
tourists. Full Llove Inn project was a tactical project for promoting the love in the city of
Amsterdam that lasted from August 2006 to September 2007. The creative design of the art
installation of the Full Llove Inn formed a temporal event space open to locals and visitors.
The objective of this study is to provide an ex post facto comparative analysis of Full Llove Inn
project as a blend of public-space art formulation, tactical intervention and tourist allure. Based on
the opinions and views of locals and the testimonies of non-local guests, the paper addresses the
following research questions:
RQ1. Did Full Llove Inn contain the characteristics of tourist attraction?
RQ2. How did locals and non-local guests evaluate their experiences at Full Llove Inn?
RQ3. What was the contribution of Full Llove Inn experience to the exploration of the self for
locals and non-locals?
RQ4. Did Full Llove Inn introduce a new type of tactical urbanism intervention?

1.1 The Full Llove Inn project

In August 2006, the Dutch Research Institute for Art and Public Space (SKOR) launched the
project of Love in the city to promote a positive atmosphere and a playful ambient for the citizens
of Amsterdam. Full Llove Inn consisted of a stripped Opel Kadett car placed on four metallic
columns of 4.5 m each. The car was accessible by climbing on a single pole ladder attached to
the construction (Plate 1). The interior was furnished with a queen’s size bed.
The creative construction was posited in the public space in front of Lloyd Hotel of
Amsterdam and it was served as a special room, where couples could stay overnight without
charge (Plate 2). People made an online reservation by sending an e-mail to an electronic account
that was created for this purpose. Full Llove Inn was open to the public from August 2006 until
September 2007.

Plate 1 The Full Llove Inn

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Plate 2 The Full Llove Inn in front of Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam

2. Theory and conceptual framework

Certainly, creativity has been directly associated with arts and cultural industries, changing the
process of production, evaluation and comprehension of aesthetic, intellectual and cultural
offerings across the globe (Rásky, 1998; Richards and Raymond, 2000). The longstanding
connection between creativity and tourism has been manifested in various forms and practices
(Della Lucia et al., 2017; Marques and Borba, 2017; Richards and Marques, 2012). Creative
tourism emerged as an innovative option for the development of new products and activities for
urban visitors through the engagement of citizens in placemaking (Marques and Borba, 2017;
Markusen and Gadwa, 2010; Parra-Agudelo et al., 2017). Creative tourism corresponded
successfully to the current challenges of urban transformation by fostering community
involvement toward the regeneration of public realm and reconstruction of the socio-economic
fabric of cityscape (Altsuhuler and Luberoff, 2003; MacLaran and Kelly, 2014; Markusen, 2014;
Wise and Clark, 2017). Urban destinations seek creative strategies to stimulate development and
investments in the fields of leisure, tourism, cultural heritage and the knowledge economy
(Brinkley, 2008; Clark, 2011; Spirou, 2011; Wise, 2016). As a result, creativity has become a key
component for urban tourism development, either as a medium for increasing competitiveness
and distinctiveness of destinations or as a means for crafting unique experiences and meeting
new trends of tourism segments (Prentice, 2005; Richards and Raymond, 2000; Smith, 2006).
Following this trend, urban policymakers and planners in their efforts to craft amenities and
develop activities to enhance the competitive edge of the destinations have embraced the
concept of creative cities (Spirou, 2011). The notion of the creative city “focuses on the
community and endeavors to protect and improve the resident’s quality of life,” consisting of an
integral component of urban tourism (Spirou, 2011 p.156). Boston, Chicago, Providence,
Toronto, and Brisbane are illustrative examples of how the model of the creative city has
embraced arts for revitalizing neighborhoods, increase property values, infuse the spirit of
progressiveness, enhance urban development, cultivate innovative industries and build art
districts (Spirou, 2011).
Despite the positive impact of creative change on the development of new urban spaces and the
broader placemaking, many innovative initiatives for the re-appropriation of cities and
neighborhoods caused major social implications and economic disparities, while raising
issues of inclusion and exclusion of specific groups or local actors (Hénaff, 2016; Munzner and
Shaw, 2015; Wise and Clark, 2017). Several scholars claimed that the attractiveness of the
landscape, the feeling of uniqueness and the value of the urban environments are subjective
constructions framed by the socio-cultural context attracting specific types of tourists (Bruner,
2004; Di Giovine, 2014; Leite, 2014; Picard and Di Giovine, 2014; Salazar and Graburn, 2014;

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 Theodossopoulos, 2014). Previous studies investigated either creative cities from the perspective
of urban planning or historic and art districts as spaces created for leisure, entertainment and
tourism. The current case study provides a nascent insight exploring art intervention in the public
space as a creative form of urban allure open to residents and tourists alike. The temporal co-
existence of locals and non-locals within the same spatial boundaries wishes to shift the research
toward the deconstruction of inclusion/exclusion dichotomies, which pervade the current urban
planning literature.
On the contrary, creative cities as a vehicle for tourism development has received major critiques for
fostering an intense commodification of civic locales and commercialization of urban districts
(Barthel-Bouchier, 2001; Green, 2007; Schoorl, 2005; Spirou, 2011). Often urban tourism accused
of reducing cultural authenticity by reproducing staged spaces and banal environments (Zukin,
1995; Spirou, 2011). However, “cultural authenticity” in tourism scholarship entails a high degree of
complexity and ambiguity mainly reflecting the etic notions of objectivism and constructivism
(Boorstin, 1964; Bruner, 2004; Cohen, 1988; MacCannell, 1976; Wang 1999). In contrast, this
research follows the interpretive, etic approach of ethnography to analyze the Full Llove Inn
experience from the perspective of existential authenticity. Although existential authenticity is highly
subjective, ontological and personalized concept still could be a very useful analytical tool for the
discovery or re-evaluation of oneself through embodied tourism experiences.
In this study, the self-expressive tourism practice of sleeping in the room-car was examined from
the standpoint of social constructivists who claimed that the reality is built through a process of
negotiation, appraisal and understanding of the existential self (Bruner, 2004; Kim and Jamal,
2007). Authenticity is mainly a philosophical issue concerning the state of being in which a person
discovers and evaluates personal or inter-subjective feelings, aesthetic manifestations and
sensory perceptions about any activity-related situation or event (Berger, 1973; Heidegger, 1996;
Steiner and Reisinger, 2006; Wang, 2000). By elaborating on tourism authenticity, Wang (1999)
distinguishes between intra-personal and inter-personal authenticity. According to his approach,
the first refers to the process of self-making by sharing the bodily feelings of recreation,
entertainment, excitement and play (Wang, 1999, p. 361), whereas the second addresses to
experiences that facilitate a certain degree of family bonding, producing a state of communitas,
that is “a modality of social relationship” among individuals (Turner, 1969, p. 69).
The inter-personal and intra-personal authenticity was key determinants for measuring the
experiential value of Full Llove Inn as an illustrative example of tactical urbanism. The term tactical
urbanism was coined by Lydon et al. (2011) to describe short-term, small-scale projects for
the public space re-appropriation of several North American cities. Civic intervention is a core
element of tactical urbanism involving temporal, low-cost initiatives for the improvement of the living
conditions of cities and neighborhoods (Courage, 2013). Tactical projects differ in terms of scope,
budget, size and level of resident participation, including various types of interventions such as de-
fencing, guerilla gardening, open streets, pop-up parks and protected bike lanes. Initially, the
movement of tactical urbanism started as a form of protest in the 1960s and the 1970s, associated
with the efforts of active citizens to act for the reclamation of public space to get sanctions on policy
level for their communities (Lydon and Garcia, 2015). Nowadays, the term is used to describe
various community-driven strategies and open-source actions that can re-shape outdoors
environments via participatory urban experiences (Courage, 2013; Hannah, 2009; Zeiger, 2012).
According to Lydon et al., (2011), tactical urbanism comprises of five characteristics:
1. intentional effort to instigate change in urban planning;
2. implementation of local ideas to meet local challenges;
3. short-term goals with realistic expectations;
4. low-risk initiatives leading to high rewards; and
5. development of social capital between active citizens and local authorities, governments
or NGOs.
There is a strong connection among tactical urbanism, creative-oriented practices and art forms
(Courage, 2013). This paper explores if Full Llove Inn meets the criteria of a tactical urbanism

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intervention of cityscape in Amsterdam. The conceptual framework of the study provides the
multiple applications of Full Llove Inn as tactical intervention, public-space art formulation, and
tourist attraction, while also displaying the core elements of the embodied experience of staying in
the room-car from the perspective of local and non-local guests (Figure 1).

3. Material and methods

Due to the experiential nature of this study, it was decided that the qualitative methods of critical
ethnography in combination with the content/textual analysis would best meet the research
needs and expectations, particularly as they can facilitate a multi-faceted evaluation of the
subjective perceptions and opinions of the informants. The ontological nature of qualitative
research investigates social phenomena, events and practices from the viewpoint of the
participants. Therefore, provides a better understanding of behavioral patterns, structural forms
and inter-personal relationships (Flick et al., 2004). It further explores the experiential value of
social realities, as a result of interaction between the socio-cultural norms and subjective
constructions of meaning, on a continuous reproduction and interpretation of the collective and
individual self. Critical ethnography is a form of qualitative method that emphasizes on the
reflexive and dialogic character of inquiry (Flick et al., 2004; Thomas, 1993). It seeks to identify the
cultural, social, geographical and economic context to comprehend the cognitive and behavioral
elements of the subjects. Particularly, critical ethnography employs the premise that the symbolic
mechanisms, the preconceptions, meanings, ideas and representations both of the researcher
and the researched are intrinsically associated and connected (Thomas, 1993). The ex post facto
character of this study has dictated the implementation of the ethnographic approach so that to
compare the meanings that come in mind while reading the textual components of the guest
book with the meta-analysis of Full Llove Inn experience by their actual actors, 12 years after.
The hermeneutical and interpretive qualities of ethnography offer a thick description of data
(Geertz, 1973, p. 7) while cherishing a dialectic and communicative line, shifting the analysis from
“what is” to that of “what could be” (Thomas, 1993).

Figure 1 Full Llove Inn – the conceptual framework

Tactical urbanism
intervention

Intra-personal
authenticity for local
guests
City-branding asset Urban allure

Inter-personal
Temporal cityscape authenticity for non-
experience local guests

Public space art

Pop-up hotel room
installation

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 On the contrary, content analysis is “context-sensitive therefore allows the researcher to process
data texts that are significant, meaningful, and informative and even representational to others”
(Krippendorff, 2018 p. 48). Content analysis is an unpretentious technique, which can handle the
unstructured matter as data (Krippendorff, 2018 p. 47). It further gives the ability to process with a
fairly large amount of textual data (Mayring, 2004). The content analysis was applied as the
optimum methodological tool of our research to deal with the big volume of information of the
guest book. Texts can provide valuable meta-narrative information about meanings, perceptions,
certain conditions and possible uses over different social realities. Finally, specific research
questions were raised to delineate plausible threads and argumentations derived from the texts
as a process to ensure the efficiency and empirical grounding of the study.
The research conducted in Amsterdam over a total period of 11 months, from December 2017 to
November 2018. The methods of semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews, textual analysis
and participatory observation were employed. The technique of qualitative content analysis was
used to examine the nuances of attitudes, opinions and perceptions of the guests about Full
Llove Inn. The sample consisted of people who had spent a night in Full Llove Inn between the
period of August 2006 and September 2007. The data analysis was based on two sources: the
guest book of Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam comprised of commentaries, remarks and personal
stories of both local and non-local guests and semi-structured interviews of locals who had
stayed in Full Llove Inn and wrote about their experience in the guest book.
In total (n ¼ 182) comments were studied and interpreted. Of those (n ¼ 113) were written in
English and (n ¼ 69) in Dutch. The sample of the key informants for the semi-structured interviews
was selected randomly from the list of the guests who were residents of Amsterdam. We have
conducted via e-mail more than 120 people, asking them to participate in our research, with only
(n ¼ 24) to respond positively to our request. The interviews lasted between 35 min and one-and
a-half hour and were taken at the lounge of Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam. The interviews were
transcribed by using iPad and iPhone devices. A short description of the purpose and the
objectives of the study was provided to the informants by the researchers before the beginning of
each interview. To ensure the anonymity of the sample, we use only their first names in this paper.
The selection of the purposive sampling of the research was based on the permanent residence
of the informants to ensure the feasibility of the researchers to conduct the interviews.
Each interview started with a short description of the objectives of the study. Ethical approval for
the participation of each informant to the research was undertaken as a requirement for
completing the interview and sharing the data. The interview framework consisted of broad topics
of interest including demographic characteristics and personal preferences of the informants, the
overall evaluation of the experiential value of Full Llove Inn, the pre-visit and post-visit impressions
of sleeping in the room-car, the aesthetic appraisal of the art construction, the perceptions for
public space in Amsterdam, the significance of civic society involvement to the transformation of
urban environment, the impact of tourism development on the everyday life of residents, the
relations between locals and visitors, the contribution of art interventions to the re-appropriation
of districts and neighborhoods and finally the role of public authorities toward the transformation
of public space.
Furthermore, additional informal conservations with the General Manager elicited supplementary
information and data, which were then recorded as field notes. Both transcribed data from the
interviews and the conversations were coded and analyzed by Nvivo software program for
qualitative research to assist our efforts to identify themes, patterns of behavior and common
perceptions of the respondents.
The cooperation of the current General Manager of Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam who in 2006–2007
served as Guest Relations Executive was of crucial importance for the completion of our
research. His contribution was dual. First, he described in detail the demographic characteristics
and psychographic features of the guests. Second, he was granted permission to access the
content of the guest book for our study and also, he allowed us to use the e-mail list for
conducting local key informants.

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4. Results and discussion
4.1 Full Llove Inn – an extraordinary tourist allure
This research indicates that Full Llove Inn consisted of a creative urban art formulation with the
ability to entice city visitors and local urbanites. Spending a night in that room-car was described
as a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both residents and tourists. The study indicates that Full
Llove Inn formed a powerful allure for both local and non-local guests, meeting the criteria of
Leiper’s (1990, p. 371) typology about tourist attractions based on which a tourist site comes into
existence, when the three elements of human presence, nucleus or theme and special marker of
the place, all get connected to each other. First, based on the hotel register book, more than half
of the guests were either international visitors from Belgium, Germany, France and Denmark or
domestic tourists traveled to Amsterdam from other parts of the country. Second, despite the
diverse descriptions, enhancing the love in the city has been recognized as an intriguing theme
and third, the peculiar construction of the room-car was a strong visual marker of an extraordinary
tourist attraction in the heart of the city.
The human element consists of the integral component of Full Llove Inn and a dynamic
feature of its brand essence as a distinct tourism allure. Contrary to other conventional tourist
attractions, which focussed on the passive involvement of gazing, sleeping in the room-car has
fostered an interactive relation between the site and the visitors. In Full Llove Inn, guests were the
co-creators of the experience, engaged actively in the construction of a highly anthropocentric
place in the cityscape of Amsterdam. For both locals and non-local guests sleeping in
the room-car manifested an off-beaten leisure activity. As Julia and Milan, a young couple of
Amsterdam stated:
We are fascinated by Full Llove Inn. We are very lucky to participate in such a novel initiative and
definitely, we will remember this night forever.

From the data, it can be inferred that Full Llove Inn has generated positive feelings for the majority
of the guests. The physical conduct and tangibility with the room-car have created a sense of
empathy for the attraction, which was vividly captured in several comments:
It was a futuristic experience for both of us. We felt that we were sleeping in a starship traveling
somewhere in the universe. (Sylvia & Lucas)

However, the absence of basic services, such as shower, toilet and central heating combined
with the small size of the room-car generated negative remarks. A notable finding of our study is
that the majority of the complaints derived from domestic visitors from other areas of the
Netherlands. The lack of pre-visit information about Full Llove Inn created high expectations for
those guests who anticipated amenities that could not be provided. The result of the
inconsistency between the pre-visit and the in situ experience produced a general feeling
of disappointment:
When we first heard about Full Llove Inn we thought it would be an exciting experience! But sleeping
inside this small car was such a hustle. It was cold and uncomfortable and going to a hotel for using the
toilet in the middle of the night was not fun […]. (Sophie and Sem)

Enhancing the loving spirit in the city of Amsterdam consisted of the theme of Full Llove Inn. The
temporary nature of the attraction remained open to the public for one year and prompted a
sense of exclusivity and individuality for local and non-local guests. Francoise and Olivier from
France explicitly illustrated this mood of distinctiveness:
We felt some kind of celebrities […] people were taken photos of us, asking questions of “how was it?”
Well, it was just perfect guys!!

The findings of the study suggest that the room-car reflects the pre-visit expectations, onsite
experiences and post-visit evaluations of the visitors, endorsing the principles of economy of
signs for tourist attractions (Lash et al., 1993; Leiper, 1990; McCannell, 1976; Richards, 2002).
Moreover, the symbolic significance of promoting the loving spirit in Amsterdam was a decisive
factor for several tourists to travel to the city. The cross-examination of comments from the guest
book and the interviews revealed that the pre-visit expectations amplified the symbolic

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 importance of sleeping in the room-car and further increased the experiential value of the
attraction for the non-local guests:
We traveled from Berlin just to spend one night in this amazing construction. It was like sleeping in the
clouds above the city. Full Llove Inn was a wonderful idea to attract people across Europe for such a
noble goal […]. (Hilda and Matthias)

Using “love” as the nucleus of Full Llove Inn was proven to be a rather influential factor for the
pre-visit decision. The data analysis reveals that the anticipation to participate in an initiative for
promoting love in the city engendered positive feelings for all guests. Nevertheless, the in situ
attachment and also the post-visit interpretations of the embodied experience differed
significantly between local and non-local guests. From the discussions with several informants, it
was evident that the hectic pace and the stressful routine of everyday lifestyle created a
rather alienated urban environment for the majority of the couples leaving no space for relaxation.
Full Llove Inn provided to the residents of Amsterdam a leisure space for expressing temporary
their love and affection in the public domain, as illustrated by Andreas, a local urbanite in his
late thirties:
Love is missing from our lives today. I am always busy with job obligations and I feel that I have not
much time for my wife […]’ Full Llove Inn’ has allowed me to share with her a momentary experience
while actively involved in an initiative for supporting the love in our city.

On the contrary, for domestic and international visitors the overnight stay functioned as a
powerful allure of an unconventional tourism attraction. Analyzing the comments of non-locals in
the guest book derived that the theme of spreading love was a rather compelling stimulus for
traveling to Amsterdam. Despite the slightly different descriptions of the visitors, Full Llove Inn
appeared to be a tourist site offering an extraordinary experience in the ordinary cityscape of a
mature urban destination like Amsterdam:
We had visited Amsterdam many times in the past. But this time we came only to sleep in Full Llove Inn.
There are so many alternative ways for people to express the feeling of “love”. Sleeping in a car is a
once-in-a-lifetime experience. ( Johan and Tracy)

The research also indicates that the eccentric design of the room-car operated as a visual marker
and the main theme of Full Llove Inn influencing the perceptions of guests during and after
visitation. The imaginative formulation of the elevated room-car that displayed at the public space
of Amsterdam captured the attention of local and non-local visitors. Yet, the positive first pictorial
impression was followed by strong sentimental arousal for the majority of the guests. The
embodied connection with the tourism site accelerated the level of excitement and the
experiential value of the marker. Although most of the locals identified the design of Full Llove Inn
as its main marker, from the interviews it was derived that the non-local guests were significantly
more fascinated by the creative design of the room-car. The statement of Matilda, a 28-year-old
female from Germany, was indicative:
I haven’t seen such a peculiar theme for a tourist attraction in my life. Full Llove Inn is a state-of-the-art
expression for the public space of modern cities. I think it has given to Amsterdam an entirely
different quality.

Additionally, a noteworthy finding of the study was the impact of local press and media on the
promotion of Full Llove Inn to the citizens of Amsterdam. According to the manager of Lloyd
Hotel, the favorable articles of the project in local newspapers, art magazines and various internet
websites emphasized on the role of creativity and originality of the room-car as major markers of a
distinguishable urban attraction. He also claimed that the supportive coverage of the press
stimulated the visitation flows of urbanites, increasing dramatically the average occupancy rate
during the summer and spring of 2007 and reaching the astonishing 98 percent. According to his
estimations, in the period from August 2006 to September 2007 more than 1,200 people
requested an overnight stay by e-mail. The manager pointed out that the theme of enhancing the
loving spirit in the city in combination with the innovative art formulation of the room-car has
sealed the distinctiveness of Full Llove Inn. He argued that the experiential value, the sentimental
fulfillment and the personal attachment to the attraction as well as the ephemeral nature of the
stay created “the perfect environment for three marriage proposals to occur inside the room-car.”

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This research suggests the emotional arousal from the theme and the embodied connection with
the art construction of the room-car shaped the distinctiveness and identity of Full Llove Inn as an
extraordinary tourism attraction, supporting the results of previous studies regarding the influence
of nucleus and markers on the formation of visitor satisfaction (Coccossis and Mexa, 2017; Ram,
et al., 2016; Richards, 2002; Sharpley, 2018; Vanhove, 2017; Veal, 2017).

4.2 Sleeping at Full Llove Inn – an authentic experience of urban space

One of the main research objectives of the study was the investigation of sleeping in the room-car
as a novel experience of the urban culture of Amsterdam. In spite of different meanings or the
diverse readings, spending one night at the revamped car was acknowledged, as an authentic
leisure activity in a genuine tourist space of the built environment. Analyzing the descriptions in the
guest book, it can be concluded that sleeping in the room-car set the context of multiple
imaginaries and meta-narratives interpretations of Full Llove Inn, which is a rather common
process for popular urban attractions and tourist sites (Bruner, 2004; Picard and Di Giovine,
2014; Salazar and Graburn, 2014). Comparing the testimonies of locals and the comments of the
non-locals revealed that Full Llove Inn experience nourished a meta-narrative, upon which
powerful emotions, expressed feelings and in situ reactions were inscribed. For all guests,
sleeping in the room-car corresponded to an authentic personalized story with high existential
value involving individual sentiments and unforgettable impressions for a designated urban
attraction in the public space of Amsterdam.
The general impression during the interviews suggests that the embodied experience in Full Llove
Inn engendered the notion of tourism existentialism as an inter-subjective endeavor toward a
quest of self-identity (Wang, 1999; Pons, 2003). Although both residents and tourists underlined
the experiential significance of Full Llove Inn, their interpretations reflected diverse aspects of the
self, supporting the argument of Brown, (1996) who claimed that pleasure-oriented situations
and events trigger a different state of being for the participants. The analysis of data revealed that
Full Llove Inn employed a form of intra-personal experience for the local guests, enhancing a
sense of inter-personal authenticity for the non-locals.
From the perspective of locals, sleeping in the room-car was a manifestation of social
responsibility toward the community but also a self-discovering process. Full Llove Inn offered a
temporary embodiment in a civic initiative for the improvement of the living conditions in the city.
Enhancing the loving spirit in Amsterdam was a transient form of collectiveness, in which active
citizens participated as dynamic co-creators to a symbolic happening for spreading the love and
affection in the city fabric:
Full Llove Inn is a rather eccentric event […] We put our hearts and souls to this initiative and we feel
proud of spreading the love for this city. (Eva and Sem)

The role of the body as an agent for amusement, fun, love and companionship to the co-creation
process was of crucial importance for local guests. Based on their testimonies sleeping in the
room-car identified as a sensation-seeking event and a recreation ritual, consisting of what Vester
(1987) coined as “a sensual transcendence of routine life” (p. 239). The general perception of
several locals regarding the embodied experience coincides with the post-structuralist approach,
which treats body as the dynamic generator of feelings, a means of emotions and a source for
sentimental pleasure (Bourdieu, 2013; Graburn, 1983; Featherstone, et al., 1991; Rojek, 1993;
Seamon, 2015).
For the local guests, embodiment was an integral component of the Full Llove Inn experience,
denoted the transient state of sharing common feelings of pleasure and amusement, as well as a
sense of responsibility toward the community for the realization of the noble goal of spreading the
love in the city. From the interviews, it can be inferred that Full Llove Inn propelled a process of
self-making for urbanites with a high level of collective awareness. Spending a night in the
room-car portrayed the act of intra-personal authenticity providing a fascinating opportunity for
couples to compensate the boredom of everyday routine by living a unique moment of
playfulness in the familiar urban environment of their city. The intra-personal status of authenticity
illustrated on several comments of local informants, who perceived their experience as a

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 meaningful way to establish interconnectedness with others and also an opportunity to explore
their self-identity:
Sleeping in that car was a mind-blowing experience that happens only now. It has given to our
everyday life a rather amusing flair. I feel glad that I participate in something positive for the good of our
community, which make me feel fulfilled, happy and useful. (Georg)

In contrast, the existential form of authenticity for the non-locals occurred within the liminal space
of tourism. For them, Full Llove Inn constituted an extraordinary tourism allure in the mature urban
destination of Amsterdam. In the pursuit of new and authentic experiences, the visitors of the
room-car discovered a unique aesthetic attribute that marked the uniqueness and exclusivity of
their traveling. The restricted number of guests combined with the existence of Full Llove Inn only
for one year enhanced the enticing power of the attraction. Spending a night in the room-car
associated with an ephemeral ritual of utmost importance. Based on the guest book comments,
the Full Llove Inn experience generated inter-personal emotional ties among tourists, fostering a
transformation of self. As the inter-personal authenticity is a process of exploring a sense of
togetherness (Wang, 1999), tourist spaces “offer an opportunity to re-evaluate and discover
more about the self” (Brown, 2005, p. 481). For most of the non-local guests, the exclusivity and
uniqueness of the room-car reinforced the making over of the self. The transformation of the self
for others like Breda and Nilsen, a young couple from Denmark, was so profound that Full Llove
Inn signified a momentary event with special symbolic meaning and high sentimental value:
We are super excited!! Inside Full Llove Inn Nilsen proposed to me; we couldn’t find a more exquisite
attraction for a lifetime commitment. Off the ground, we promised each other eternal love. Let our life
be full of elevated spirits above the others on our own space like now in this elevated car.

Also, for the non-locals, Inn promoted an inter-personal existential authenticity by facilitating a
rather unstructured type of connectedness, fostering a form of tourist communitas. The capacity
of tourist sites to generate the notion of existential authenticity has been identified by numerous
studies and the interviews indicate that Full Llove followed this pattern by establishing a
temporary community of people who shared common views about their experience (Brown,
2005; Rickly-Boyd, 2012, Wang, 1999). The testimonies of tourists suggest that sleeping in the
room-car produced an imaginary sense of connectedness and informal relationships for
non-local guests, leading to a transient state of touristic communitas that occurred in the
common space but in a different time for each individual since the room-car could host only one
couple per night. Hence, Full Llove Inn created an imaginary community, the members of which
participated in the same ritual without actually knowing each other. The statement of a couple
from Spain was indicative of the type of connection among the visitors:
Hopefully, other people felt the fulfillment and joy we experience by staying at Full Llove Inn. We would
like to exchange our thoughts with others, but we haven’t met anyone. (Alfonso and Gabriella)

Conclusively, despite the variations in descriptions for both locals and non-locals Full Llove Inn
associated with an existentially authentic experience with increased emotional and symbolic
significance. The main finding of our research suggests that the reflexive and embodied nature of
the experience endowed all guests with an evanescent sense of sentimental attachment to the
actual site. Nevertheless, the data analysis indicates that locals and non-locals hold slightly
different views of the Full Llove Inn. Sleeping in the room-car reflected an act of civic activism that
exceeded the ordinary norms of urban lifestyle for locals, while for non-local guests engendered
an extraordinary event of tourism liminality. At a general level through the personal stories and
testimonies demonstrate that the idea of enhancing the love in the city as the main theme of Full
Llove Inn endorsed high symbolic and experiential value for urbanites and tourists alike, arousing
the feeling of exclusivity of the attraction.

4.3 Full Llove Inn – a pop-up hotel room as a new form of tactical urbanism
In urban planning literature, sleeping in a car has been examined as the side effect of the alarming
social ill of homelessness, which becomes an epidemic phenomenon for numerous cities in
Americas, Europe and Asia (Sikich, 2008; Pagano, 2013). Several scholars investigated sleeping
in a car about student homelessness, as a temporary accommodation solution for poor university
students in New Zealand and Australia (Grace, 2012; Ramos, 2018). The current study explores

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM CITIES

an alternative usage of sleeping in a car, as an applied form of transformation and regeneration of
urban space.
For the majority of local guests, Full Llove Inn was a temporary intervention to harness the
unsanctioned momentum of sleeping in the room-car. It is suggested that the ultimate goal of
tactical urbanism is the improvement of the cityscape by implementing low-cost and moderate-
risk, citizen-driven interventions in public places (Pfeifer, 2013). Yet, studying various initiatives
from around the globe, it is evident that the intentions and purposes of tactical urbanism vary.
Analyzing the comments in the guest book and the descriptions of the locals, it can be inferred
that the art installation of Full Llove Inn meets the criteria of Lydon et al. (2011) for tactical
urbanism initiatives. First, it was a deliberate project focussed on the involvement of citizens to
spread the loving spirit in the city of Amsterdam. Second, it provided an original idea for improving
the living conditions of the local community. Third, it offered a temporary art construction, in the
public space of the city. Fourth, Full Llove Inn is considered to be a rather successful example of
low-risk planning, establishing a transient social capital for urbanites, local authorities, private and
public sector. By using similar or slightly different expressions, the local guests in their testimonies
highlighted the aforementioned characteristics. Indicatively Zoë and Lars a Dutch couple from the
outskirts of the city echoing the views of many informants commented:
Full Llove Inn was a fantastic opportunity to actively involved in something constructive for our city. We
are very proud that we have contributed to this significant, unique and amusing initiative in the public
space of Amsterdam.

Examining the personal stories and comments of the informants, there is a strong indication that
elevating the love ambient for the city was a rather inspiring motto for changing the outlook and
the attitudes of locals. Full Llove Inn provided the setting for the practical operation of civic
participation, in which active citizens and visitors became the brokers of temporary social capital.
The actual success of the project rests upon the fruitful cooperation among citizens, local
authorities and hotel business for the wellbeing of the community. A major prerequisite for the
success of any tactical urbanism project is the level of participation of the local community. The
citizen-led intervention of Full Llove Inn reflected on the comments of residents who described
themselves as the active agents and dynamic contributors to a significant initiative of civic
participation aimed at the improvement of the social environment. This finding is in congruence
with the results of previous studies regarding the positive impact of tactical urbanism on social
capital (Courage, 2013; Miles, 1997; Newman et al., 2003). The description of Emma and Thijs, a
young couple of urbanites who had spent a night in the room-car in mid-July 2007, captured this
sentiment well:
Full Llove Inn has raised our awareness as citizens regarding human interaction, the need for
belongingness, affection, and communication in Amsterdam. This project reminded us of the
significance of sharing with others the value of love and feel members of our community. We believe
that this initiative has changed all of us […].

Although local authorities intended to design a city-sanctioned prototype for stimulating the
interest of citizens, eventually Full Llove Inn converted to a temporary tourism allure of
Amsterdam. Placing the room-car in front of Lloyd Hotel increased the visitation and
recognizability of the attraction, according to the opinion of the manager of the hotel, since as he
claimed “it was an eye-catcher for tourists and passersby, who keep on asking questions and
collecting information from the reception about this peculiar construction.” However, from the
comments of local and non-local guests, it can be inferred that Full Llove Inn has introduced a
completely new genre of tactical urbanism that of a pop-up hotel room. We define pop-up hotel
room as the temporary or permanent construction of any lodging space for a maximum of two
persons, built in the public space of a community aiming to communicate to citizens a collective
initiative or goal.
It should be noted that there are several examples worldwide in which tactical urbanism has
employed creative art in public spaces for its processes. The temporal, expositional and
performative nature of contemporary art makes it a perfect stimulus for tactical urbanism capable
to formulate unique event spaces (Hannah, 2009). The art practices are also evident in the
construction of pop-up cafes, pop-up shops and pop-up canteens, as means of tactical projects

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 in Canada and in the USA (Pfeifer, 2013). However, previous case studies have completely
ignored the impact of those interventions on non-local groups of tourists and day trippers. The
contribution of the current study stems into the analysis of the impact of a pop-up hotel room on
placemaking and tourism branding of mature urban destinations like Amsterdam. One of the
main characteristics of pop-up retail culture is the short-term opening of sales spaces on key
spots of metropolitan areas and commercial districts. The pop-up hotel room of Full Llove Inn
provided the space to occur overnight encounters for visitors and residents. Thus, it served
simultaneously as a tactical intervention project and a tourism site.
Also, past research has pointed out the reciprocal connection between architectural design and
the structures, spaces and attractions in urban destinations (Lasansky and MacLaren, 2015).
Architecture and urban design were considered to be “mediators for the reception,
representation, use, spectacularization and commodification of specific sites” (Lasansky and
MacLaren, 2015, p. 3). Full Llove Inn has created a venue for tourism consumption and urban
leisure involving a reification of a pop-up hotel room as the actual space for an embodied
experience for residents and visitors. Rossi and Eisenman (1982) claimed that the architectural
design of urban spaces consists simultaneously a site, an event, and a sign. The design of the
room-car though beyond the aforementioned properties stimulates consumption process,
through which sleeping in a car transformed to a privatized, valuated and idiosyncratic practice
following the fundamental principles of tourism commodification (Castree, 2003). The manager of
Lloyd Hotel stated that “the popularity of Full Llove Inn was a tremendous factor for boosting the
visitation and occupancy rates to the maximum.” Although the pop-up hotel room offered a host
environment for tourism consumption, it cannot be considered as an illustrative example of
commodification since spending the night in the pop-up room was free of charge. From the
discussions with the manager, however, it was derived that artistic installations, such as Full Llove
Inn, could generate the capital value of public spaces by attracting visitors and residents. He
additionally suggested that in the future similar tactical interventions may connect tourism and
hospitality with urban culture by celebrating, and packaging civic sites for mass consumption.
The unconventional, postmodern design of the pop-up hotel room operated as the visual allure
for passersby, providing a new urban attraction. Full Llove Inn project used the public space of
the metropolitan area of Amsterdam to create a vibrant canvas and a living lab for social
interaction among residents and visitors. Spending one night at the pop-up hotel was an act of
civic intervention for locals and a tourist experience for visitors. Beyond the diverse readings of
their experience, for all guests, residents and tourists, the over-the-top design of the room-car
was the dynamic aesthetic element establishing a temporal “event space” in the heart of the city.
The artistic formulation of the pop-up hotel room engendered the impact and the recognizability
of Full Llove Inn as a successful tactical intervention, launching a provisional “cultural pore” in the
urban realm, accessible to both residents and visitors. This finding supported by the
interpretations of many local guests like Stijn a 32-year-old male who stated:
The extravagant design of Full Llove Inn has drawn my attention […] Initially, I came to take pictures.
But I was amazed by the reception of the project by fellow residents and tourists so, I convinced my
wife to participate in this event that gave a note of happiness and playfulness to our city.

Finally, as it was mentioned in the previous section Full Llove Inn has strengthened the image of
the city as an urban destination of high quality with diverse attractions, creative sites and
extraordinary experiences for the visitors. Building a strong image is the core element and the
ultimate goal of destination branding (Cai, 2002; Qu et al., 2011). Analyzing the descriptions of
informants, it is clear that the pop-up hotel room functioned as a brand asset and a tangible
attribute of the destination, generating positive feelings and causing favorable reactions for locals
and visitors. The cognitive and affective evaluations of the guests built emotional associations and
experiential attachments to the site of the Full Llove Inn. For many tourists, Amsterdam’s brand
name is largely associated with sex shops and brothels of Red-Light District and the legal
consumption of marijuana at coffee shops. Promoting the loving spirit in the city is the main
objective of the pop-up hotel room not only contributed constructively to the brand name of
Amsterdam as a tourist destination with interactive and creative experiences but also manifested
an open-source intervention of a tactical project for the temporal re-appropriation of public space
by residents and visitors.

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It should be noted though that 10 years after the completion of Full Llove Inn project, the everyday
lifestyle, the social conditions, the relations between locals and tourists and also the expectations
of officials, planners and urbanites for the future of the city have significantly changed. Several
factors such as the cleanup project of the “Red Light District,” the daily complains of residents
against tourists as well as the transformation of public spaces in Amsterdam have questioned the
utility of tactical urbanism initiatives. Reflecting the opinions of some local guests about the
benefits of current spatial bottom-up initiatives like the Full Llove Inn project, Gaspar a 35-year-old
Amsterdammer commented:
There is no sparkle anymore to the locals for participating in such activities. We fed up with the tourism
development of our city. The civic interference has to deal with visitors’ invasion in every aspect of our
everyday life. Amsterdam was always open to other cultures offering the quality of living. But now it
attracts more and more weed smokers and sex addicts looking for pleasure in the “Red Light District”
or local coffee shops, destroying the easy-going spirit of the past.

On the contrary, the applicability and utility of temporary spatial interventions raised considerable
criticism and controversy in the urban planning literature. It seems that the major disadvantages
of many tactical projects involve the lack of continuity and the incapacity to have some impact
beyond the micro-scale of a neighborhood, street or public space. Full Llove Inn falls into this
category of initiatives applied in Europe and the Americas that transformed the public space for a
short period. The “Living Lab Buiksloterham” in Amsterdam was one of these very promising
examples of a bottom-up initiative of an army of self-builders, which in 2009 started to construct
several small-scale dwellings in the Northern, less developed locations of the city. Despite the
initial expectations, in the following years, the project turned to a “clear middle-class bias,” leading
to a gradual fade out (Boer and Minkjan, 2016).
In general, the practical contribution of different types of civic intervention, like “pop-up urbanism”
was overestimated. Although tactical initiatives provided a bit of a subsidy to the urban realm, it
hardly ever avoided the temporality and the spatial restriction to one specific locality. In 2012, the
City of Calgary in Canada piloted the project of “Pop-Up Places” as an indicative paradigm of
temporary use of vacant spaces to enliven urban districts and boroughs (Pfeifer, 2013). The first
step of the project involved the creation of a two-tower construction establishing the first pop-up
place in an empty lot while generating high expectations for local authorities, private actors and
Business Revitalization Zone executives. Nevertheless, the whole endeavor was stalled due to
the economic downturn and as a result, the second tower was never being built.
Similarly, the financial crisis of 2008 resulted in substantial cut-offs in the budget of the city of
Amsterdam. According to the manager of the Lloyd Hotel, this development deferred the
reproduction of the room-car in other parts of the city infinitely. From a different perspective, local
guests claimed that the project of Full Llove Inn lost in vain due to several social factors, which
progressively affected the living conditions and the appropriation of public spaces in Amsterdam.
The steadily increasing number of tourists for the last seven years, the liberate policy for building
squatters, the growing volume of trash within the city’s central areas and also the opening of
more night clubs and bars led to the development and implementation only of a handful tactical
interventions, involving pedestrian plazas, parklets and pop-up bike lines. From the discussions
with few urbanites derived that the intense touristification of the city center and the apparent
crowding, especially over weekends and during the summer have generated tensions between
residents and visitors, deteriorating the status of their encounters. The extensive occupation of
public spaces by visitors has forced the residents to adopt an introversion stand against any
action that fosters the co-existence with non-locals.
Some urban planners argued that temporality, low scalability and replicability combined with the
limited participation of few extremely active and close-knit inhabitants to the civic interventions are
the main drawbacks for most tactical projects. However, the strong advocates of citizen-driven
actions suggest that there are interventions where vacant public spaces transformed in multiple
ways in different periods. For instance, the Temporary Urban Initiative launched by the
Washington, DC Office of Planning in 2008, was a pilot project for converting empty lots or
abandoned public buildings to places of local service economy (Pfeifer, 2013). As a first step, the
city-owned library kiosk, which was not in use since the 1970s, became a Digital Pop-Up Lab,
where computer program developers met and worked for one week, during the Digital Capital

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM CITIES

 Week (Pfeifer, 2013). In 2010, the pop-up lab was offered as a contracting opportunity and the
kiosk converted to a retail shop for local artists and designers and the venue of performance for
musicians, named the Temporium. The following year the Office of Planning received a grant from
ArtPlace America to create four Temporiums in lots and storefronts for the promotion of artist
entrepreneurship (Pfeifer, 2013). As a result, in 2011 and 2012, the three-month event of
Lumen8anacostia was organized by the City of Washington, DC, hosting performances, art
installations and gallery expeditions.
The successful project of Pop-Up Lab could be a paradigm to follow for local authorities of
Amsterdam. Creating underutilized spaces within the limits of the civic fabric for placing the room-
car or moving the whole installation to other cities will keep the idea of enhancing the love spirit in
urban environments alive. The manager of Lloyd Hotel claimed that Full Llove Inn could be served
as an innovative theme for hospitality business in urban destinations. He actually mentioned that
after the completion of the project, some members of the management team of the hotel
proposed the idea of creating a park of elevated room-cars like the prototype of Full Llove Inn, in a
designated area in North Amsterdam. However, the sharp reduction of tourism flows in
Amsterdam due to the economic crisis of 2008 left the proposal undone.

5. Conclusions
This study examined the Full Llove Inn project as an illustrative example of how public-space art
could serve as a tactical intervention and also a creative tourist site. Full Llove Inn project was
launched in 2006 by the Dutch Research Institute for Art and Public Space, aiming at the promotion
of love spirit in the city of Amsterdam. The art-inspired installation of the project consisted of a
redesigned room-car with a double bed inside displayed on four elevated metallic pillars.
The installation was displayed in the public space in front of Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam from August
2006 till September 2007. The novelty of this research stems from the investigation of the impact of
tactical urbanism initiative on tourism marketing and destination branding. By applying the methods
of critical ethnography, textual analysis and participatory observation, this paper provides an
in-depth analysis of the experience of Full Llove Inn as a civic intervention and extraordinary tourist
activity. Although Full Llove Inn referred to a case study of the past, the interpretive approach we
applied on this paper, using the opinions and the views of local and non-local guests, highlights the
practical implications of art installations in the public space, as a viable strategy for mature urban
destinations to build creative attractions for residents and tourists.
The current paper provides several theoretical, practical and conceptual contributions to
research on urban planning and destination management. First, at a theoretical level, the study
suggests that residents and visitors often hold different opinions about urban spaces and their
usages. Based on the opinions and descriptions of the informants, it can be inferred that Full
Llove Inn met all three criteria of Leiper’s (1990) typology for tourist attractions. However, for the
local guests, spending a night in the room-car transcended the ordinary norms of everyday life
offering a unique urban experience, while for the non-locals, it provided the place for living an
extraordinary experience during the liminal space of traveling and tourism.
Second, from a practical perspective, the study indicates that Full Llove Inn engendered positive
reactions and opinions, consisting of an authentic urban activity with high experiential and
sentimental value for the guests. For local guests, the room-car entailed an intra-personal form of
existentialism, involving a display of a temporary amusement and also an embodied ritual in the
public space of the civic realm (Bourdieu, 2013; Featherstone, et al., 1991; Seamon, 2015;
Wang, 1999). The non-local guests though see Full Llove Inn as an inter-personal form of
authenticity. The artistic formulation of the room-car operated as the aesthetic and visual stimuli
to enter to an imaginary state of tourist communitas sharing feelings of connectedness with
people they did not meet.
Finally, at the conceptual level, the paper introduces the term of the pop-up hotel room as a new
type of tactical intervention and urban allure for visitors. The findings of the study reveal that Full
Llove Inn created a transient event space of civic participation for urbanites and a momentary
tourist allure for visitors. Additionally, it demonstrates that the pop-up hotel room may lead to

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM CITIES

re-appropriation of public space by both residents and tourists setting a new perspective for
destination branding. Furthermore, the findings suggest that art-oriented tactical installations
could be used as a creative element for strengthening the brand image of cities and metropolitan
areas. Notwithstanding, the process of placemaking and branding is quite complex and the
regeneration of space through tactical urbanism cannot reflect the perceptions of visitors for the
whole destination.
It should be noted that the quasi-experimental nature of the ex post facto analysis was a limitation
of this study. In particular, the incapacity to reach foreign guests for an interview left the
interpretation of Full Llove Inn experience from the perspective of the non-locals, incomplete.
However, the comments and testimonies in the guest book of Lloyd Hotel of Amsterdam
provided indicative data of the views and opinions of visitors regarding the pop-up hotel room.
Additionally, the use of public spaces in Amsterdam has significantly changed 10 years after the
completion of the Full Llove project. Many locals complained about the increasing volume of
tourists along with other social factors affected negatively the living conditions for the urbanites,
making the civic participation to projects for the public-space improvement rather low.
The impact of tactical urbanism on tourism marketing certainly constitutes an uncharted territory,
open for future research. This paper shows that pop-up hotels may be used as a stimulating
tourist attraction for urban destinations. However, the lack of continuity and the temporality of Full
Llove indicate the generic necessity of many tactical interventions to adopt a long-term
perspective, providing multi-faceted uses of dwellings and areas in the urban realm. Primary
qualitative research is needed to explore the implications and applications of innovative types of
civic intervention to placemaking and tourism branding. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of
the effect of other existing public-space art formulations on tourism demand may constitute a
rather intriguing area for tourism research. However, the temporal nature of several tactical
initiatives will be a major limitation for studying the implementation of such interventions in
the future.
Conclusively, this inquiry highlights the potential of art-based tactical interventions to the local
tourism development of urban destinations. In particular, Destination Management Organizations
should use the pop-up hotel as an innovative allure for increasing visitation, enhancing
competitiveness and building strong brand equity. Following the successful paradigm of pop-up
places and pop-up labs, urban planners and tourism marketers should chart community-based
art installations and event spaces reproducing marginal sites in the urban realm for local and
tourism consumption.

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Further reading
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About the authors

Dr Aristeidis Gkoumas is Tourism Scholar with over 14 years of research and teaching
experience. He has worked in many transnational projects, participated in various international
conferences and published several articles in peer-review journals. His academic interests
cover the areas of sustainable tourism development, anthropology of tourism, eWOM, brand
awareness, tourist behavior and cultural heritage management. Currently, he is purchasing a
carrier as Senior Lecturer at InterNapa Colelge Cyprus teaching at Hospitality and Tourism
Management Program. Dr Aristeidis Gkoumas is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
aris.gkoumas@gmail.com

Federico D’Orazio is Creative Artist and Scholar with more than 22 years of professional
experience in the field of contemporary design, visual arts and applied arts. He has worked as a
host artist and curator in several galleries in Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Milan, Bologna, Bangkok
and Seoul. D’Orazio has organized various exhibitions and artistic events in more than eight
countries. Currently, he is purchasing a carrier as Lecturer at Burapha University International
College in Thailand.

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