{"title":"Place, tourism and cultural entrepreneurship: A critical engagement with cultural political economy","authors":"Rui Su , Aili Liu , Zhiyong Deng","doi":"10.1016/j.cities.2025.106518","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The pandemic and economic uncertainties have reshaped our perception of culture. The emerging cultural and creative strategies encourage cultural entrepreneurship, which however faces skills shortages, financial vulnerability, marginalisation and industrial downsizing. These short- and long-term challenges call for systematic interventions to (re)engage cultural entrepreneurs, particularly in the post-pandemic era. Drawing on a Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach, this study applies Lounsbury and Glynn’s model of cultural entrepreneurship to examine how cultural entrepreneurs engage with tourism as a practice of placed-based meaning-making. Given that cultural capital, cultural politics of place, and entrepreneurial storytelling are relational, the case study of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust demonstrates that cultural entrepreneurs must embed the unique place features while balancing digital innovations, cultural tourism activities, and entrepreneurial legitimacy. Achieving this requires skilled entrepreneurial storytelling to construct strong social and cultural ties with local communities, educators, business investors and urban planners.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48405,"journal":{"name":"Cities","volume":"169 ","pages":"Article 106518"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cities","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275125008212","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"URBAN STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The pandemic and economic uncertainties have reshaped our perception of culture. The emerging cultural and creative strategies encourage cultural entrepreneurship, which however faces skills shortages, financial vulnerability, marginalisation and industrial downsizing. These short- and long-term challenges call for systematic interventions to (re)engage cultural entrepreneurs, particularly in the post-pandemic era. Drawing on a Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach, this study applies Lounsbury and Glynn’s model of cultural entrepreneurship to examine how cultural entrepreneurs engage with tourism as a practice of placed-based meaning-making. Given that cultural capital, cultural politics of place, and entrepreneurial storytelling are relational, the case study of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust demonstrates that cultural entrepreneurs must embed the unique place features while balancing digital innovations, cultural tourism activities, and entrepreneurial legitimacy. Achieving this requires skilled entrepreneurial storytelling to construct strong social and cultural ties with local communities, educators, business investors and urban planners.
期刊介绍:
Cities offers a comprehensive range of articles on all aspects of urban policy. It provides an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of ideas and information between urban planners and policy makers from national and local government, non-government organizations, academia and consultancy. The primary aims of the journal are to analyse and assess past and present urban development and management as a reflection of effective, ineffective and non-existent planning policies; and the promotion of the implementation of appropriate urban policies in both the developed and the developing world.