CREATING DISTINCTIVE PLACES
Creative resources are now regularly employed to generate more distinctive
identities, offering regions and cities a symbolic edge in an
increasingly crowded marketplace. The emphasis in such strategies
has also shifted from tangible to intangible cultural resources because
more places lacking a rich built heritage are now competing for tourism
business (Richards & Wilson, 2007). Such processes lie behind the
attempt of many cities and regions to make themselves more distinctive.
Turok (2009) has argued that cities need to adjust their image
more rapidly in global markets and therefore they rely less on changes
in their occupational or industrial structure, and more on branding for
their distinctiveness. Evans (2003) has also suggested that forms of
branding based on cultural and creative resources are crucial for the
competitive position of cities and regions. The reliance on lifestyle,
‘soft’ locational factors, branding and image places more reliance on
leisure and tourism as key resources in distinction strategies (Jackson
& Murphy, 2006), so that place adds value to the cultural economy
in general, ‘‘as a stockpile of knowledge, traditions, memories and
images’’ (Scott, 2010, p. 123).
This is part of a broader shift from comparative to competitive advantage
in destination competitiveness, as noted in the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report on the
Impact of Culture on Tourism (2009). This report emphasized that comparative
advantage is derived largely from endowed resources, such as
cultural heritage, while competitive advantage relies more on resource
deployment (in other words, creativity in managing and marketing
the destination). The ability of a tourism destination to compete therefore
depends on ‘‘its ability to transform the basic inherited factors
into created assets with a higher symbolic or sign value’’ and tha