a marketing design approach to destination …...a marketing design approach to destination...

A marketing design approach to destination development

Eva Maria Jernsand October 17th 2014

Licentiate thesis in Business Administration

Acknowledgements I have a lot of people to thank for that this licentiate thesis has come true. First of all, Helena Kraff who I have spent almost every working day with during five years, including four trips to Kenya. I would probably not have thought about becoming a PhD student if I had not met you. Having someone around to discuss things with is worth a lot, not only for the thesis but person-ally. Pushing and encouraging me and Helena to start and never stop striving for PhD funding was Ulla Johansson-Sköldberg. You were right, it was worth the effort! Thanks also to Maria Nyström, who gave me the opportunity to work in Kisumu. I have had a great time so far!

Lena Mossberg is my supervisor. You have not only helped me in planning and writing, giving constructive and supportive feedback, but also with good ideas and practical parts around the project. And Johan Hagberg, my second supervisor, you have a fantastic ability to see things I don’t see myself, which I appreciate a lot. Furthermore, all my colleagues at Centre for Tourism and J9, thanks for interesting seminars and discussions. To mention some, Tommy, Sandhiya, Henrik, Erik, John, Robin, Kristina, Maria José and Cecilia have all contributed with new angles and insights. My opponents on the proposal and internal end seminars, Mary Jo Hatch, Lena Hansson and Anna Rylander came with good advice and inspiration. Thank you! Also important to mention is Kristina Fridh at HDK who has been a very good support throughout the project.

My PhD student colleagues in Kenya and Sweden have been important, in courses, discussions and collaborative work. In Sweden, thanks to Helena H, Mirjana, Frank, Ulises, Gabriella, Samu-el, Marcus, Fayad, Hanna, Anna, and Magnus, and in Kenya, Joshua, Frankline, Franklin, Jennif-her, Naomi and David.

Special thanks also to my funders Mistra Urban Futures (MUF) with their platform in Kisumu (KLIP), and Centre for Tourism at School of Business, Economics and Law. At KLIP, special thanks to Prof. Stephen Agong and Dr. Patrick Hayombe.

Thanks to all the people in Dunga who have participated and been partners in workshops, meet-ings and discussions. Special thanks to the tour guide organization Dectta, the NGO Ecofinder Kenya, and the Beach Management Unit (BMU). To mention some in Dunga that has meant a lot for the development in Dunga and the project: Leonarde, Samuel, Sylus, Nicholas, Richard, John Steve, and Caroline. Thanks also to the tourism organizations in Kisumu for meetings, dis-cussions and presence at presentations: Lake Victoria Tourism Association, Rural Tourism Net-work, Kenya Wildlife Service, Ministry of Tourism, and the Tourism county government.

Last but not least, thanks to all the participants in our test tours and the people in Dunga being part of making them memorable experiences. Thanks also to my family for always being there: Mats, Erik and Ellen. And thanks to all the people I have forgotten here…

Abstract


An increasing demand for environmental, socio-cultural and political aspects has led to that more integrated methods of tourism planning has evolved, which emphasize sustainability as a key fac-tor. However, it is argued that the term sustainability is used carelessly and that the social aspect is often overlooked. In this thesis, local participation is dealt with as an aspect of social sustaina-bility in tourism. Participation has gained ground due to its possibility to handle issues such as reluctance from communities and competing interests among stakeholders. There are too many projects that have failed, why participation is also motivated by increased effectiveness and effi-ciency of initiatives. However, participation takes place in theory and planning documents but rarely in practice, and it could be argued that the level of participation is often low, considering local communities merely as passive informants. This is an especially interesting and important aspect in projects in developing countries, where unequal power relations is an issue that must be considered throughout, to avoid development workers seeing themselves as legitimised civilisers.

Two destination development processes have been identified in this thesis as moving towards a view that stakeholders should take part in the process: place branding and experience innovation. It is however discussed how this participation can take place. Design allows for empathy, intui-tion and user involvement, and the evolutionary nature of the design process fits well with how scholars describe place branding and experience innovation. The purpose with this thesis is to demonstrate how design can enhance participation in place branding and experience innovation in order to achieve sustainable destination development. The case is an ecotourism site by Lake Victoria in Kenya where a collaborative and action-oriented approach is used for developing the destination. The active involvement as facilitator, partner and participant observer contributes to an in-depth understanding of the context and the situation.

The study reveals a process that is evolutionary and where visualisation as communication and idea generating tool is at the core. The theoretical contribution is a beginning of an understanding of how participatory processes in destination development can take place where marketing and design get the opportunity to collaborate. The practical contribution is inspiration, motivation and tools to work for sustainable destination development.

Keywords: destination development, place branding, participatory design, experience innovation Author: Eva Maria Jernsand Licentiate Thesis 2014 Department of Business Administration School of Business, Economics and Law University of Gothenburg

Sammanfattning Destinationsutveckling med en marknadsföring-design-approach

En ökad efterfrågan på miljömässiga, sociokulturella och politiska aspekter har lett till att mer integrerade metoder för turismplanering har utvecklats som betonar hållbarhet som en nyckelfak-tor. Det hävdas dock att begreppet hållbarhet används vårdslöst och att den sociala aspekten ofta förbises. I denna uppsats behandlas lokalt deltagande som en aspekt av social hållbarhet inom turism. Deltagandeprocesser har vunnit mark på grund av möjligheten att hantera frågor som ovilja från medborgare och konkurrerande intressen bland intressenter. Det finns alltför många projekt som har misslyckats, varför deltagande också motiveras av ökad effektivitet och ända-målsenlighet. Deltagandet sker dock ofta i planeringsdokument men sällan i praktiken, och det hävdas att nivån på deltagandet ofta är låg. Lokala intressenter ses då enbart som passiva infor-manter. Detta är en särskilt intressant och viktig aspekt för projekt i utvecklingsländer, där ojäm-lika maktförhållanden är en fråga som bör beaktas under hela processen för att undvika att pro-jektarbetare ser sig själva som legitimerade civilisatörer.

I den här uppsatsen har två destinationsutvecklingsprocesser identifierats där det framhålls att intressenterna bör delta: platsvarumärke och upplevelseinnovation. Det har dock diskuteras hur detta deltagande ska se ut. Design medger empati, intuition och deltagarengagemang, och design-processens evolutionära natur lämpar sig för hur forskare beskriver platsvarumärkes- och upple-velseinnovationsprocesserna. Syftet med uppsatsen är att visa på hur design kan öka deltagandet i platsvarumärkes- och upplevelseinnovationsprocesser för att uppnå hållbar destinationsutveckl-ing. Fallet är en ekoturismort vid Viktoriasjön i Kenya där en samverkande och aktionsorienterad metod används för att utveckla destinationen. Ett aktivt engagemang som facilitator, partner och deltagande observatör bidrar till en fördjupad förståelse av sammanhanget och situationen.

Studien visar en process som är evolutionär och där visualisering som kommunikations- och idégenererande verktyg är kärnan. Det teoretiska bidraget är en början på ökad förståelse för hur deltagandeprocesser i destinationsutveckling kan se ut där marknadsföring och design får tillfälle att samverka. Det praktiska bidraget är inspiration, motivation och verktyg för att arbeta för håll-bar destinationsutveckling.

Nyckelord: destinationsutveckling, platsvarumärke, deltagande design, upplevelseinnovation

Författare: Eva Maria Jernsand Licentiatuppsats 2014 Företagsekonomiska institutionen Handelshögskolan Göteborgs universitet

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Table of contents Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3

Sustainable destination development through participation ............................................................. 3 Defining areas of interest for the study ................................................................................................ 4 Purpose ...................................................................................................................................................... 6 Contributions............................................................................................................................................ 6 Disposition ................................................................................................................................................ 7

Chapter 2. Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................. 8

Place branding as a sustainable and participatory process ................................................................. 8 Experience innovation as a sustainable and participatory process ................................................. 10 Participatory design ............................................................................................................................... 11 Participation - a recurring topic ........................................................................................................... 13 A marketing design approach to destination development ............................................................. 14

Chapter 3. Methodological framework ................................................................................................... 16

Kisumu Local interaction Platform (KLIP) ....................................................................................... 16 The case ................................................................................................................................................... 17 The KLIP core group project .............................................................................................................. 19 Research design ...................................................................................................................................... 20 Methodological considerations ............................................................................................................ 21

Interesting and influential research ................................................................................................. 21 Action research .................................................................................................................................. 21 Transdisciplinary research ................................................................................................................ 22 Reflexive methodology ..................................................................................................................... 23

Gathering empirical material ................................................................................................................ 25 Participatory observations ................................................................................................................ 25 Interviews ........................................................................................................................................... 26 Other material .................................................................................................................................... 28

Analysis .................................................................................................................................................... 28 Ethical considerations ........................................................................................................................... 29

Chapter 4. Article summaries ................................................................................................................... 32

Article 1: Participatory place branding through design .................................................................... 32 Article 2: Tourism experience innovation through design .............................................................. 33

Chapter 5. Concluding discussion ............................................................................................................ 35 References ................................................................................................................................................... 38 Epilogue ....................................................................................................................................................... 45 Appendices .................................................................................................................................................. 46

Appendix 1 (article 1): Participatory place branding through design ............................................. 46 Appendix 2 (article 2): Tourism experience innovation through design ....................................... 71 Appendix 3 Project activity schedule .................................................................................................. 92

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Prologue On the second year of the master programme in Business & Design I started working closely with Helena Kraff, who is a trained designer, in a project with Bollebygd municipality. We mixed methods from business administration and design for the purpose of developing the municipali-ty’s place brand. The organisations and residents were invited to be part of the development from the start and we organised workshops, presentations, and a project space in the town centre where people could come in and where we could also sit and work. The open types of questions that we posed, and the openness to methods, tools and people we worked with set me in a work-ing situation that was new to me. Also the way Helena and I worked together inspired both of us to continue, so we decided to start a company together after the year in Bollebygd. We carried on working with combining design and marketing methods in different projects, although we found it hard to get those long-term contracts where we could have the time to reflect, work further on something that came up and being open with methods and new steps. At the same time we looked for funding for PhD studies, since we thought we had something important to say: the integration of business administration (marketing in particular) and design as an advantage for place development. The opportunity came up, with very good help from professor Ulla Johans-son-Sköldberg who was the director of Business and Design Lab that was closely connected to our master programme. Also there were our future supervisors: professor Maria Nyström and professor Lena Mossberg. Maria was the project leader for a new venture with Mistra Urban Fu-tures (MUF), the Kisumu Local Interaction Platform (KLIP) in Kenya. Lena was the director of Centre for Tourism that we had earlier received some seed money from. We all met in Maria’s apartment a sunny day in March 2012. Helena Hansson, who by then was a teacher at HDK (School of Design and Crafts) was also there interested in becoming a PhD student. All of us started almost directly with proposals and preparations for PhD studies. Two fantastic years were ahead of us, full of experiences.

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Chapter 1. Introduction

Tourism’s rapid growth calls for a greater commitment to the principles of sustainability to harness tourism’s benefits and mitigate its possibly negative impacts on societies and the environment (World Tourism Organization, 2013, p 26).

Sustainable destination development through participation

The increasing demand for environmental, socio-cultural and political aspects in tourism has re-sulted in more integrated methods of tourism planning (Fazenda et al, 2010). Responsible tour-ism operations and tourism consumption are on the agenda, which have led actors such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and several tour operators to enhance sustainability as a key issue (Fazenda et al, 2010; World Tourism Organization, 2013). However, the complexity of sustainable development has made the approaches to reach it diverse. The term is often referred to as being used carelessly and it seems to mean different things to different people (Tadajewski and Brownlie, 2008). There has also been an over-emphasis on the environ-mental dimension of sustainability and tourism scholars argue for a more holistic view. Camilleri (2014, p 43) points to that “there is a need for globally accepted guidelines that equally emphasise on both environmental and socio-cultural issues”. He claims that the discussions are often around theories defining the concepts, rather than about business cases and “how to trigger ac-tive participation in the tourism industry” (Camilleri, 2014, p 42).

Participation from and partnership with local stakeholders are said to give several positive effects on destination development. First, it makes it possible to handle more and other types of topics and avoid conflicts. Byrd (2007) points to participation’s capability to avoid a top-down approach where experts make decisions that do not reflect the community interests, and the ability to bal-ance conflicts between stakeholder groups and competing interests within the decision making system (Byrd, 2007). A second important argument is the democratic right for people to take part in processes that affect them. People live, work and have other stakes in the destinations and it is argued that they need to be involved in the development. Politicians have “failed to represent grassroots” and it has evoked “feelings of alienation towards governmental decision-making” (Tosun, 2000, p 615). This has led to that governments need to justify their actions in response to community actions. A third main consideration is the pragmatic point; that there have been too many failures of plans and decision-making processes (Tosun, 2000). Various approaches have been used by tourism scholars to understand and describe participation, such as stakeholder theory (e.g. Byrd, 2007; Zhao and Ritchie, 2007), collaboration theory (e.g. Jamal and Getz, 1995) and similar, often in combination with practice-based concepts such as community tourism planning (e.g. Jamal and Getz, 1995), cooperative tourism planning (Dallen, 1998) and community-based tourism (CBT, e.g. Okazaki, 2008). Terms and expressions frequent-ly mentioned include ownership, partnership, empowerment, openness, transparency and mutual goals. The importance of participation has been especially emphasised regarding tourism and development studies in developing countries with studies of for example pro-poor tourism (PPT,

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e.g. Ashley et al, 2000) and anti-poverty tourism (APT, e.g. Zhao and Ritchie, 2007) which under-score tourism as a way for people to come out of poverty. Most of the development organisa-tions now refer to their work as partnerships, trying to do things not for people but with them (Eriksson-Baaz, 2005, p 3).

However, to create equal relationships has proved to be difficult. There are few examples from destination development projects where community participation has been successful, especially in developing countries. Participation, local decision-making and economic benefits for local res-idents take place in planning documents but rarely in practice, according to Timothy (1999), and Tosun (2000, p 614) argue that “there seems to be no evidence which shows that participatory tourism development practices have gone beyond community consultation or manipulative par-ticipation in the developing world”. Wall and Mathieson (2006) state that public participation is a positive contribution in theory, however in practice it is “difficult to arrive at decisions which are socially and environmentally acceptable and, at the same time, economically feasible”. In the practice of development aid, Eriksson-Baaz (2005, p 6) points to that the lack of sustainability is “often attributed to partners’ organizational and institutional capacity and aid-dependence” (Eriksson-Baaz, 2005, p 7). She argues that this perspective downplays the role of inequality in power relations and interest conflicts. It also restrains the ways in which “policies and concepts are appropriated and reinterpreted by different actors in the process” (Eriksson-Baaz, 2005, p 8-9). Thus, development workers who see themselves as legitimized “to civilize and develop the underdeveloped” (Eriksson-Baaz, 2005, p 37) take the risk of not fully emphasising the power relations this view encompasses.

Defining areas of interest for the study

The increasing interest from scholars and practitioners to move towards participation calls for alternative ways of working that are inclusive and participatory. In this thesis, there are several connections to sustainable development and participation. The thesis stems from a project fund-ed by Mistra Urban Futures (MUF) and their local interaction platform in Kisumu, Kenya (KLIP). At KLIP senior researchers and PhD students from Sweden and Kenya work in collabo-ration with local organizations in Kisumu and its environs in order to enhance sustainable eco-tourism and marketplace development. This context has influenced the thesis in many ways, for example the choice of case and parts of the research methodology. The close relationship I have with Helena Kraff, the PhD student in design who I worked with for three years before our PhD studies started, is also a great part of the thesis. Our common framework for the project was par-ticipatory design and marketing, applied to tourism since we were connected to Centre for Tour-ism. All this led me to an overall theme: integration of marketing and design in destination devel-opment. Destination development has traditionally been recognised as an area where marketers promote places for tourists, and relationships and stakeholder involvement has been a common theme in marketing for decades. However, destination development and participatory design is not yet as common to combine although design has moved towards new applications.

In participatory design users are entitled to be part of issues that concern them (Björgvinsson et al, 2012, p 103). The breakthrough of participatory design is connected to a “design-by-doing”

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approach (Ehn, 1993, p 58) recognised as a form of democratic learning with its roots in workers’ unions in Scandinavia and later in groups of workers and designers who operated in collaborative processes by means of representations such as prototypes, mockups, simulations and scenarios to state what is not possible to express by language (Ehn, 1993, p 67). Since then the participatory design practice has evolved from workplaces to the public sphere (Hillgren, 2013, p 76), and it now includes projects within fields such as health care, education, crime prevention, and com-munity development. The application has moved from a product perspective towards “designing for people’s purposes” (Sanders and Stappers, 2008, p 10), and involves services as well as socie-tal needs, taking “a larger scope of enquiry” (Sanders and Stappers, 2008, p 10). The emerging design practice will, according to Sanders and Stappers (2008, p 11) “change what we design, how we design, and who designs”. For example, they refer to a project with American nurses who co-designed their ideal future patient room by using a 3D-kit for prototyping (Sanders, 2006). How-ever, the applications referred to in design literature are rarely examples of longer processes that involve multiple stakeholders, and take the larger scope of enquiry. One reason is that politics, with its hierarchy and bureaucracy, tend to keep decision-making within the system (Staszowski et al, 2014). Staszowski et al (2014, p 1) propose that designers need to “re-focus efforts on ex-amining and re-distributing the decision-making processes”, and to create stronger relationships. Connecting to sustainable destination development, I therefore find it interesting to explore par-ticipatory processes where the product is indefinite and the stakeholders are multiple, and inte-grate them with participatory design.

I have recognised two processes which have started to adopt a participatory view. The first is place branding, or in the tourism context destination branding1. The importance of stakeholder involvement has increasingly been pronounced within place branding (e.g. Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Hanna and Rowley, 2011; Lucarelli, 2012; Kavaratzis, 2012; Warnaby, 2009). For example, Pike (2005) argues that destination brand implementation will fail if we go on dealing with only one target audience, and according to Braun et al (2013) this calls for a new approach to brand-ing being not only about communication but about participation. If stakeholders act as partners they will feel more responsible for the long-term development of the place (Braun et al, 2013), however new methodologies for involvement and co-creation are needed (Kavaratzis, 2012). My first research question reflects the conversation in place branding literature as well as the evolve-ment of participatory design towards new forms of applications.

RQ 1: How can community involvement be reached by an integration of design to the place branding process?

1 The place when it comes to tourism is often referred to as the destination (the place where you go), and similarly destination branding refers to the tourism dimension of place branding. The tourists are not interested in which company produces each of the services provided, but see the brand as an entity, which could be a tourist resort, a city, a region or a nation (Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009). From the producer’s point of view, the situation is more complex. Moilanen and Rainisto (2009) propose that the ideal situation would be that all the brand contacts support a coherent brand identity of a place. This might be applicable to corporate branding, however since there are a lot of actors and stakeholders involved and there is a lot of “noise, fuss and competitors’ actions that change and redirect the message” (Moilanan and Rainisto, p. 18), it is a challenge for place branders. As Domínguez García et al (2013, p 125) point out, “[p]lace branding requires connection of the worlds of private, public sector and knowledge institu-tions”, and this holds also for destination branding. Moreover, from a sustainability perspective the environmental and social aspects have to be considered (Domínguez García et al, 2013). This means that the branding of a place need to be approached differently. Taking this wider point of departure, I consider the literature on place branding to be applicable to destination branding, and I have chosen to use place branding as the overall notion in this thesis.

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Another process identified as moving towards a participatory view is the experience innovation process, which is at the core when developing a destination. It could be argued as being a specific part of place branding. The discussion around experience logic is central to the research area since researchers want to find out the specific characteristics of experience innovation in relation to other innovation (e.g. Eide and Mossberg, 2013). In the overall innovation literature scholars have highlighted the importance of multiple stakeholders, relationships and interactions in alli-ances, joint ventures and networks, as sources of knowledge in the innovation process (Ayuso et al, 2006). However, knowledge integration as a resource for sustainable development has not been enough emphasised (Ayuso et al, 2006) and community action as an innovative activity has been neglected (Seyfang and Smith, 2007). In experience innovation literature, involvement from employees, customers and partners has been pointed out as crucial for innovations to take place (Eide and Fuglsang, 2013; Fuglsang et al, 2011; Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014). Innovative activities often come about in spatially clustered areas, and therefore the social interaction has come to be seen as crucial to investigate further (Asheim and Gertler, 2005). Just as scholars in place brand-ing, tourism literature has pointed out a need for new methodologies (Hjalager, 2010), preferably user-based (Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014). It is also argued that a cross-disciplinary manner is re-quired (Hjalager, 2010). These characteristics of methodology to reach a collaborative innovation process call for an integration with participatory design since the latter is a field where this meth-odology has been used for many years. The second question is: RQ 2: How can tourism experience innovation processes be understood and developed using a design approach?

By exploring the above questions first separately and then together, I aim to get a deeper under-standing of how participatory design can be integrated with marketing, in particular destination development and with focus on the two processes of place branding and experience innovation. Viewing place branding as a sustainable process it involves not only managers and governments but local communities as partners. Sustainable experience innovation processes similarly involve those people that are affected by the outcome and who are close to the daily performance. New ways of dealing with knowledge integration and participation is needed, and that is where partici-patory design is interesting to consider as an alternative worth exploring. By studying participa-tion with local communities in those two processes, I propose that there are a lot of things to learn which could contribute to taking a step towards sustainable destination development.

Purpose

The purpose with this thesis is to demonstrate how a design approach can enhance participation in place branding and experience innovation in order to achieve sustainable destination develop-ment.

Contributions

The contribution is an increased understanding of participatory marketing processes in destina-tion development, particularly in experience innovation and place branding. Another aim is to

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suggest and motivate mindsets, methods and tools for destination development for practitioners in marketing, tourism and related fields.

Disposition

The thesis is structured as follows. First, a theoretical overview of place branding and experience innovation is given with an emphasis on the emerging interest in a participatory approach. Design and particularly participatory design is then described as a possible way to integrate with the two processes of place branding and experience innovation.

In the methodology section a description of the choice of case and methods are described. The case is the development of an ecotourism site in Kisumu, Kenya. Reflections on the research design and methodological considerations are discussed, as well as methods for gathering empiri-cal material and ethical considerations. The two articles that form the base of the thesis are then summarised. The first article is connect-ed to the first research question: How can community involvement be reached by an integration of design to the place branding process? The article title is Participatory place branding through design – the case of Dunga beach, Kenya and is co-written with Helena Kraff. It is under review for the journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. The second article is connected to the second research question: How can tourism experience innovation processes be understood and developed using a design approach? The title is Tour-ism experience innovation through design and is co-written with Helena Kraff and Lena Mossberg. The article has been submitted to a special issue about innovation and value creation in experience-based tourism in Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism. In a concluding discussion the results of the articles are reflected upon. The contributions of the thesis are also discussed in this section, as well as its limitations. Finally, suggestions on further research are given.

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Chapter 2. Theoretical framework

In this chapter, three theoretical frameworks are reviewed from the perspective of being sustain-able and participatory: place branding, experience innovation and design. Thereafter, participation as a recurrent topic is reviewed, and it is followed by arguments of why a marketing design ap-proach to destination development is used in this thesis.

Place branding as a sustainable and participatory process

The question of terminology within place branding is debatable (Anholt, 2010). A great deal of the manuscripts submitted to the journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy still begin by quoting a definition of brand from AMA (American Marketing Association). It is referred to as “[a] name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature…” and so on (Anholt, 2010). There have been several attempts to redefine the term, since it does not capture the strategic approach the field has moved into (e.g. Anholt, 2010; Ind and Bjerke, 2007). Zenker and Braun (2010, p 5) defined it as “a network of associations in the consumers’ mind…” and so on, however this view implies that branding is only about expressions, images and perceptions. It still refers to the brand as something that is fixed, as a name or a symbol, rather than vivid and fluctuating. Hankinson (2004, p 109) stresses the importance of viewing the brand as “a relationship with consumers and other stakeholders”, and he claims that place and destination marketing literature to date has had too much focus on brands as “perceptual entities or images” with emphasis on communications, rather than focusing on behaviours and reality. Thereby Hankinson proposes a view of the brand not as a noun but as a verb, with emphasis on branding as a process. Similarly, Kavaratzis and Hatch (2013, p 6) claim that the static view of identity as something fixed, to be “tapped, defined, and manipulated”, and branding as the attempt to communicate the identity, limits the way in which branding is understood and carried out. It is also argued (e.g. by Zenker and Beckmann, 2013) that place brand strategies are often grounded in the belief that the brand is a communication tool for all target audiences in one instead of a large number of target groups with different perspectives and interests.

As a more holistic way of approaching place branding, Kavaratzis and Hatch (2013) merge a model of organizational identity from Hatch and Schultz (2002) into the field. They propose that branding is the facilitator of the identity process. Brand management is seen as a shadow process which resonates with the sub-process of expressing, impressing, mirroring and reflecting the cul-ture, identity and image of a place. This also means that people working with place branding should be aware of that it is not their own desires that should be inserted, but those of the com-munity. Brand managers are initiating, facilitating and stimulating the construction of the place brand process, but also engaging in the dialogue as a group of stakeholders. Kavaratzis and Hatch consider place branding as consisting of on-going interwoven processes and systems of interac-tions between individuals and the collective, the physical and nonphysical, and the organized and the random.

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Following the argumentation of place branding as an on-going process with multiple stakeholders who have different perspectives, it has similarities with the notion of sustainable destination de-velopment. Gartner (2014, p 115) claims that a destination must focus on “the long-term health of the destination itself”, which includes environmental and socio-cultural elements, not only revenue growth. The destination is a “living entity, complex and dynamic”, as compared to con-sumer products, which means that destination branding and sustainable development goes “hand in hand” (Gartner, 2014, p 115). Similarly regarding marketing in general, Gordon et al (2011, p 145) claim that: “marketing itself needs to become sustainable”. It as a role to play when it comes to guide regulations, stimulate innovation, and challenge central institutions and it should there-fore be seen as an important contributor to sustainable development2 (Gordon et al, 2011). There is a broad spectra of academic and practical fields that place branding covers, such as ur-ban planning, geography, urban studies, marketing, public administration, and sociology (Warna-by, 2009), as well as specific domains such as tourism, retailing, cultural activities and sports (Hankinson, 2004). Since places affect and concern not only consumers and companies as corpo-rate brands essentially do, but also governments, politicians, residents and visitors (Fan, 2010; Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009) an emerging turn in place branding literature towards stakeholder involvement has been recognised. There is a democratic reasoning about who actually owns the place brand. Kavaratzis (2012, p 15) state that stakeholders “make decisions […], attribute mean-ing [and] in essence create the brand”, and that they therefore own it. Stakeholders’ roles are crit-ical since people may provide resistance to branding initiatives that do not correspond with their perceptions of the place (Hanna and Rowley, 2011). If initiatives are not recognised and accepted, stakeholders will not commit to it (Aitken and Campelo, 2011). It is also argued that if for exam-ple residents are ignored the brand will not promote the authenticity of the people who live at the place (Aitken and Campelo, 2011). Since the perspectives of internal stakeholders must be con-sidered there is an urgent need to include them in the process (Kavaratzis, 2012). Stakeholders seen as partners will support and sustain the brand (Hanna and Rowley, 2011), and the increased ownership this will lead to will also bring forth “more responsibility for its development, man-agement and external reputation (Braun et al, 2013, p 21), which in the long-term will cater for a sustainable development of the brand. Although seen as highly important, there is to date a lack of involvement of stakeholders in place branding, especially regarding residents and local communities (Braun et al, 2013; Kavaratzis, 2012). Braun et al (2013) point out the importance of identifying and testing methods of partici-pation, and they propose the introduction of fields such as political and economic science, and participatory action research. As will follow, the practice of participatory design may contribute to this shortage of methods.

2 The definition of sustainable development from the Brundtland report is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).

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Experience innovation as a sustainable and participatory process

In innovation literature sustainability is often treated as a way for businesses to respond to envi-ronmental and social pressures or as a source of inspiration for efforts that give opportunity for competitive advantage and growth (Ayuso, 2006). This reasoning takes stance from a business and output point of view, dealing with the products and the enterprises where the products are produced (McElroy, 2003). Only few studies take their departure from the interlinking of innova-tion, environment, communities and business as opportunities for sustainable development (see e.g. Seyfang and Smith, 2007 for an example of this type of study). The latter could be argued as seeing sustainable innovation as a sustainable process rather than an outcome. Both views need however to be considered. As McElroy (2003) puts it, “sustainable practice in business (out-comes) is utterly dependent upon whether or not sustainable innovation processes are in play - the former cannot exist without the latter, at least not for long” (McElroy, 2003, p 126, italics in orig-inal). The innovation process is about knowledge making and adoption, and in order to improve learning (and innovation) there is a need to recognize “knowledge production as a social process” (McElroy, 2003, p 134). Innovations do not come from individuals but from collective efforts and wide acceptances. However, there are only few examples documented and commented on from research as well as practice that emphasize the role of stakeholder dialogues (Ayuso et al, 2006). As Ayuso et al (2006, p 478) point out, “[d]espite the potential of stakeholder engagement as a source of knowledge, current innovation research has not dealt with the knowledge integra-tion from stakeholders in the context of sustainable development”. Similarly, Seyfang and Smith (2007, p 584) point to that “[c]ommunity action is a neglected, but potentially important, site of innovative activity”. Experience innovation is identified as an example of an innovation process that is moving to-wards a more including and participatory approach. As opposed to innovations in for example medicine or engineering, where large R&D departments develop new products in closed envi-ronments, the picture looks quite different when it comes to innovations in service and experi-ence. They are often tailor made for specific customers and they are not technical (Sundbo, 2009). Further, they are socially organized since the tacit knowledge that is often involved is diffi-cult to exchange over distance (Asheim and Gertler, 2005). The innovative activity tends to be spatially clustered, which means there is a growing importance of social interaction where “knowledge flows between economic entities” (Asheim and Gertler, 2005, p 293). The interac-tion is continuous and involves multiple actors in complex webs (Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009), often including and driven by knowledge from customers and employees (Fuglsang et al, 2011). The innovations frequently derive from ideas that evolve out of existing products and ser-vices in an incremental way (Sundbo et al, 2013). For example, when a customer poses a question (Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009) or an employee finds a new way of dealing with a recurring problem, they may turn out as realizations of new ideas and concepts in action (Toivonen et al, 2007). Those innovations are not always recognized until a posteriori (Gallouj, 2002; Toivonen et al, 2007; Toivonen, 2010) but they could still be considered as innovations. Empirical examples have shown that using pilot customers as critical evaluators and informants is a good way to develop innovations (Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009). Those pilot customers might well be tourists when dealing with experience innovations, as article 2 in this thesis shows. The tourist could thereby be considered co-designer (Ek et al, 2008) and co-innovator (Hall and Williams, 2008) of the experi-

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ence, and just as the involvement of residents and other stakeholders in place branding, this could cater for that the initiatives taken are closer connected to the people that “use” the place or the experience and thereby it can be argued that a long-term sustainability is also ensured.

The characteristics of experience innovation are further that products and services from several firms are put together in packages (Alsos et al, 2014), as for example in city walks and bike trails with stops at the collaborating firms. Those networks enable co-creation and transfer of knowledge between companies and they create a sense of trust, which makes it possible to meet challenges together and achieve goals that would not have been possible without the networks (Eide and Fuglsang, 2013). As seen from a participatory point of view, these collaborations are important, however it has been acknowledged that a challenge lies in the fact that a lot of ideas are out there, waiting to be captured and taken further (Fuglsang et al, 2011; Hjalager, 2010; Toi-vonen et al, 2007). Strategic considerations must be undertaken, giving “guiding action and con-trol” (Fuglsang et al, 2011). However, too much control may hinder innovations from coming forth (Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014), which calls for creative approaches and methods in combina-tion with strategy. Nevertheless, neither in place branding nor in experience innovation a discus-sion can be discerned around what design could do regarding participatory processes, methods and tools.

Participatory design

For the last couple of decades, design has increasingly widened its scope from being mainly product-oriented towards designing for services and societal needs. New sub-disciplines have emerged, and it has been recognised that design can deal with complex situations (Thackara, 2005) and strategies (Valtonen, 2007). Moreover, it is said to be a resource for “development and innovation” (Wetter-Edman, 2014, p 32). A reason for the recent argumentation for using design in a wider sense could be connected to the design process as being intuitive, open-ended and non-linear (Schön, 1983). Designers propose ideas for future states by posing open questions of “what might be, could be, and should be” (Lawson, 1997, pp. 126-127), a way of working that is described as a “designerly way of knowing and thinking” (Cross, 2007, p 41).

There are similarities between the process of designing and the call for including and involving innovation and place branding processes described above. Already in 1971 the first major confer-ence on participatory design was held in England. Nigel Cross and others articulated an urgent need for the design discipline to introduce methods that include citizen participation and decision making, as a way to eliminate “many potential problems at their source” (Cross, 1972, p 6). The same type of argumentation arose in Scandinavia in projects with workers, management and de-signers where the workers were involved in the development of their workplace and the compa-nies’ product development (Burns et al, 2006; Ehn, 1993; Gedenryd, 1998; Sanders and Stappers, 2008). The skills of the industrial workers were seen as important for the results, and a process of mutual learning was noticed in the interaction (Ehn, 1993).

The participatory approach in design has thereafter grown to include “future experiences for people, communities and cultures” (Sanders and Stappers, 2008, p 6), which the user “at the heart of a solution” (Burns et al, 2006, p 9), and include projects within for example health care, educa-

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tion, crime prevention and community development. The sub-discipline of transformation design uses design for social and economic issues in public organisations, aiming to hand over tools and skills to the organisations involved and thereby catering for long-term sustainability (Burns et al, 2006). Other sub-disciplines include interaction design, service design, design for social innova-tion, socially responsible design, human centred design (HCD), empathic design, public interest design and social impact design. The user-centeredness has though come to be scrutinized. For example, Sanders (2006) make a division between a user-centred and a participatory design ap-proach, arguing that the former is characterised by designers as experts, and stakeholders (users) are mainly subjects or informers. In the participatory approach, Sanders claims that the partici-pants are co-creators of the process and the outcome, and designers are not only designing for people but with them. There is a democratic reasoning in that users are entitled to participate in the design process of products and services that will have impact on their lives (Cross, 1981; Sanders and Dandavate, 1999; Westerlund, 2009). The embodied knowledge that only users can have through their per-sonal experience is acknowledged as important in the participatory process (Krippendorf and Reinhart, 2007; Westerlund, 2009), and the social context with other people gives the opportunity to share knowledge, ideas and findings in a group. Using visual tools for communication, one person’s thoughts become observable to the other participants (the tacit knowledge is reached), which makes it possible to build on each other’s ideas. A person’s thoughts can be followed and built on by the use of visual representations instead of only verbal language, since not everything is possible to express in words (Schön, 1983; Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013; Westerlund, 2009). Stories may be created which give life to insights, and by seeing something visually, empathy aris-es of what is being described (Bailey, 2013; Segelström, 2009; Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013). A workshop does not stop at a discussion level since the visual tools such as sketching and proto-typing makes the results tangible (Westerlund, 2009). Those tools are referred to as the “lan-guage of design” by Nigel Cross (2007, p 58), and as the “what if tools” by Lawson (1997, p 242). Prototypes are, according to Buchenau and Suri (2000, p 424), “representations of a design made before final artefacts exist […] created to inform both design process and design decisions”, and “[t]hey range from sketches and different kind of models at various levels […] to explore and communicate propositions about the design and its context”. Buchenau and Suri (2000, p 425) argue that to fully understand something, you need to experience it with your mind and body. This personal experience, “exploring by doing”, or “experience prototyping”, is used by designers to understand existing experiences and context, but also to explore and evaluate new design ide-as, as well as to communicate ideas to an audience (Buchenau and Suri, 2000, p 425).

In this thesis, the act of visualisation is proposed as an important aspect from design which could be integrated into place branding and experience innovation processes. In particular, the proto-typing phase in the design process is described in detail in article 2, as a way to enhance innova-tion in the discourse of tourism experience.

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Participation - a recurring topic

It should be noted that participation has gained an increasing focus in marketing theory, not only regarding place branding and experience innovation. It developed from relationship marketing (e.g. Gummesson, 1995; Morgan and Hunt, 1994), network theory (e.g. Achrol, 1997; Gadde and Mattson, 1987) and stakeholder theory (e.g. Polonsky, 1995). All these concepts challenge the traditional way of viewing marketing from a product and production perspective. An evolution has occurred from goods to service logic, and a discussion around a third logic has started: the experience logic (Eide and Mossberg, 2013; Pine and Gilmore, 2013; Schembri, 2006). One rea-son is that participation appears as a necessity for experiences to take place. Furthermore, the phenomenon of participation and collaboration with local communities is emerging in our society as a whole. It has been a common theme for decades and centuries, espe-cially regarding governance matters. Arnstein introduced a “ladder of citizen participation” in 1969, where she arranged the extent to which citizen power is determining a plan or program (see figure 1). At the bottom of the ladder there is manipulation and therapy, which is rather than participation a way for “powerholders to ‘educate’ or ‘cure’ the participants” (Arnstein, 1969, p 217). In the middle of the ladder Arnstein proposes informing, consultation and placation as “de-grees of tokenism”, meaning that power holders “allow the have-nots to hear and to have a voice”. Finally at the top of the ladder, with partnership, delegated power and citizen control the “have-not citizens obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerial power” (Arn-stein, 1969, p 217). Bingham (2006) proposes that the new forms of governance that participatory approaches lead to require a leadership that “honors the importance of citizen and stakeholder voice in policy decisions” and that is “built on collaboration rather than command and control” (Bingham, 2006, p. 816). Participatory methods are not unique for design. They have been used for a long time, by many fields, in both practice and research. In Participatory Action Research (PAR) the members of the society are involved in processes that will have direct impact on their life and community. An example is youth groups that collaboratively create collages that visualise how they feel about their community (McIntyre, 2008). Another concept is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) that emerged in the late 1980’s, as a “family of approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyse their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act” (Chambers, 1994, p 953). It rests on a broad array of methods, for example, systematic walks and observa-tions as well as informal mapping and modelling, which are often visual and conducted on site (Chambers, 1994).

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Figure 1 A ladder of citizen participation (from Arnstein, 1969)


As reviewed in this chapter, both place branding and experience innovation literature call for the need of including stakeholders in the process (cf Fuglsang et al, 2011; Hanna and Rowley, 2011; Kavaratzis, 2012; Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014). Place branding should involve residents and local communities (Kavaratzis, 2012), and experience innovation should involve employees and cus-tomers (Fuglsang et al, 2011; Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014) as well as bring forth partnerships among firms (Eide and Fuglsang, 2013). The benefits of participation are for example democracy, authenticity, closeness, ownership, commitment and knowledge integration, but also that new creative ideas and concepts are able to develop in the interaction. However, it is not that easy in practice. Participation in itself does not bring forth innovations or sustainable and attractive brands. First, there is the question of what is meant with participation. On the higher levels of Arnstein’s ladder, participation is not about asking people for advice using focus groups or ques-tionnaires. It is rather about moving the ownership to stakeholders. In the context of destination development, the role of place brand managers should be seen as partners among others, and experience innovation should be seen as a joint process where all people involved are able to actively use their knowledge as input. Second, participation is about reaching above one person’s knowledge by building on several peoples’ input. New interactive methods and tools are needed for this to take place, and this is where design comes in with its openness to changes during the way and with visualisation as a tool for idea generation and sharing of knowledge. However, the use of participatory design approaches needs a context and the right people involved in order to come closer to decision-making. Design has started to emerge as a resource for development in a

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holistic sense, however there is much more to be done. The integration of design for destination development has just started, however, it gains progress. An example is Swedish Design Research Journal that had a special issue about destinations in 20133. By integrating design and marketing, the two could benefit from each other. Marketing has a con-siderable stake in destination development, both practically and theoretically, however the movement towards sustainability is too slow according to critical marketing advocates, especially regarding the societal challenges (Gordon et al, 2011). Design has potentials to change public governance and take on a more strategic role, however there are still barriers to be confronted (Staszowski et al, 2014). In the following, I will describe the methodology used for research and practice in an empirical example that merges the two fields and in which I have been actively involved. The context is destination development in a developing country and emphasis is put on the social sustainability aspect and participation.

3 http://svid.se/upload/Forskning/Design_Research_Journal/Design_Research_Journal_nr_2_2013/DeReJ%202.13.web.pdf

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Chapter 3. Methodological framework

In this chapter, the case, the research design and the methodological framework are explained and reflected upon. The gathering of the empirical material is described, as well as the analysing of the material. Finally, ethical considerations are discussed.

Kisumu Local interaction Platform (KLIP)

Kisumu Local Interaction Platform (KLIP) is one of Mistra Urban Futures’ (MUF) five interac-tion platforms around the world where researchers, students and the private and public sector work in collaborative ways for a sustainable urban development. The other platforms are Gothenburg (headquarter), Greater Manchester, Cape Town, and Shanghai. MUF is financed by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, and a consortium of or-ganisations in the Gothenburg region including Chalmers and Gothenburg universities. For the projects in Africa and China, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) is a co-financier. MUF also collaborates with a number of partners internationally and nationally (Mistra Urban Futures, 2014).

Image 1. The position of Kisumu in Kenya and Dunga in relation to Kisumu city (Fälted et al, 2012).

Kisumu is Kenya’s third largest city and lies on the shore of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest and the world’s second largest freshwater lake. The city registers one of the highest poverty levels in Kenya, and a rapid population growth has not been matched by infrastructure and service devel-opment, which provides a challenge for the county authorities. The lake is also a major concern since it is polluted, over-fished and covered with water hyacinths. Water, food supply and waste management are key issues to solve (Mistra Urban Futures, 2014).

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Tourism is seen as an alternative source of livelihood for the people in Kisumu and as a means for community empowerment. Since tourism interlinks with several other sectors in the econo-my, the development of ecotourism can provide development of agriculture, wildlife, entertain-ment, handicraft and promotion of environmental conservation (Hayombe et al, 2012). The use of an innovative approach, demonstrating the benefits of and upscaling ecotourism, is said to be a way to empower and engage people (Hayombe et al, 2012). In addition to ecotourism, a major area for research and collaborations at KLIP is marketplaces. Marketplaces may impact the levels of human well-being and inequality of sub-groups of the poor, and a key issue is to find out how cities and regions can develop policies that strengthen the potential in marketplaces as resources for a sustainable development (Mistra Urban Futures, 2014).

Image 2. Water hyacinths in Lake Victoria.

The case

The case for the research is Dunga beach in Kisumu, Kenya. According to Flyvbjerg (2011) case studies include depth, which gives more detail, richness, completeness and variance than cross-unit analysis. In this case, an in-depth understanding was seen as important in order to come close to the study phenomena (the processes) and the people involved in it, and to be able to unravel the complexity. Case studies evolve in time, which constitutes the case when seen as a whole, according to Flyvbjerg. The processes can be looked upon while being in them, but it also means that the whole process cannot be recognised until after being finished or at least partly finished. A reflexive (abductive) methodology was used where theory and empirical material were reflected upon in relation to each other during and after the process, which gave dimensions that wouldn’t have been possible using several units or only theoretical material. Using a case is a way

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to illustrate to the reader how a conceptual argument might be applied, to demonstrate the im-portance of the phenomenon and to inspire ideation for the readers and the author (Siggelkow, 2007). A case study is not so much about methodological choices but about choosing what is to be studied (Flyvbjerg, 2011), however in this thesis, the case is a condition for working with an action-oriented approach where the researcher and several stakeholders are involved in the pro-cess. It was thereby an interrelation between case and methodology.

Dunga beach is situated on the shore of Lake Victoria, about six kilometres from Kisumu city centre. The gravel road to the village is bumpy with potholes all over, so the best way to get there is to walk or take a motorbike taxi (piki-piki). Nevertheless there are lots of school buses from all over Kenya coming every day to see the fish being handled on the beach by fishermen and fish-mongers, take a boat ride and enjoy the breeze from the lake. There are also other visitors, both local from Kisumu and the close region and national, as well as some international tourists. The international tourists are often volunteers or project-workers on a break from their ordinary work in other parts of Kenya. In rare cases the tourists are backpackers. Dunga was seen as a good empirical context due to the ongoing tourism activities that could be developed further and the relatively small size in terms of both geography and tourism activities which made the complexity of destination development easier to grasp.

Image 3: Dunga beach

There are a few organisations working with tourism issues in Dunga. The beach management unit (BMU) is a community-based organisation that brings together people involved in the fisher-ies at the beach with other stakeholders, managing resources and improving the livelihoods of the residents. Ecofinder Kenya is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that undertake interven-tions on for example environmental issues, entrepreneurship and pro-poor communication. They educate visiting schoolchildren and students on ecological matters. Finally, there is the tour guide organisation Dectta with 16 members that provide visitors with guided boat tours, wetland tours, bird watching, and similar. This structure of the business served as a base for the development of the destination, giving actors to work closely with, which was also considered an important fea-ture for the empirical study.

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The KLIP core group project

The methodological aims for the project set from the funders (MUF) are to work according to the triple helix model and in a transdisciplinary manner. Further, the green, fair and dense framework from MUF is one of the cornerstones. The latter is a way of viewing sustainability where ecological (green) and social (fair) sustainability is central and the urban planning is dense, which means for example that cities are compactly built. The specific local framework for KLIP is ecotourism and marketplaces.

The first trip to Kisumu was in September 2012. The Swedish group of PhD students and super-visors met about 25 PhD students from Maseno and Jooust (by then Bondo) universities and their supervisors. A core PhD student group was formed with seven people who went on a tour in a minibus with the aim of finding a common place for conducting research. In Dunga there was an ongoing work with ecotourism and the local organisations were interested in collabora-tion, which was not found on the other beaches. Another reason for choosing Dunga was that one of the Kenyan PhD students in the core group had worked in Dunga during his master pro-gram and therefore had good relations with a lot of people there.

The PhD students in the core group all work with different projects with Dunga as base, which is illustrated in figure 1. One group focuses on ecotourism and the other on marketplaces, although there are a lot of connections and overlaps. Joshua and Frankline O from Jooust, and Helena Kraff and I from Gothenburg University work as one team with ecotourism. Helena Hansson, Franklin M and Jennifher work with marketplaces. The core group has conducted some work-shops and studies together, both individual, within the small groups and in the big group. The empirical material is shared between all the members of the core group. Helena Kraff and I work closely together in all the practical work and most of the academic work. When I refer to “us” or “we” in this text I mean Helena and I, if nothing else is stated. Further, all photos in this thesis, articles included, are taken by either me or Helena Kraff.

Figure 1 KLIP PhD student core group

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Research design

The empirical material for the research comes from the collaborative work with stakeholders in and outside Dunga with the aim of developing the ecotourism site into an attractive destination without jeopardising the needs of future generations. It is also a joint work between scholars on different levels in Sweden and Kenya, which makes it possible to do field studies together, shar-ing empirical material and discussing it; a co-production of knowledge. Reflecting on the triple helix model, the collaboration between academia and local businesses was the main focus from the start. The public sector is represented by board members in KLIP and as partners in the long-term perspective. They are also involved, for example when the yearly KLIP day is arranged with speeches, presentations, football and bikerace. My view of the helix model also involves civil so-ciety (also called the quadruple helix model by e.g. Carayannis and Campbell, 2012) where the NGOs, the residents of the place and community organizations are part of the system and the process. In this project, those actors are crucial.

The fieldwork was carried out over 15 months, spending twelve weeks in Kisumu spread over four occasions. The practical work started very soon, so there was not much time to make plans or schedules for the activities. However, that was part of the transdisciplinary process; that the questions should arise in the conversation between stakeholders. Moreover, it gave us the possi-bility to reflect on actions taken while they happened and in retrospect.

Image 4-6. Stakeholder workshop, open presentation and waiting for a bikerace on KLIP day to start at Jomo Ken-yatta Sportsground in Kisumu.

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Methodological considerations

An action-oriented, transdisciplinary and reflexive methodological approach has been used for this thesis. The considerations for making these choices are made in this section.

Interesting and influential research It is often claimed that researchers are writing to an audience of like-minded people, using a lan-guage that is formulaic and jargon-like, which makes articles inaccessible for practitioners (e.g. Alvesson, 2012; Bartunek et al, 2006; Corley and Gioia, 2011). Inspired by for example Davis (1971) famous article “That’s interesting”, Alvesson (2012) points to that research should not say something that is already known or that nobody cares about outside our own often very narrow field of interest. Alvesson and Sandberg (2013, p 5) continue the argumentation by emphasising theoretical contributions that combine the interesting and the influential. Likewise, Corley and Gi-oia’s (2011) view of a theoretical contribution is that it should be seen as having two dimensions; originality and utility, both of equal importance. The originality aspect means that the researcher contributes to a current conversation (incremental insight) or start a new conversation (revelatory insight). The new conversation has a surprising, transformative thinking as a key factor; some-thing that deviates from what you expect or assume to be true. This originality could be what Davis (1971) and Alvesson (2012) propose as being interesting. What Alvesson and Sandberg (2013) call influential could be argued as similar to the Corley and Gioia’s utility aspect. It means that the insights also need to be useful for science and practice. Scientific utility improves current research practice of scholars while practical utility improves current managerial practice. In this thesis, I try to raise a new, or at least only emerging, conversation about an integration of place branding and experience innovation with design. I also want to emphasise what Corley and Gioia (2011, p 12) describe as “scope”, meaning that the research serves the interests of both academics and practitioners. However, the work could be seen as going even further with the practical utility by having an action-oriented approach.

Action research In traditional forms of social science research, the researcher is standing outside the situation doing research on practitioners (McNiff and Whitehead, 2011). Action research (AR) is a meth-odology that combines research and practice for their mutual benefit by involving and interacting with practitioners and other stakeholders (Johansson and Lindhult, 2008), and it requires total involvement of the researcher (Coghlan and Brannick, 2001). In the Dunga case, the active in-volvement in the processes studied was seen as crucial for the understanding, but also for the processes to proceed. There was an ongoing ecotourism business in Dunga when we started the project, but in what pace the development would have gone without involvement is impossible to say. Also important to consider is the mutual benefit that action research aims for. By being there as partners, the organisations, the village and the researchers could benefit from each other’s knowledge, co-producing it while working with a common goal of developing the site. In this project, this comprises with the view that tourism systems and institutions must be developed that enable a sustainable human development process where local-global partnerships, the impact of consuming nature and culture in developing countries, and an understanding of an integrated, multidisciplinary approach is addressed (Burns, 2004).

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Insider research is often viewed with suspicion (Coghlan an Brannick, 2011) since it blurs the distinctions between the researcher an those researched (Checkland and Holwell, 1998). It is however used in many different contexts and with different approaches, methods and traditions (Johansson and Lindhult 2008). The epistemological assumption is the “I/we” as the object of enquiry, that knowledge is created in a collaborative process, and the uncertainty of knowledge (McNiff and Whitehead, 2011). It means working with others at all stages in the process, and that knowledge is uncertain and indefinite; one question may generate multiple answers. Knowledge is created, not only discovered, in a process of trial and error (McNiff and Whithead, 2011). This way of working came very natural to me and Helena Kraff in the project since we had been working similarly before. The process is also very similar to the process we describe in the thesis’s articles as relevant to integrate to destination development process. This overlap between practice and academic work has however caused a lot of thinking about what the contributions of the thesis are and where to place methodological matters in the texts.

The action researcher influences not only what is said, like in an interview, but what is done. In many cases we (most of the times Helena and I, in some cases also the other PhD students in core group) were even the ones deciding what should be done. Our intentions were not to come to Dunga as experts but as partners, however it can be discussed to what extent this was accom-plished. We came with suggestions on what a workshop should include, and the organisations in Dunga commented on that or sometimes only said OK. Then we discussed how many people should be invited, where the workshop should be held, and so on. The actions taken were initiat-ed by us, facilitated by us and the results were interpreted by us, at least in the beginning of the process. Since we were managing the process, it might not be “real” action research we conduct-ed. On the other hand, during the time we worked we found partners to work more intimate with. For example on the test tours we were not in charge of the tours, and we didn’t even know what the tours would comprise of. It was the tour guides who decided among themselves who should be in charge of each part and what the next step should be. The same goes for the waste collection point and the signage system (see articles 1 and 2), where we were not involved in the finalizing stages.

Transdisciplinary research Interactive ways of producing knowledge are gaining an increasing attention, at least according its advocates such as Pohl et al (2010). The idea is that science does not hold a monopoly over knowledge production. A new kind of research is said to evolve out of the interaction (e.g. Gib-bons et al., 1994; Nowotny et al. 2001). The interaction includes not only different disciplines within academia but also a wide set of practitioners, collaborating on a problem which is defined in a specific and localized context (Gibbons et al., 1994). The resulting closer interaction of socie-ty and science signals that there is a need for a new kind of contextualized or context-sensitive science (Nowotny et al, 2001). European sustainability researchers have further developed this understanding within a framework called transdisciplinary research (Pohl et al, 2010). The knowledge production is considered as closer to society and it is said to replace results with processes (e.g. Guggenheim, 2006). The disciplinary boundaries of knowledge production are replaced by prob-lem-oriented, non-technological research outside the disciplinary structure (Guggenheim, 2006). Carayannis and Campbell (2012) combine this type of knowledge production with the quadruple helix or even quintuple helix model (the former including civil society and the latter also includ-ing environment) which together form an innovation ecosystem.

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I will not consider the elaborations on transdisciplinary knowledge production in this thesis, but reflect on the transdisciplinary focus that was a condition for the MUF project from the start and how it has been used in the project. Transdisciplinarity is connected to action research in the sense that they both interfere with the study object by collaboration between academia and prac-tice. Transdisciplinary research further acknowledges the importance of society, that is, govern-ments and policy makers, as well as the multidisciplinary aspect where different academic disci-plines work together with a common goal. In this project, the core group PhD students come from or have a background in the disciplines of marketing, design, urban planning, ecology, ar-chitecture and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This variety of disciplines enables a particular as well as a holistic approach of sustainable urban development. For example Jennifher Otieno maps the Dunga fishmongers’ working conditions and journey with the fish to be able to prototype a market system that offers food security as well as security for the women selling fish, and Franklin Mwango works with what architecture can do for enhancing renewable energy and education for behavioural change towards sustainable energy. In addition to the contribution that the different perspectives give to the project, the PhD students’ diverse contacts in Dunga, Ki-sumu and outside enrich the project and increase the chances that the project survives when the PhD students leave.

There is a risk that transdisciplinary and action-oriented projects get scattered and thereby hard to handle since there are many actors involved. Things may happen beyond the control of single actors due this complex environment. One example is that I and Helena heard that someone within the project had said to the guides that an eco-lodge was planned for in Dunga, which is something that could be argued would destroy the genuine feeling of the place. These thoughts had not been shared in the project, which resulted in an awkward situation in the meeting with the guide.

Working in a practical way is uncommon for researchers in Kenya. In many cases it is perceived as good and very welcome. As the founder of Ecofinder Kenya put it:

…you are not only coming to squeeze information from the community and turn away, but I see you involving the community in a process; in a process whereby you get information, but also in a process where the community owns that information and they are empowered…

However, the roles of the researchers can be different in different situations and contexts. We have not only been researchers from diverse disciplines trying to work together, but have also taken on roles as administrative personnel, managers, partners, project leaders, students, col-leagues, and many other. Since there are so many contrasting roles and situations around, it is easy to get scattered on what is most important. Is it to help the poor people or the women to get a better life? Is it to get the tourists to come to Dunga and thereby help the people get an in-come? Is it to get my thesis ready? Is it to serve the needs of the Kenyan universities we are working with? Is it for the sake of my funders? Is it to write the most interesting article for a top-ranked journal?

Reflexive methodology The interference, or interplay, between empirical and theoretical material is something that sym-bolizes a reflexive approach (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2011). Reflexivity does not mean that the research has to be action-oriented, but there is an emphasis on that the researcher and the re-

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searcher’s community are always involved in the research construction process. The reflexive view of empirical material is that it is constructed, interpreted and written by someone. Subjectiv-ity is inescapable, cannot be reduced away and is better understood as a resource. In this thesis, a lot of the material is constructed in collaboration with others. What is known from before, what the assumptions are, what theory is adapted on the way, and what happens in the moments of interaction influences the work. This way of doing research gives a lot of subjectivity to the mate-rial. However reflexivity does not make it possible to write anything you like. Referring to Corley and Gioia (2011), it has to have the dimensions about originality and utility, or no one will read your texts.

Foucault (1980) claims that knowledge does not reveal truth; it creates truth, which means being reflective is also about transparency. By revealing how you have done things and why, you expose the weak spots and thereby open up for critical judgement of what difference your contribution makes. This reflexivity is something that has followed the project during the way and which I see as an aspect that is important to work further with, especially when working in an unfamiliar con-text as a developing country.

The term “data collection” gives the impression that empirical representations are solid facts which we can be easily picked up (Alvesson and Ashcraft, 2009). As Alvesson and Kärreman (2011), I prefer to rather call it empirical material since there is a lot of subjectivity in the collect-ed material. Moreover, there is body work (Wolkowitz, 2009) involved, a “corporeal dimension”, as Hockey and Allen-Collinson (2009, p 217) put it, where the tactile and sensory abilities of the body is pronounced, with for example touches, smells, pain and desires. In for example a work-shop, a large part is about body movements. The workshop facilitator and the participants show things, move things around, do sketches, write, and put sticky notes on a big paper. Another ex-ample is walking workshops, where bodies are moved in the physical environment, trying out and reflecting on things. How does it feel to stand in the sun, listening to a guide talking? I get tired; I need a bench, a hat or something to drink. In design, this is called experience prototyping (Buchenau and Suri, 2000) or being your user (British Design Council, 2012) where you use your mind and body to experience in action what happens in real situations.

There is also an embodied quality of learning, or situated learning, which is relevant to discuss in relation to research methodology and empirical material. Lave and Wenger (1991) pronounce situated learning as “legitimate peripheral participation”. They see learning as “an evolving form of membership” (p 53), and in the best examples the membership goes from peripheral to full participation during a longer period of time. Lave and Wenger take the example of learning in a working situation. The most natural way of learning a job is to participate in the community, be-coming part of it. The apprentice is legitimately involved in work, but also in the social and phys-ical context that surrounds the actual work, and is influencing this context. Opportunities for engaging in practice will come up after a while, and then the newcomers “tasks are short and simple, the costs of errors are small” (p 110). This is connected to a reflexive research; that you need time to get into the context. Being in the context for a longer period, people get used to have you there, and that is when you are able to do the most interesting observations without interfering. However, it is not possible to reach a state where you are just an observer. As Alves-son and Kärreman (2011) point out, to observe is not to be a fly on the wall, as if things would have happened even if you were not there. People may engage in behaviours triggered by the

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presence of the researcher, or even try to satisfy what they think the researcher wants to see. In Kunda’s work (1992) he describes that you have to interview, discuss and come into peoples’ lives to be able to understand what is really going on. Coming close to people means that it is impossible to put yourself in parenthesis. I see the interference with the empirical material as a resource in this thesis and there are clear parallels to action-research where you also interfere with the circumstances.

Gathering empirical material

All activities in the process are chronologically referred to in appendix 3. It should be noted that the table includes all material, for practice as well as academic purpose. The reason is that the reader then can get a grip on the whole process from beginning to end. The material includes diaries and notes from workshops, presentations, discussions and observa-tions. There are also photos, films, and artefacts from the process. I have my own material as well as the other PhD students’, of which Helena’s is used the most. It should be noted that in many senses the practical and academic material is the same; for example, the text from diaries is used in the academic work but also to be able to produce presentations and reports to Dunga. This goes also for photos, films and artefacts. For example, the prototypes were part of the innovation process described in the articles as well as a practical contribution to Dunga’s development as an ecotourism site. The stakeholders essentially involved in the process were me and Helena Kraff, other researchers, tourists, residents and local organisations (mainly the tour guide organisation). All people were not involved in each step, and my and Helena’s level of involvement was different in different phases and parts of the process.

In the following, the material is described by categorising and explaining the methods used; par-ticipatory observations, interviews, and other field material. The numbers referred to have equivalents in appendix 3 where each activity is described shortly with participants, contents, purpose and documentation.

Participatory observations There were several levels of participatory observations in the process. The level of participation from my and Helena’s side is described from low to high involvement. Other stakeholders’ in-volvement is discussed in relation to our involvement.

• Observing test tours (4.6 and 4.8). The guides and the tourists were observed during the test tours in order to find out where possible innovations seemed to emerge.

• Facilitating workshops (2.1, 2.2, 3.2 and 3.5, partly also 3.3). Helena and I, in some cases to-gether with other PhD students, acted as facilitators on the stakeholder mapping work-shop (2.1), the identity workshop (2.2) and the beach workshop (3.2). This means we were there mainly helping the participants perform the activities in the workshop, not

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participating in the ideation ourselves. Also the third day in the 3-day workshop with tour guides could fit into this category (3.3) however this was also a lecture and a discussion. When acting as facilitators the observations of what happened in the making was crucial although sometimes it was hard to write and take photos while working. Being two peo-ple helped this documentation.

• Partners in workshop (3.4, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5). There is not a clear line between being facilita-tors and partners, however in some workshops we were more part of the development of the process and the ideation than in others. Those workshops that could fit into a more collaborative way of working are the walking workshop (day 2 in 3-day workshop, 3.4), the infrastructure workshop (4.3), the “a day in Dunga” workshop, and the crafts work-shop (4.5). In these workshops we came with more suggestions ourselves and we were building on each other’s ideas within the group. Also here, there was a problem taking notes and photos, however, it was in our own participation that crucial aspects of the process could be revealed.

• Experience prototyping (5.1 and 5.2). Helena and I acted tourists in Dunga for a day and we performed comparative studies ourselves, with friends and with other PhD students on other sites. I consider this as highest level of involvement in the sense that we were the main actors. However, this activity could be also seen as something completely different, as a sort of contextual analysis, gripping something that is already there, almost as sec-ondary data.

Image 7: Workshop in Dunga with a paper prototype of a guided tour; “a day in Dunga”.

Interviews Interviews were conducted with tourism stakeholders in Kisumu, and with people in Dunga that had been part of the process (2.4, 3.1, and 4.11). The PhD students from the ecotourism core

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group held open interviews with tourism stakeholders in Kisumu (3.1), for example the Lake Victoria Tourism Association (LVTA), Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the Ministry of tour-ism. The purpose was to get their view on a participatory process and their interest to be part of it. The interviews lasted for at least one hour each. An important part for the research is the in-terviews that I and Helena conducted on the last days of our last trip (4.11) with the purpose of getting an understanding of how people in Dunga had perceived the process, the methods used and the involvement of stakeholders. The interviewees were selected to get a good picture of what different groups of people perceived, however the main interviewee group were the tour guides since they had been involved the most. We chose the interviewees in collaboration with one of the tour guides. The interviews were held by me and Helena together in the pedagogical centre in Dunga, where Dectta and Ecofinder work and where there is a small shop. Every inter-view started with us telling the interviewee about the purpose with the interview. Then we asked them to tell in their own words have they had perceived the process from September 2012 up until the time for the interview. Some of them talked without us interrupting them for 5-10 minutes before we asked the next question, while others were asked follow-up questions quite soon, depending on what came out from their answer. We tried to fit in questions about in-volvement, methods and the process to cover our purpose. 19 interviews were completed and they took from 15 minutes to one hour each. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interviewees represented the following groups:

• Dectta (nine persons). Nine of sixteen tour guides in Dectta were interviewed, which were the ones that had been most present on workshops and other activities. All tour guides that had been part of the test tours were interviewed.

• Dunga crafts group (three persons, also one counted as tour guide). Four of the members of the Dunga crafts group were interviewed, whereof one is the man in charge of it (who is also a tour guide). They had been attending courses held by the marketplace PhD student group and were responsible for the crafts production activity during the test tours.

• Ecofinder (one person, also several of the tourguides are members). The founder of the NGO Eco-finder Kenya was interviewed since he was one of the persons who were there when Dunga was chosen as common site for the KLIP PhD student core group. Also, some of the interviewed tour guides work with Ecofinder alongside Dectta.

• BMU (one person, also two counted as tour guides). The BMU was represented by the vice chairman, the secretary (who is also a member of Dectta) and a third board member (who is also part of Dectta).

• Volunteer (one person). One volunteer at Ecofinder was interviewed since she had attended some of the workshops and also had insight of the place and the process from an outside perspective.

• Fishmongers (two persons). Two fishmongers were interviewed. Fishmongers buy fish from the fishermen and sell it on the beach, sometimes after scaling, drying and/or frying it. The fishmongers represent an important part of the attractiveness of the beach and were part of the test tours.

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• Boatbuilder (one person). One boatbuilder who works on the beach was interviewed. He had been attending the stakeholder workshop and from his working place seen a lot of what had been going on and talked to people about it.

• Fisherman (one person). One fisherman was interviewed. He had attended the open presen-tations and a workshop.

Other material There is a lot of other material that has been gathered within the project and which is part of the process. However, the result of each activity has not always been relevant to analyse for this the-sis. For example, there are results from workshops in forms of stakeholder maps, collected hopes and fears of tourism, ideas on packages and tours, paper models on tours, prototypes of waste collection point and signage system, proposals on Dunga’s identity, lectures about tour guiding or graphic design, questionnaires about how people in Dunga perceive their living and working situ-ation, and interviews with tourists on the beach about their perceptions of the place. All this in-formation has been collected and presented in forms of for example community hall presenta-tions, reports and an available project space. A lot of the material has more of a practical purpose, although the process could not have been conducted without it. This close relationship between practice and research could be considered as a problem in action-oriented research, however it is also a resource since the action researcher has access to all information. Three reports summarize the practical work and give ideas for the future for stakeholders in Dunga and Kisumu, and they were important for summing up and driving the process forward. The reports are: Dunga identity and image - a pre-study, Dunga ecotourism development – emerging ideas and possible continuation and A day in Dunga - reflections and ideas from test tours. The reports are not part of the academic work in the sense that the material in them is used in this thesis. Rather, they are seen as part of the process that the academic work stems from. Another reason for not including them is that they are extensive. The reports can though be downloaded from the MUF website4:

Analysis

Since the empirical material is extensive, there is a risk of drowning in material, not knowing where to start. The days when I and Helena had workshops, we both tried to take notes as much as possible. If one of us knew or saw that the other was occupied with something and was not able to take notes or photos, we took on ourselves to see to that as much as possible got docu-mented. Arriving to the guesthouse, a couple of hours a day were used to write diaries. The notes from the workshops turned into readable text, but also other things that had happened during the day were written down in the diary. For example, since the transdisciplinary aspect was central to the project, meetings and talks with people involved were also documented. Since we were al-most always at least two people observing the same things, it made it possible to discuss and in-terpret things together that wouldn’t have been possible if I had done it myself. A lot of reflec-

4 http://www.mistraurbanfutures.org/en/project/ecotourism

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tions and analyses along the way came up that both made the process continue and made the empirical material thicker.

To be able to write reports to the stakeholders (presenting the continuous results), mine, Helena’s and in some cases other PhD students’ notes were collected and summarized. The reports were used as research material in the sense that they showed the state of the process. They were also interesting to analyse to see how our own perceptions of the process evolved, for example, what we considered as important to take up in the reports and what style we used.

Starting to write the first article, the whole process was written down chronologically by me and Helena Kraff in cooperation. I noted that I wrote more as wanting to take into consideration every detail of the process, being very honest on what went well or not, while Helena wrote more on specific activities, for example how one participant’s drawing made another participant build further on the idea. Our writings complemented each other so that it resulted in a thick descrip-tion of the process. After that, we tried to find the moments where people interacted specifically well or bad, and where the process took a turn that was not expected, which led to that it changed directions. We also looked for moments when visualization came forth as tool for com-munication and idea generation between participants. For the articles, we selected the most im-portant activities and moments that related to each article’s purpose.

The chronological analysis was combined with a thematic analysis since the article about partici-patory place branding (article 1) cover the whole process, while the article about participatory experience innovation (article 2) digs deeper into the part where the guided tours were proto-typed.

Since we used photos in the reports, as well as in several presentations, they became very familiar and it was thereby easy to come back to them when analysing the material, to see for example who participated where an when, how the participants used the workshop material, and the par-ticipants’ facial expressions.

Ethical considerations5

Projects with the intention to make people participating in processes are not only praised but also criticised. The critique is often directed towards Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) or its equivalents, such as Participatory Action Research (PAR) or Participatory Reflection and Action (also referred to as PRA). The notion that is used in this thesis, participatory design, is closely related to both PRA and PAR. Critique has particularly been raised towards development pro-jects that deal with social and economic marginalised groups (Cooke and Kothari, 2001). It is argued that participation is merely an “act of faith” that is seldom questioned (Cleaver, 2001, p 36), and that power and power relations are naively looked upon by project workers who do not understand the complexity of them (Cooke and Kothari, 2001). Focus needs to be but on “pat-terns of inclusion and exclusion”, instead of just on activities in a project (Cleaver, 2001). This

5 The text in this section is merely part of a paper that Helena Kraff and I have written for a Design Management Institute conference held in September 2014. The paper’s title is “Designing for or designing with?”

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reflexivity requires an open mind, being aware of that participatory development could even be-come tyrannical (Cooke and Kothari, 2001).

Project facilitators from outside often intentionally or unintentionally shape the direction of the process since it is they who “own the research tools, choose the topics, record the information, and abstract and summarise according to project criteria of relevance” (Mosse, 2001, p 14). Even though participants for example draw their own maps during a workshop, the underlying frame-work where it is decided that a map is suitable for depicting local needs is decided by outsiders (Henkel and Roderick, 2001, p 182). Further, when project leaders act only as facilitators, it ena-bles them to hand over the responsibility of the results to the participants (Henkel and Roderick, 2001). Another important point is the power relations between the project leaders and the partic-ipants that risk resulting in local communities constructing needs to be able to take part in the project (Mosse, 2001). Henkel and Roderick (2001, p 171) even argue that “there is a sense in which beneficiaries are seen as morally bound to participate”.

It is reasonable to question what would have happened if we had started without our set agenda of ecotourism and participation. What if the process had been held open initially, so that the resi-dents and local organisations could have shaped the project according to their needs and desires? What would have happened if we had been there to support residents and local organisations in charge of their own process, right from the start? Or what if we had not been there at all? Would other actors then have taken over, developing the site with their own goals in mind? Did we cre-ate harm through our efforts, a possibility suggested by Lasky (2013), or did we prevent harm?

The notion of empowerment is also problematic, although it is treated as if it is not. It is rarely discussed or reflected upon who is to be empowered; the individual, some categories of people such as women or poor, or the community (Cleaver, 2001). Mosse (2001, p 21) states that com-munity empowerment rarely mean that everybody is empowered; “some individuals or groups have the skill or authority to present personal interests in more generally valid terms, other do not”. This means that dominant people or groups may reassert their control and power over oth-ers (Kothari, 2001). Our main choice of partners, the tour guide group, was well-established in the community and their position was even stronger after the test tours when other people had recognized their work more. Yet, looking back, it was easy to for us to work with those who were already strong and who we knew agreed with our pre-set framework. But what about other groups, such as fishmongers, boat builders, women, poor or socially excluded? What would have happened had we chosen one or several of them as our principle partner? Were we even aware of the power relations between the groups? A similar problem is that we worked with Dunga, which is one of the most developed beaches in the region. The risk is that this beach is empowered and not the others, which may strengthen the Dunga community even more and leave the other beaches even further behind.

Participatory projects also often carry symptoms of ethnocentricity. For example using a language with terms as ‘community’ or ‘local people’, which origins in colonialism and post colonialism, make in itself a distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us’ (Cooke, 2001). There have been situations in the project where we have felt we needed to tread sensitively in order not to perpetuate or exac-erbate ethnocentrism. It has sometimes been hard trying not to impose our own customs and practices on other people, and most probably we failed several times. For example, the ideas that

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were taken forward in the process were from our side seen as the best ones of those that had come up in workshops, informal discussions and interviews with the local organisations and resi-dents. However, the information was gathered by us, and filtered by us. When we presented the ideas in public presentations or reports, there were certainly aspects and ideas that did not make it in there. Some views that were presented and documented stemmed from our own assumptions on how things should be, without having discussed our interpretations with the other people involved.

This reasoning is coupled to the insights that Liberman (1999) pronounce when he describes his fieldwork among aboriginals in Australia and Buddhists in Tibet. His dictum “first, do no harm” (p 61) is a guide for all field research, especially in developing countries. It is not possible to know what the fieldwork will require from you beforehand, and you have to tread sensitively, gain trust and never misuse this trust. Working in a project in Africa as in this project, there is a need to have a critical perspective on what is actually done. A critical orientation means that an interpre-tive researcher is, as Prasad and Prasad (2002, p 7) put it: “confronted with ethical and political questions about their own (and others’) practice of the interpretive act itself”. Liberman (1999) describes that the aboriginal people before he came there had been “violated” (p 60) by a re-searcher who had published secret photos on rituals, which had made the people reluctant to research, anthropology and Americans. In this project, having done several workshops together with the organisations in Dunga, the trust between us strengthened. One thing was that the peo-ple in Dunga in the beginning were very careful about that we should pay for the rental of tables and chairs, as well as drinks and other refreshments for the workshops. For them, this was a way to make sure that we did not just come there and get the material needed and then go back leav-ing them with nothing. At least, the community would get something little for it. On our last trip the situation had changed. Since we worked very close to the tour guide organisation, they prob-ably saw us as a resource for development. The small amount of money we had in our budget for chair rental and refreshments was instead used for the prototyping of signage and waste collec-tion points. Furthermore, some of the guides saw our relationship as training, and asked for a diploma. By then, they said that they were in charge of the process, seeing us as “animators” as one of the guides said in an interview. A faith between us had taken form, which implies that the process had started to evolve from our facilitation through trust to their ownership.

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Chapter 4. Article summaries

In this section, summaries of the two articles that constitute the base of this thesis are made. The full versions can be found as appendices.

Article 1: Participatory place branding through design (appendix 1)

Contemporary place branding literature criticise the negligence of stakeholder involvement (e.g. Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Hanna and Rowley, 2011; Lucarelli, 2012; Kavaratzis, 2012; Warnaby, 2009), especially concerning the residents of the place (Braun et al, 2013; Kavaratzis, 2012). There is a need for open-ended and interactive processes (Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013) which takes the specific place and its stakeholders into consideration. In this article, a way to open up for these kinds of processes is found in the integration of place branding and participatory design. Design is said to be adaptable to new and changing environments (Burns et al, 2006; Schön, 1983) and in participatory design future users of products and services are involved in the design process (Gedenryd, 1998). Designers of today design for people’s societal and environmental needs (Sanders and Stappers, 2008; Cross, 1981) and the outcome can be intangible, ranging from a process, policy, experience or a new business approach (Burns et al, 2006). Also, the use of visual-isation as a communication and idea-generating tool is at the core of the design process. These characteristics of design are in this article integrated with place branding. The purpose is to de-scribe a process that explores this integration by the demonstration of the authors’ active in-volvement in a destination branding process.

The authors took on an action-oriented approach in a real setting; Dunga Beach in Kenya. The work with the development of the ecotourism site is described chronologically. It starts with planning workshops with stakeholders and between the authors, the performance of ‘experience prototyping’ where the authors got to know the place by acting tourists themselves, and inter-views with tourists about their experience. The participatory actions are thereafter described; a stakeholder mapping workshop, an identity workshop, a beach workshop, a three day workshop on packaging, and two test tours with national and international tourists. The reflections on the workshops and the discussions with the stakeholders led to changes in coming actions, which implies an evolutionary process: continuous and open to changes and reformulations along the way.

The communication and idea generation through visualisation is further presented in the article. The participants were able to build on each other’s ideas through visual representations such as sketches and prototypes. The material collected from workshops, observations, interviews and discussions were also regularly presented for local residents in the community hall and put to-gether in reports, as a way to visualise and describe how the project proceeded, and to inspire and motivate coming actions. An available project place was arranged at a public space where visual and textual information about the project could be found, and where thoughts and ideas could be shared in a suggestion box. Some of the ideas that had come up during the process were also visualised by the authors, as a way to make them more realistic. In interviews, the collaborative

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methods and tools, as well as the sharing and visualisation of the results came up as important parts of the process, since it made it inclusive and transparent.

After having worked close with the tour guide organisation for some time the authors’ roles as facilitators changed towards teamwork with the guides. As a result of having kept the process transparent, informative and involving, and having found local stakeholders to collaborate with, a shared ownership of the process could develop. It was not the single methods and tools that were the main contributions in the Dunga process, but the openness to changes, the participatory ap-proach and visualisation as a way to communicate. This gives implications for how place brand-ing processes can be carried out in the future, namely that the integration of participatory design and place branding can lead to community participation and commitment, open up for the com-munity taking charge of the process, as well as place brand authenticity and long-term sustainabil-ity. It also gives implications for further research on place branding, participatory design and community involvement since it opens up for connections between the fields.

Article 2: Tourism experience innovation through design (appendix 2)

Experience innovation is described as collaborative and integrated in day-to-day work (Fuglsang et al, 2011; Sundbo et al, 2013). However, a challenge is to capture people’s tacit knowledge and make it explicit, in order to bring forth ideas and concepts (Hjalager, 2010; Toivonen et al, 2007)). It is suggested that open innovation processes and user-based methods could provide new potentials for innovation (Sørensen and Sundbo, 2013).

The purpose with this article is to illustrate how design can be integrated with experience innova-tion. Design and the act of prototyping allows for innovations to take form while testing ideas in direct contact with stakeholders and the market. The concept of prototyping is uncommon in the marketing/management discourse however it is a vital phase in the design process. Visualisations and scenarios are used as tools for communication and idea generation between stakeholders. This ‘design-by-doing’ approach is spiral, iterative and reflective. Also, the recent decades’ widen-ing of the design practice to designing for societal needs (Sanders and Stappers, 2008), shaping strategies (Valtonen, 2007) and being a resource for development (Wetter-Edman, 2014) makes it interesting to relate design to experience innovation.

The case is the development of a guided tour in Dunga beach, Kisumu, Kenya. A participatory and action-oriented methodology is used, which is argued as being especially interesting for de-veloping countries, where the integration of knowledge production, management, application and implications is an important issue. Kenya is a country where tourism is a core industry and where the development and use of sustainable processes with community involvement is seen as a key challenge for the future (Kibicho, 2004).

The process is illustrated through a spiral model of experience innovation and design in the expe-riencescape (see figure 2). The experiencescape (O’Dell, 2005; Mossberg, 2007) envisages how the interactions with the physical and social environment are part of the experience innovation process. In Dunga, the process resulted in possible innovations such as new ways of organising work responsibilities, new sales channels and possibilities for networking, new packaging of

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products and services, improved customer service, new products and services as well as methods of producing goods and services. Changes in one type led to changes in other types, which con-sists with what Eide and Mossberg (2013) and Hjalager (2010) state as a characteristic of experi-ence innovation.

Figure 2 The experience innovation process taking place in the experiencescape

The spiral experience design and innovation model is an example of how it is possible to be stra-tegic in the experience innovation process and at the same time staying close to the people who are the innovators; employees, customers and partners. The iterative process with visual tools takes care of new ideas, which are quickly and continuously tested on the market. The implication is that by viewing experience innovation as a spiral process within the experiencescape, an increased understanding of how the specific characteristics of the experience could be considered and de-veloped for new or improved experiences. The findings from this article could be used as inspira-tion and tool, since seemingly small ideas could be developed into innovations through prototyp-ing, testing, and evaluation.

The model is however a simplification and further research is needed. The article should be seen as a starting point for a discussion on how experience innovation processes could be understood and used.

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Chapter 5. Concluding discussion

Participation is a general term for something that takes place between people. It has to do with who is in charge, with an emphasis on democratic decision-making. It may refer to different lev-els of power relations, as in Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation; from manipulation to part-nership and citizen control. Participation does not specify who is involved: it could refer to inter-actions among and between governments, academia, networks of firms, employees, consumers, and citizens. It embraces several of the concepts in contemporary marketing literature such as co-creation, co-production, networking and relationship marketing. Participation may occur without arrangements however a lot of emphasis is put on making people take part in participatory pro-cesses. I argue that taking on a holistic view on participatory processes it is possible to approach it differently, with other angles on for example decision-making, process ownership, and meth-odology.

I have chosen a marketing design approach to participatory destination development, as an angle on participatory processes. In marketing and tourism literature there are few studies on how par-ticipation actually takes place (Camilleri, 2014): what happens in action, what goes well and what goes wrong, and what methods are used to reach participation. Regarding the developing world, Timothy (1999), and Wall and Mathieson (2006) even point out that the concept of participation rarely go beyond theory and planning documents, and Tosun (2000) propose that participatory practice rarely go beyond consultation. The movement towards sustainability is regarded as going too slow (Gordon et al, 2011). On the other hand, the larger scope that design could take on seems not yet to have resulted in total embracement of design on a political or managerial level although steps are taken in that direction. Just as Gordon et al (2011) propose about marketing’s potentials, design could guide regulations, stimulate innovation, and challenge central institutions, thereby being an important contributor to sustainable development. To do that, design needs authorizing environments and stronger relationships, which Staszowski et al (2014) propose that designers must see to that they get. One such environment could be participatory destination development. The two fields of marketing and design could benefit from each other in the plan-ning and performance of participatory actions, for example, seeing to that relevant stakeholders are considered, that methods and tools relies on the context, and that visual representations are central throughout in order to enhance communication and idea generation.

Place branding and experience innovation are in this thesis identified as moving towards an em-bracement of participation. They follow the progress of marketing theory in the sense that partic-ipatation take up great parts of contemporary literature. The emergence of service and experience logics embraces aspects such as relationships, stakeholder involvement, co-production, and co-creation. The two identified processes both have these ingredients and they involve different types of stakeholders, not only tourists but residents, employees, networks of firms and public organisations. Both are also part of destination development, dealing with the “making” of a place. The purpose with this thesis is to demonstrate how design can enhance participation in place branding and experience innovation in order to achieve sustainable destination develop-ment. The chosen processes are today standing quite far from design, which makes them even more interesting. For example, in the literature review on place branding and experience innova-

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tion, design was not mentioned as possible connection regarding approaches, methods and tools, although there are clear links between the fields. A reason could be that it is not until recently that design and marketing/management have become linked to each other, and this connection is merely regarding product and service development. Since place branding and experience innova-tion are two young research areas, which neither fit easily into categories of products nor services, the connection to design is not as evident. Two specific findings came out from the articles in this thesis: the evolutionary process and visu-alisation as a tool for communication and idea generation. Viewing place branding and experience innovation as evolutionary processes, as the design process often is described as, the interactions in the Dunga case became core. What happened in one phase was reflected upon before the next phase started, making it possible to change directions. This openness to changes made the pro-cess inclusive and proactive since the people participating saw that their own ideas meant some-thing, not five years later but for the next workshop. It made people more motivated to come to the next meeting or workshop.

In the first article (appendix 1) about the integration of place branding and participatory design, the period from September 2012 until the latest trip in December 2013 is described, highlighting the moments when the process took a new turn. In place branding, evolution in regards to the process is sometimes mentioned, however it has not been thoroughly discussed what the charac-teristics of an evolutionary process are and why it is important. Moreover, place branding pro-cesses in general are not explained in detail as is done in the article. The application of place branding to the small context of Dunga beach where all the details on what went well and what did not give implications on how participatory processes evolve. Place branding is not about one single process that everyone can relate to but several that each evolves in different pace, with different stakeholders involved. The definition of evolutionary as referred to in the article is that it is continuous, rather than a “once and for all project” and that it is open to changes. The open-ness means that new angles and ideas are allowed, and that the reflection of each activity may lead to reformulations. Starting defining evolutionary place branding is one way to continue a discus-sion on the characteristics of participatory place branding processes. It should however be noted that this is a specific process in a specific context, and that an evolutionary process may not be advisable in every context. There may be a risk that it gets scattered and unmanageable. However, I argue that several processes could benefit from letting in more evolutionary elements, and the article is an example of such a process.

In the second article (appendix 2), the evolutionary process is described in a model where experi-ence innovation is integrated with design, particularly the prototyping phase of the design pro-cess. I argue that a characteristic of experience logic can be discerned in the spiral innovation process; the close connection to the market, where ideas and concepts are prototyped, tested and evaluated. This type of process in Dunga brought forward several possible future experience in-novations. Beginning to understand how innovations take place in practice by introducing a model (see figure 2) may result in others’ refining, adjusting or even rejecting it, which means that the discussion continues about the characteristics of innovation processes and experience logic.

Participatory design is associated with a “design-by-doing” approach (Ehn, 1993, p 58) where people work in collaborative processes using for example prototypes, simulations and scenarios

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to express what is not possible to state by language (Ehn, 1993). In the empirical example these types of representations were used for the purpose of developing an ecotourism site. The result of using visualization in the participatory process was that it enhanced communication and idea generation. As facilitators in workshops, it was easy to explain the purpose, using examples with photos and drawings. The other participants could easily do better sketches and more specific descriptions since they knew the place better, which set the workshop on an equal level in com-parison with having just a discussion. By the use of prototyping, hands-on examples were given that were easy for people to relate to.

During the research process, I have thought about different views of and levels of participation. In design, participation could be argued as taking place in the act of making. By putting people together, letting them build on each other’s ideas by visual tools and openness to changes, new knowledge is created both in each person’s mind and in the collective, which results in a more preferred future. It is interesting to consider what level of participation on Arnstein’s ladder such interventions could belong to. Are the participants informants or in control? The answer is prob-ably dependent on situation. In Dunga, we wanted the participants to be in control, but we owned the tools and facilitated the workshops, which made it hard. As the process proceeded, the ownership seemed to be slowly taken over by the stakeholders in Dunga. However, this is what we think, but we do not really know if there ever was an issue of ownership from their side. We may think that we were in charge, but there are several projects going on in Dunga, and this was only one of many. The community owned the process all the way, looking at it from that point of view. Further, discussing power relationships, there are stronger and weaker groups and individuals in the community and we will never get close to understanding those relations. One important thing is to see that participation could mean different things. Exemplifying participa-tory process reveals the relationships between people and increases the understanding of power relations. This is particularly interesting in a developing country context, where project workers sometimes see themselves as being there to develop the undeveloped.

This is only the beginning of a discussion on how processes for destination development can be formed to enhance sustainability. Further research on evolutionary processes and visualisation, on sustainable destination development, and testing of methods and models are needed. Also a critical reflection should be taken into consideration on what the problematic aspects with these types of processes could result in.

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Epilogue

Helena Kraff and I presented a paper on a Design Management Institute conference in London in September 2014. In the paper we reflect on the process we have been through with critical eyes, mainly considering the concept of social design. The title is Designing for or designing with? An-other co-written paper was presented by Helena Kraff in September 2014 on a Cumulus confer-ence in Johannesburg. In that paper we discuss the transdisciplinary aspect of our research; the pros and cons of working in teams where practitioners, academics and the public sector work in collaboration for a common goal. Thirdly, by the time of the defence of this thesis, I will have presented an abstract for a coming article at a conference on Value in Tourism in Copenhagen. The co-creation of value between the tourist and different actors is discussed. It refers to a model proposed by Eide and Mossberg (2013).

Next time I and Helena go to Kisumu we will follow up on the project and see how it has devel-oped since we left. This time we want to be there as one among many partners, trying not to take the lead. A future plan is to discuss a platform to support local communities in ecotourism devel-opment. The purpose is to strengthen local small actors to develop their place in their own pace, hindering players from outside taking over the resources, exploiting the place, and leaving the residents with nothing but menial jobs. It is also about developing not only Dunga but the region, sharing knowledge and ideas between stakeholders. A main point in the project is to keep the process evolutionary, why it is important to be aware of that there are always frameworks in pro-jects, but that they should be discussed, interpreted and maybe reframed in collaboration with local stakeholders.

For my doctoral thesis, the plan is to work further on the aspect of participation on different levels, also taking a critical stance. I will write at least one article myself for the thesis, however I think that the co-production of articles between marketing and design is one of the main contri-butions with my and Helena’s collaborative work.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 (article 1): Participatory place branding through design

Participatory place branding through design:

The case of Dunga beach in Kisumu, Kenya

Keywords: place branding process, participatory design, community participation, design pro-cess, evolutionary place branding, participatory place branding

Abstract

For place branding to reach long-term commitment and legitimacy a large number of stakeholders need to be in-volved. This calls for innovative ways of approaching the process itself, permitting it to be participatory and change-able. In this article, the purpose is to describe, in detail, how a place branding process can take place in practice, and illustrate how an integration of design can act as a mean to reach community participation. The example is a destination development case in Kisumu, Kenya where the authors were actively involved. The findings show how the empathic and intuitive process of design allows each activity to lead to the other in an evolutionary way, and how visual tools can strengthen communication between participants as well as stimulate idea generation.

Introduction

An increasing attention in place branding literature is devoted to the importance of stakeholder involvement (e.g. Aitken and Campelo, 2011; Hanna and Rowley, 2011; Kavaratzis, 2012; Lu-carelli, 2012; Warnaby, 2009). It is proposed that since places affect and concern a large number of stakeholders, they should have the right to participate in the process. A place brand without the engagement of various groups of stakeholders will lack authenticity and thereby jeopardize the long-term sustainability of the brand (Aitken and Campelo, 2011). According to Pike (2005) destination brand implementation is likely to fail with its top down approach, and Zenker and Beckman (2013) found that place brand strategies often deal with only one target audience, in-stead of a large number of stakeholders with different interests and perspectives. Braun et al (2013, pp 24-25) see the need for place branding to be “resident orientated”, thereby demanding a shift “from the communication-dominant approach to a participation-dominant approach”.

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In order to successfully include various stakeholders and perspectives the process itself needs to be considered as evolutionary. It means a continuous process, rather than viewing it as a “once and for all project” (Hanna and Rowley, 2011, p 472). It also means open to changes; that new angles and ideas are allowed and that the reflection of each activity may lead to reformulations. To be able to ensure a process that has these characteristics it also means that new methods and tools are needed (Braun et al, 2013; Kavaratzis, 2012).

With this background, we argue that there are several motives for exploring the integration of design in place branding theory and practice. The involvement of stakeholders in the design pro-cess has been practiced since the early 1970’s with the emergence of the concept of participatory design (Ehn, 1993). There is a democratic reasoning; users are entitled to participate in the design process of products and services that will have an impact on their lives (Cross, 1981; Sanders and Dandavate, 1999; Westerlund, 2009). It is not only about asking for approval or advice but about letting the users be actively involved in the designing, viewing them as partners in the process. The focus on user participation has set design in a social context, aiming to design for needs of societal character, such as health care, community development, and urban planning. This “larger scope of enquiry” (Sanders and Stappers, 2008, p 10) that design is now approaching will “change what we design, how we design, and who designs” (ibid, 2008, p 11), and it gives implications for the integration of design in place branding.

Further, the use of visualisation as a communication and idea-generating tool is at the core of the design process, and is seen as means to enhance participation. Visualisation enables sharing of tacit knowledge in a group by making people’s thoughts visible to others, thereby making it easier to build on each other’s ideas and findings. These tools are referred to as “what if tools” (Law-son, 2005), where open-ended questions are posed and explored in action, and where the reflec-tions of each action may lead to reformulations of the process. This gives the design process an open-ended and non-linear structure which goes in line with the evolutionary aspects that place branding scholars are asking for.

The purpose with this article is to describe, in detail, how a place branding process can take place, and to illustrate how an integration of design can act as a mean to reach community participation. In place branding literature, there are few examples that others can learn from that takes into account achievements and mistakes that may occur along the way; that goes into detail on how the process was actuated, what methods were used, how it evolved and who were part of it. This is however common in design literature, as a way to explore what works and what does not, and to spread knowledge of methods and tools. The contribution is therefore a set of implications on how an evolutionary process that is open for community participation may take place in practice.

The article is structured as follows. In the theoretical framework the emerging discussion regard-ing the need for stakeholder involvement in place branding is reviewed with implications on how scholars wish to see it evolve. This is linked to the characteristics of the design process, in partic-ular participatory design that are relevant for a merge between the fields. An illustration of a pro-cess where the fields have been integrated is given in the empirical example of the ecotourism development of Dunga beach, in Kenya. Finally findings are concluded and discussed.

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Theoretical framework

Stakeholder participation in place branding

An emerging view in place branding literature has been recognized towards embracement of stakeholder involvement. It has its origin in the fact that places affect and concern a large number of stakeholders which all have to be considered, such as government officials, politicians, busi-ness, residents and visitors (Fan, 2010; Moilanen and Rainisto, 2009). Moreover, the academic and practical fields that place branding covers are broad, including for example urban planning, geography, urban studies, marketing, public administration and sociology (Warnaby, 2009) as well as domains such as tourism, retailing, cultural activities and sports (Hankinson, 2004). This com-plexity is different from other branding contexts, which is why it is argued that place branding needs to be approached differently (Hanna and Rowley, 2011; Kavaratzis, 2012). The perspec-tives of local stakeholders should be considered in the process according to Baker (2007), and their roles are of crucial importance in the brand building process according to Hanna and Row-ley (2011). Kavaratzis (2012) sees an urgent need to rethink stakeholders’ roles towards participa-tion and involvement. If they are seen as partners they will support and sustain the brand (Hanna and Rowley, 2011), and as Braun et al (2013, p 21) anticipate “the involvement of residents will lead to increased ownership of the brand and therefore more sense of responsibility for its devel-opment, management and external reputation”. Alternatively, returning to Hanna and Rowley (2011, p 466), “stakeholders may actively resist branding initiatives if they are viewed as artificial or lacking credibility”. Also, Aitken and Campelo (2011, p 918) argue that if residents are left aside, the brand will not promote “authenticity, recognition, acceptance and commitment by the local community”, which might threaten the long-term sustainability of the brand.

An area of inadequacy in place branding theory and practice connected to the need for place branding to involve multiple stakeholder has been pointed out by for example Kavaratzis (2012, p 10); place branding is too often “a linear process of managerial decision making” where pre-decided steps are taken in turn. An opinion is emerging which argues that the process needs ra-ther to be seen as interactive, evolutionary (Hanna and Rowley, 2011), fluid and open (Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013). Kavaratzis (2012, p 10) suggests that it “should not be understood as a linear process of necessary steps but as a complex web of intertwined processes”.

The argumentation goes in line with the view that places are not static constructs and that they do not have one single identity that is easy to form and project (Kalandides, 2011; Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013; Massey, 1994). The changing and multiple nature of a place need to be considered, since as Massey (1994, p 118) points out: “one crucial element of what ‘geography’ is all about is difference and specificity”. Despite this there is a common view that identity is something fixed, to be “tapped, defined, and manipulated” (Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013, p 6), and branding the attempt to communicate that identity (Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2009). Kapferer (2012) states that since the product itself is often left out, the brand will contain of added perceptions and brand management will only be dealing with communication. This limits the way branding is un-derstood and carried out (Ashworth and Kavaratzis, 2009; Kavaratzis, 2012; Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013) and the risk is that it leads to a “sameness” of places, with the same physical forms and the same communication efforts forced upon people (Kavaratzis, 2012, p 11).

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Design as a participatory and evolutionary process

Stakeholder participation in design is not new. In the proceedings of the Design Research Socie-ty’s Conference in Manchester in 1971, Nigel Cross saw an urgent need for methods that include citizen participation and decision making in order to “survive the future” (Cross, 1972, p 11). In about the same time in Scandinavia research projects were introduced where industrial workers were involved in company development (Björgvinsson et al, 2012; Ehn, 1993; Gedenryd, 1998). Since then the participatory design practice has grown. It has been mostly applied for the design of products and new technologies, but has also found its way to other areas since as Sanders and Stappers (2008, p 6) put it “we are no longer simply designing products for users. We are design-ing for the future experiences for people, communities and cultures...” This has called for a shift towards a broader scope for design as theory and practice. Burns et al (2006, p 9) mention that designers today work with social and economic issues and that the design process is suitable to tackle such issues, since it puts the user “at the heart of a solution”. As a result there are new disciplines emerging, such as interaction design (1980’s), service design, and transformation de-sign (2000’s) (Sanders and Stappers, 2008). For example, transformation design focuses on social and economic issues in public organisations, with an aim to hand over tools and skills to the in-volved stakeholders so that the project can proceed even after the designers have left (Burns et al, 2006).

In the design process the problem setting is seen as unique, without predetermined solutions. According to Schön (1983) it is characterised by “uncertainty, disorder and indeterminacy” (p 16), and the understanding is reached through planning, actions, reframing and critical reflection. The inquiry is emergent (Cooper et al, 2009), and evolves through the posing of open questions of “what might be, could be, and should be” (Lawson, 2005, p 125). The consideration of local con-texts and situations is vital, meaning that actions are “highly influenced by the specificity of the situation” (Sangiorgi, 2009, p 417), and grounded in “situated knowledge, experience and human contexts” (Akama, 2009, p 4).

Visualisation in design

The intuitive and evolutionary aspect of the design process is highly connected to the act of visu-alisation, which is a core tool in design. It enables you to go through a reflection-in-action process, a type of communication with oneself where intangible aspects become tangible (Schön, 1983). For example, when you draw, a reflection over what is drawn generates new ideas for the next pencil move. Visualisation is also suitable for participatory actions since it enables needs, knowledge, ideas and findings to be shared in a group. It makes one person’s thoughts visible to the other participants, helping them to communicate and build on each other’s ideas. Thereby it is also a mean in itself to strengthen participation. The tacit knowledge that is hard to express verbally (Schön, 1983) can be reached through visualisation, since it provides “more natural representa-tions than representations in people’s heads” (Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013, p 11). Further, visualisation enables a creation of stories that give life to insights. Seeing something visually gives a sense of empathy of the description, also making it easier to keep this empathy over time (Bai-ley, 2013; Segelström, 2009; Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013).

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Prototyping is a form of visualisation where knowledge and ideas are created in action. It starts with simple small scale prototypes in paper, moving to full scale, testing different materials, even-tually coming to a “works like” stage where the functionality is tested (British Design Council, 2012). During a participatory workshop possible futures and new ideas are generated by the ex-perimentation and building of prototypes. Westerlund (2009) states that participants are often proud of the outcome when prototyping, seeing it as meaningful since they solve an existing and sometimes personal problem. Also, a workshop does not stop at a discussion level as prototypes make the result tangible. Buchenau and Suri (2000) argue that to fully understand something, you need to experience it with your mind and body. This personal experience, “exploring by doing”, or “experience prototyping”, is used to understand existing experiences and context, but also to explore and evaluate new design ideas, as well as to communicate ideas to an audience (ibid, 2000, p 425). As compared to a passive act such as being told about or seeing someone else demonstrating something, a personal experience is “more vivid and engaging” (ibid, 2000, p 425). It also provides empathy for the users, enabling you to see their needs and detect problematic aspects and possibilities of both practical and emotional nature. Buchenau and Suri (2000, p 425) appropriately quote the philosopher Lao Tse, saying: “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I re-member. What I do, I understand!”. A similar example is being your user. When conducting this, the designers put themselves in the shoes of the users; do what they would do, in place where they would do it. For instance, by wearing tinted glasses whilst carrying out everyday tasks, you get insight to the life of a person with impaired eyesight (British Design Council, 2012).

Challenges with community participation

Participation is often promoted in positive terms due to its focus on empowerment and demo-cratic and people-led processes (Hickey and Mohan, 2004). However, there are challenges inher-ent in the concept that need to be acknowledged. The goals of participation may be easy to justify in theory, however, in practice, arriving at socially, environmentally and economically feasible processes and results is a complex matter (Wall and Mathieson, 2006). If participation is practiced without caution or even with the wrong intentions, it will lead to the opposite of empowerment, even becoming manipulative. To illustrate this, Arnstein (1969, p 217) introduced the ladder of participation, with different degrees of participation: manipulation and therapy at the bottom, dif-ferent “degrees of tokenism” where power holders “allow the have-nots to hear and to have a voice” in the middle, and delegated power and citizen control at the top. It should be acknowl-edged that in the middle of the ladder, where participants are asked for advice or information, their voices are heard but they do not have the power to ensure that their opinions will be fol-lowed, and thus the status quo is maintained.

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Methodology

In order to get an in-depth understanding about if and how design can enable an evolutionary and participatory place branding process the authors saw the need to move beyond observations and interviews, into an active exploration of such an approach in a real setting. The small destina-tion of Dunga beach in Kenya was chosen. Dunga is situated about five kilometres from Kisumu, on the shore of Lake Victoria. The majority of the community rely on the lake for their income, working as fishermen, fishmongers, boat builders, and related jobs. However, the state of the lake is a cause for major concern, and the fish stock is decreasing due to overfishing, pollution and the infestation of water hyacinths. In addition to making efforts for the lake’s environment, it is cru-cial to find new livelihoods, and ecotourism is seen as an alternative. In Dunga beach there is the local tour guide group Dectta, offering activities such as short boat rides and ecological courses for students. Other organisations involved in tourism activities are the community-elected Beach Management Unit (BMU) and the NGO (non-governmental organisation) Ecofinder Kenya. These local organisations as well as residents of Dunga were involved in a place branding process with the authors. Also involved were PhD students from Maseno and Jooust universities in Ki-sumu and Gothenburg University in Sweden.

The fieldwork was carried out over a period of fifteen months, spending twelve weeks in Kisumu spread over four occasions. Nine participatory workshops, four public presentations and two test tours were organised. These were combined with comparative studies, interviews, observations and questionnaires, as well as pronounced design methods such as being your user, available pro-ject space and participant diaries. For an overview of project activities, see table 1. In action-oriented research, it is often difficult to separate practical work and research work, and not all of the activities mentioned can be viewed as research methods although they are necessary for the practical work. In this article, observations, reflections-in-action, diaries from participants in the two test tours, and interviews with those who participated are seen as qualitative research meth-ods.

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No Activity Participants Contents

No Activity Participants Contents

1 Being your us-er/experience proto-typing

The authors, PhD collea-gues.

Experience the tourist percep-tions of Dunga and its envi-rons.

11 Meeting and works-hop

The authors, PhD col-leagues, tour guides in Dunga.

Presentations on current state and possible continuations. Group workshop.

2 Stakeholder mapping workshop

The authors, PhD col-leagues, residents, local organisations.

Visualisation of stakeholders in Dunga.

12 Infrastructure workshop

The authors, tour guides in Dunga.

Sketching on waste manage-ment system and signage sys-tem.

3 Identity workshop The authors, PhD col-leagues, residents, local organisations.

SWOT analysis, Who is Dun-ga? Past, present and future Dunga, Song production.

13 Crafts workshop The authors, tour guides in Dunga.

Sketching on labels, products and activities.

4 Interviews The authors, domestic and international tourists.

Semi-structured interviews with tourists on the beach (31 interviews).

14 Tour layout work-shop: A day in Dunga


Paper prototype on guided tour with focus on interac-tions and activities.

5 Open presentation PhD colleagues, Dunga residents, local organisa-tions.

Open presentation of findings in community hall.

15 Test tour, national The authors, tour guides, 2 families from Kisumu.

Testing a prototype tour with a target group.

6 Beach workshop The authors, PhD col-leagues, residents, local organisations.

Hopes and fears of Dungas future tourism development.

16 Debriefing meeting The authors, tour guides in Dunga.

Summary and reflection meet-ing in Dunga.

7 Good example work-shop (day 1 of 3)


Good examples. Relate Dunga to examples.

17 Test tour, internat-ional

The authors, tour guides, 8 adults from Sweden.

Testing a prototype tour with a target group.

8 Walking workshop (day 2 of 3)


Walking workshop. Pinpoint-ing challenges and oppor-tunties.

18 Debriefing meeting The authors, supervisor, PhD colleagues, tour guides in Dunga.


9 Packaging workshop (day 3 of 3)


Idea generation for tourism packages.

19 Interviews The authors, tour guides, residents.

Open interviews with tour guides and residents of Dunga (19 interviews).

10 Open presentation The authors, PhD collea-gues.


20 Open presentation The authors, PhD col-leagues, residents, local organisations.


Table 1. Project activities in the place branding process of Dunga beach.

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The main funder of the project, Mistra Urban Futures (MUF), has established a local interaction platform in Kisumu (KLIP). MUF emphasises transdisciplinarity, thereby focusing on research that aims to accomplish both academic and practical results, which is an aspect that has been important for the process. From the practitioners’ side, the involvement and empowerment of the community as well as the ownership of the process were seen as key. As the founder of Eco-finder Kenya expressed it:

…you are not only coming to squeeze information from the community and turn away, but I see you involving the community in a process; in a process whereby you get information, but also in a process where the community owns that information and they are empowered…

The empirical material was analysed and reflected upon with an emphasis on areas and points in time where design contributed to an evolutionary process and where the visual aspects came forth as tools for communication and idea generation between participants.

The case: Dunga beach

An important aspect before the actual process in Dunga started was to gain insight of the specific context, in order to reach an understanding of the situation at hand, as well to gain an under-standing on possible and suitable actions to come. This was especially important since neither of the authors had been to Kenya before and the context was therefore somewhat unfamiliar. Be-fore and during the first visits to Kenya and Kisumu the roles as international tourists were taken on, a type of experience prototyping (Buchenau and Suri, 2000), and being your user (British Design Council, 2012). It provided a first-hand experience and thereby an understanding of the place and its users, which may have been less informative if secondary data or conventional empirical methods had been used alone (Buchenau and Suri, 2000). The reading of guide books and Inter-net searches coloured the first perception and created expectations. For example, in a guide book (Ham et al, 2012, p 137) a sentence gave an image of Kisumu as a city that “sits with its back to the water”. By visiting other tourism destinations in the region around Kisumu, Nairobi and Rift valley, a deeper understanding of the Kenyan culture, as well as a sense of the state of tourism offerings were gained. On an acting tourist day in Dunga, the authors sensed a deep connection that people in Dunga have to each other and the place: a sense of community and authenticity. The guides chatted with local fishermen on the boat tour, and on the beach fishmongers were scaling and frying freshly caught tilapia fish while laughing and talking to each other. The day also showed problematic aspects, for example it was hard to identify the tour guides since they did not wear uniforms, and the beach was untidy, with litter lying on the ground.

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Image 1: Local fishermen

However, important to note is that the experience of acting tourist is highly subjective (Buchenau and Suri, 2000), and does not give a full understanding of how every other people experience it. To capture a broader view of Dunga’s visitors, two days were spent on the beach interviewing 31 tourists about their experience. They appreciated experiencing the lake, seeing the fishmonger activities, and 90% would recommend Dunga to a friend. Yet, none of them spent money on souvenirs and some saw it as being untidy or they did not know if the tour guides were profes-sionals.

Planning through visualisation

Having a first insight of the context, an internal process between the authors started where visu-alisation were used as a tool to understand the situation, to generate ideas and to come forward with the planning. For example, actions that involved the community were always prototyped in order to test their suitability to the context. When prototyping a workshop, large sheets of paper were placed on a table and sticky-notes were used to draw and write ideas on that were then or-ganized on the papers. This visual overview enabled an internal process of “reflective conversa-tion” (Schön, 1983), and made the authors’ respective ideas visible, enabled a shared understand-ing, and a building on each other’s ideas. You could have a discussion on details, and at the same time keep a visual overview of the whole workshop. When a new idea arose you could see if and where it fitted in, or if it should replace something else.

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Image 2: Prototyping a workshop

In the initial stages, the local organizations in Dunga were invited to an idea generating and plan-ning session with the aim to co-create coming workshops and to get their view on appropriate ways to involve the community. This was done in collaboration with the authors’ PhD colleagues. As an example, the authors proposed value words to describe Dunga, however, this was seen as too abstract by the local participants. Describing what colour, food, plant or type of music is typ-ical for Dunga was though seen as appropriate.

Participatory actions

Insight of local stakeholders

The first larger workshop for the community of Dunga had the purpose of finding out what stakeholders there are in Dunga, how they are placed spatially, the relationships between them, if current relationships can be improved or new relationships can be initiated. The 75 participants were divided into groups and asked to draw maps of Dunga on large sheets of paper before they put up stakeholders and relationships. An important result came up when interviewing one of the local boat builders. He said that when placing each boat builder on the map, they could see that they were spread out geographically. After the workshop they got together and asked the BMU for a piece of land to enable them to work together as a group. Now they have a common station by the beach, making it possible for people to come by, giving an opportunity to find new cus-tomers and also providing an interesting spot for tourists.

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Images 3: Drawing the map of Dunga

Reflection leading to changes in coming actions

During the first workshop, it became evident that there were too many participants for the space (Dunga community hall), and it soon got too hot and loud. The experience led to changes for the second workshop. It was divided into stations, all with different topics, meaning that ideas and information on several topics came up as opposed to the first workshop. Some of the stations were outside, which gave a better working climate. New groups were started as more people ar-rived; hence newcomers did not disturb the other groups. The workshop aimed to get a grasp of Dunga’s identity from the perspective of the community. The stations included; swot analysis with big paper sheets on the wall, who is Dunga? where the participants drew images that they felt rep-resented Dunga, and past present and future where they discussed what should be kept or not and what could be developed for the future. Further, referring to the rich music tradition in Kisumu with local instruments like ohangla and nyatiti, and local dances and rumba, one group was asked to express how they felt about Dunga in a song, which resulted in the song Dunga Be. Except for the song, the results of the workshop were for example suggestions on the image of a tilapia fish representing Dunga, and the colours of green and yellow representing papyrus and local flowers.

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Images 4: Drawing station at identity workshop

The number of facilitators had to be several in the first two workshops, so there was a need to rethink again. In discussions with stakeholders from the local organisations, a proposal was made of reducing the number of participants to 50, to make it more manageable. The stakeholders pointed out that it was important that everyone was invited, and “the whole community is not 50 people!” They also had concerns that the workshops took up a lot of time, and that many people therefore could not attend. A new idea was formulated there and then. What about an open workshop held on the beach for a full day, where people could come by when they had the time? The stakeholders found the idea more suitable since it would allow more people to participate, and it would only take a few minutes of their time.

In the workshop on the beach, the aim was to find out how the community felt about ecotourism development, if they had fears as well as hopes. The participants wrote or drew hopes and fears on coloured paper symbols and put them in a suggestion box, which is a common way in Kenya for sharing thoughts. A reflection from the previous workshops was that everybody had not seemed comfortable in group discussions. This new approach allowed them to be anonymous and to sit by themselves for a while, without a group sitting by waiting for a contribution. A large number of people participated, including children, who had been underrepresented in the previ-ous workshops. The creative approach of coloured paper symbols and pens, together with the familiar suggestion box could have contributed to the interest.

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Taking ideas further

After three open community workshops, there was a need to take some of the ideas that had come up further. A closer collaboration with a smaller group was suggested, and since the mem-bers in the local tour guide organisation had shown a great interest, it led to a three-day workshop with this group, consisting of 16 members from the community. The first day focused on inspira-tion, the second on insight of their current offer, and the third and last day on packaging ideas.

The first day started by showing good examples of tourism packaging. The plan was first to do this through a traditional slide-show presentation, where the authors stood and talked, and the participants sat and listened. However the aim was to reach a creative discussion, so the slides were printed on A4 paper. This enabled the group to sit around a table, and by having the slides in a physical form the discussion could easily go back and forth. The good examples were highly visual, and dealt with for example how you can develop packages around local history and cul-ture. The participants developed ideas on how they could use the local Luo culture and the genu-ine fishing village as bases for developing tourism services and products.

The second part was a walking workshop (experience prototyping, Buchenau and Suri, 2000), with the aim of a shared understanding and a co-creation of ideas. It followed the tourist route, dis-cussing strengths and weaknesses. The fact that the walk was on site made it easy to connect to the physical surroundings by pointing out things for discussion, for example the bad state of the gate which is the first thing tourists see when arriving to the beach, or the litter. Could there be litterbins and signs, saying something positive instead of “do not litter”? Yes, one of the partici-pants said enthusiastically, like “go green”!

The first two days each included five participants, however the workshop was appreciated, so on the third day it was open for the whole tour guide group. The aim was to go one step further and develop concepts for tourism packages. The participants were divided into three groups, working with a theme each; the lake, the local (Luo) culture and events. One tour guide had previously mentioned that the good examples from the first day were good, but to develop something of the same size would demand resources that they do not have. Continuing that thought the partici-pants were asked to develop one short term concept, not demanding large resources and which could be implemented by the group quite immediately, and one long term concept. They came up with ideas and concepts quite fast, which could be because some of them had been in the mind-set of developing ideas for the last two days. As examples, the event group created a lake day and the lake group a lake package; a two to five day boat trip where the tourists can go fishing, cook their own food, camp on beautiful beaches and end with a festive evening in Dunga with tradi-tional Luo music and dances.

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Image 5-6: Workshop with the tour guide group

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During the workshop the issue of uniforms for the guides was discussed. The guides later bought shirts in green and yellow, relating to what had been discussed in the identity workshop as repre-senting the green papyrus in Dunga wetlands, and the yellow flowers on the beach. Printed on the t-shirts was a symbol of a tilapia fish, and on the back the text tour guide was printed in a large font and on the front it said - Dunga fishing village. The guides later mentioned that the shirts had made them more recognised and they now felt more like a group with a profession, belonging together.

Collaborative prototyping

During the last trip to Kisumu the collaboration with the tour guide group strengthened further. One of the authors’ supervisors had proposed a tour with Swedish tourists to test a tourism package in Dunga, working as a motivator for the tour guide group and the community. In dis-cussion with the guides it was decided to prototype such a package and test it in action. It was also decided to prototype a tour for national tourists since the guides and the other local organi-sation saw it as important to focus on national tourism.

In a preparatory meeting for the test tours the guides presented what had been done so far in the process, challenges met, and ideas for possible continuations. The guides emphasised that they considered it to be important to integrate local craft in tourism activities. Another aspect that had come up in previous workshops was the need for improvements in infrastructure on the beach. This led to the formulation of three groups; one working with craft integration in tourism, one with infrastructure and one with the overall layout of the tours. Each group then worked with hands-on prototyping of products, services and packages. Besides the guides, members of the community engaged in the prototyping, for example a local artist joined the craft group.

The infrastructure group worked with the physical surroundings. Doing sketches together in a group made it possible to build on each other’s ideas, discussing around a sketch and continuing on it, or bringing about more ideas for other types of solutions. As a continuation of the work-shop, full size prototypes of a recycling collection point and a signage system were worked fur-ther on by the guides in collaboration with local carpenters.

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Image 7-8: Sketching for signage system. Finished sign.

The craft group worked on ideas on how to enhance co-creation between people (the guides, the tourists, and the members of the community), educate people in eco-related issues, and use recy-cled or natural material in products. For example it was discussed how the tourists could make paper, ropes and jewellery out of water hyacinths. The group also sketched on labels and aprons where the symbol of the tilapia fish was incorporated.

The group that worked with the overall layout of the tours summed up activities that had come up earlier, developed new ideas and put it all together in paper prototypes. The prototype con-sisted of a map of Dunga with the wetlands, the village, the beach, the lake and specific points of interest such as trees or viewpoints. The participants drew the map on a large sheet of paper and put small folded cardboard characters on it representing guides, tourists and community mem-bers. At each point where an interaction may occur, the characters were put in with speaking bubbles that they filled in with what the person could say. The activities were then connected with red dotted lines and arrows, as the path to follow. One of the participants said that they will use the tool in the future for developing tours, due to its simple but very visual construct:

...using the manila paper and drawing the tourist, placing the guide, writing on the manila paper, I think it was very good, and it makes somebody see how something will happen, just by looking at the manila paper. It shows you everything from the beginning how the visitor will move, it is very good. I think it is the best so far, I’ve never seen something like that. Very interesting. Every man can see how the movement of the tourist will be.

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Images 9-10: Tool for visualising the test tour

Prototyping through test tours

Taking stance from the ideas from the workshops, the tours consisted of a full day in Dunga in-cluding a tour on the beach and lake, fishing, cooking local dishes, stories of the local culture and craft production. The observations made on the first tour (the national) were discussed upon and resulted in improvements for the second tour. As examples, the reception was improved, the arrival to the beach was earlier so that the tourists could see the fish coming in, and a lead guide was added who were in charge of the tour and introduced each other guide. Also after the second tour (the international), a debriefing meeting was held with the tour guides, the authors, and the supervisor who had been participating. The role of a tour guide was discussed, as well as specific experiences and incidents from the tour such as time issues, the possibilities and problems with cooking together, and different food preferences.

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Image 11-12: Tourists interacting during test tour

Further, the participants of the test tours had been asked in advance to write down perceptions and recommendations. All of them were very happy about the activities they had been involved in, however they raised concerns about environmental issues such as how to conserve the wildlife if more tourists will be coming, and social issues about walking around in people’s properties. They wanted to know about how the money earned from tourism was spread among the com-munity members, especially among women and children.

Also, in interviews with the tour guides and community members conducted after the test tours there were discussions and reflections of the process that contributed to a continuation. The con-cern for peoples welfare was commented by a guide, who said that they now need to work fur-ther with arranging public meetings about who wants to participate in village tours, for example inviting tourists to their homes or being involved in matters such as crafts production or cooking, so that only the ones who want to be involved are, whereas the ones that wish not to be involved will not be disturbed by the activities.

Communication through visualisation

The material collected from workshops, observations, discussions, test tours and questionnaires were regularly presented for local residents in the community hall and put together in three re-ports: Dunga identity and image, Dunga ecotourism development – emerging ideas and possible continuation, and A day in Dunga – reflections and ideas from test tours. This was a way to show that Dunga has potential, a strong culture and identity to build on, but that there is a need for improvements. The aim was to give the community something to work further on and implement ideas from, as well as to give information to external stakeholders of what had been going on in Dunga, as inspiration and

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networking possibilities. Both the reports and the presentations were highly visual, with good quality photographs and examples, depicting potential aspects in Dunga. In interviews, this shar-ing and visualisation of the results came up as an important part of the process, since it made it inclusive and transparent. As some of the guides expressed it:

…I see my picture, now that will come up in my mind and tell me that ah, what I was doing was something that was worth to be mentioned and was going to make a change somewhere (tour guide 1).

I think it is very important, because having been here for two weeks or three weeks back, you need to show the community what yourself has done…(tour guide 2).

I think it (the public presentations) enlightens the community about the whole process. And so it’s a way showing how transparent the process is, cause it brings all the stakeholders together and present their views and then wait for their reactions and feelings. And they feel part of this project… (tour guide 3).

However, even though the workshops and presentations had many participants, not everybody could attend. Since it is important that those who want get a chance to participate in the process, an available project place was arranged at a public space where information about the project could be found, and where thoughts, concerns and ideas could be shared in a suggestion box.

Some of the ideas that had come up were visualised by the authors, as a way of making them more realistic. For example, it had been discussed that “you get lost on your way to Dunga”, and that there is nothing indicating that there is an ecotourism site and beach further down the road. A tour guide had mentioned that he had seen a sign at a tourism site, carved as a fish. To show how you could direct visitors to Dunga, an illustration was made of a wooden sign leading to Dunga in the shape of a tilapia fish.

Process ownership

During the process a Facebook group was started, with people from the stakeholder organisa-tions, the authors, and their PhD colleagues. A couple of weeks after the tour guide workshop, an event was announced in conjunction with the world environmental day; Dunga cleaning day, where the community cleaned the beach. Photos of the event were shared in the Facebook group. Also without the authors’ involvement, a fish night was held two months later, with around 1 000 visi-tors enjoying fresh fish and local foods, as well as traditional songs and music. This can be seen as prototyping for coming events, such as a lake day. Further, a collection of local stories started as well as sketching on a new gate that incorporates local material, a traditional thatched roof and signs in the shape of tilapias. This indicates that the community are continuing the process, and they have started to implement thoughts and ideas that came up.

It also turned out that the local stakeholders took it upon themselves to spread the word to those who were not able to attend the public presentations. One of the tour guides said: “…I’m also going to the village doing some of the things by myself to the community, telling them what you have been telling us”. Some of the BMU members read and endorsed the reports, as well as the NGO. The BMU holds regular assembly meetings with the community where the content from the reports has been informed of and discussed, and according to the founder of the NGO, the

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information from the reports has been used in applications for funding, referring to what has come out from workshops and interviews about people’s wants and needs.

After working closer in collaboration with the tour guide organisation for some time the authors’ roles as facilitators changed towards working as a team with the group. One of the tour guides sees it as them owning the process: “We feel more engaged in this than you, because you are just animators, but we are the reactors”. Also some comments came up about the BMU becoming more aware of the tourism business. One tour guide said:

Then it has also enlightened the BMU. They know this place is not just about buying and selling of fish. You’ve opened up those potentials. They now look beyond just fishing, buying and selling of fish or just taking visitors for a boat tour. There is so much they can do even without getting into the boats...

The vice chairman of BMU was also well aware of that the ownership of the process has to be local. He said: “…as a community development conscious person I know the ownership must lie on us. Because if you own it, then when you leave, everything will go down.”

Moreover, it seems as though other sites are now looking at Dunga with curiosity. One of the tour guides who is also a member of the BMU said:

I’ve been called and invited by those that are also doing these activities… they wish to invite us, most of the beaches…They have also tried to ask me that, can they invite us so that we can take them through all this process. Because they are feeling that we are some miles away from them. Actually it is possible, because we learn about the steps (…). Even I was there in a certain beach and tried to share with them about the things that we do…

Discussion and conclusion

Scholars have for some time now acknowledged the importance of stakeholder involvement in place branding. However, there are few examples in the place branding literature that take the details of stakeholder involvement into account. Even though positive aspects of participation might be easily justified in theory, the complexity of arriving to a socially, environmentally and economically feasible process in practice is overlooked (Wall and Mathieson, 2006). There is also a risk that projects are highlighted as participatory even though the involvement per se might be at the bottom end of the ladder of participation (Arnstein, 1969), where people take part in some-thing that might never be realised, or that the result of the participation is used for other purpos-es than what the participants thought. To reach the other end of the ladder, it is important to highlight not only abstract terms of the benefits of participation but also the details that occur in the processes; how it is initiated and evolves. Who takes part? What methods are used? And what are the positive and problematic aspects of it? With the example of the case in Dunga, the pur-pose is to describe, in detail, how a place branding process can take place, and to illustrate how an integration of design can act as a mean to reach community participation.

In design and especially participatory design, stakeholders who will be affected by the outcome of the design process are seen as vital participants. The aim is not only to involve stakeholders but

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also to hand over participatory tools and skills to them so that the project can proceed in the long-term (Burns et al, 2006). Also, the practicality of the process is often described in detail in design literature, as a way to explore what works and what does not, and to spread knowledge of methods and tools.

Further, in place branding theory the need for evolutionary processes has been acknowledged. In the design process the problem setting is allowed to be constantly reframed, through loops of planning, action and critical reflection (Schön, 1983) where actions are influenced by the specific situation (Sangiorgi, 2009) and human contexts (Akama, 2009). The process of developing Dunga as an eco-tourism site was intuitive, empathic and held open and changeable, and the conceptual framework was continuously tested. The process was highly connected to the context and situa-tion in Dunga, and it was the situated knowledge; the place, people, timing and local circum-stances that indicated what actions to take. As the examples from the community workshops show, the second workshop was modified to accommodate the large number of participants by dividing the workshop in flexible stations and by placing stations outside. The third workshop was moved to the beach to make it more accessible, and people that might not be comfortable with group work could sit by themselves.

Visualisation is at the core the design process, and can strengthen collaboration since it enables communication and sharing of knowledge (Bailey, 2013; Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013). It also helps to communicate research findings. In presentations and reports for the community in Dun-ga, high quality photos and examples from the area were used, which was a way of connecting to the place and the people. In a workshop setting the visualisations made ideas observable to all participants, acted as an aid to keep the discussion focused, and made it possible to build on each other’s ideas. Prototyping was commonly used throughout, in particular in the preparation for the test tours. For example, new waste collection and signage systems were prototyped, starting with simple sketches and ending with finished products. One of the most appreciated tools, which will be used in the continuation of tour development in Dunga, was highly visual, consisting of a map that the participants drew themselves and paper figures and speaking bubbles representing people and sayings. The tool resulted in a first prototype for a tour that was later tested on tourists, eval-uated and refined, prototyped again and tested.

However, when dealing with participation we need to understand the complex nature of partici-patory processes. A process that starts by someone from outside runs the risk of fading out as soon as the outsider leaves. It was therefore important to hook on to a development that had already started internally in Dunga, namely that of ecotourism. By keeping the process transpar-ent, by informing and involving, and by finding local stakeholders to collaborate with, a shared ownership could develop. It was the community’s own ideas that were taken further, which pos-sibly made it easier for them to take on an implement them. The tour guide group saw the im-portance of viewing aspects as interlinked, such as tours, products, guide performance, cleanli-ness of the beach, and signage. They also saw it as a participatory process, with a shared owner-ship, commitment and acceptance from the residents in Dunga. For example, they acknowledged the need to discuss matters of who wants to be involved in village tours, recognising that every-body might not want to be involved.

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It was not the single methods and tools that were the main contributions in the project, but the way of thinking and the openness to change, the participatory approach and visualisation as a way to communicate. This gives implications for how place branding can be carried out in the future, namely that the integration of participatory design can lead to community participation and commitment, open up for the community taking charge of the process, as well as place brand authenticity and long-term sustainability. It implies that place branding needs to be considered as evolutionary not only in the sense that it is continuous but that it is open to changes and refor-mulations along the way. Participation is not only about getting feed-back or advice from stake-holders but to involve them during the whole process, in smaller as well as bigger issues.

The case also gives implications for further research on place branding, participatory design and community involvement since it opens up for connections between the fields. In the Dunga case, working in a transdisciplinary manner between academic fields as well as between academia and practice resulted in a process that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

Acknowledgements

We want to give our thanks to the main funders of the project, Mistra Urban Futures, which is a centre for sustainable urban development with headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, and their Local Interaction Platform in Kisumu (KLIP). We would also like to thank all the people in Dunga that have participated. Thanks also to the two reviewers for their comments and sugges-tions on structure and contents of the article.

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Appendix 2 (article 2): Tourism experience innovation through design

Tourism experience innovation through design

Keywords: experience innovation, experience design, experiencescape, prototyping

Abstract Experience innovation is described as collaborative and integrated in day-to-day work. However, a challenge is to capture people’s tacit knowledge and make it explicit, in order to bring forth ideas and concepts. The purpose with this article is to illustrate how design can be integrated with experience innovation. A model for experience innova-tion and design is presented which complies with the prototyping phase of the design process. Visual representations are used for communication and idea generation between stakeholders, to make them build on each other’s ideas.

The case is the development of a guided tour in Dunga beach, Kisumu, Kenya. Dunga beach is seen as the experi-encescape, and the interactions with the physical and social environment become part of the experience innovation process. By active involvement as partners and participants in collaborative activities with guides, residents and tourists, the authors were able to get an in-depth understanding of the process. The implication is that the view of experience innovation as a spiral process within the experiencescape increases the understanding of how specific characteristics of the experience could be considered and developed for new or improved experiences.

Introduction Studies on experience innovation are to date highly fragmented and the theory development is yet to mature (Sundbo et al, 2013). Experience is a personal, interactive and complex phenomenon with characteristics that relate to but are also different from service. Experiences are about fanta-sies and feelings (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) in comparison to many services which fulfil consumers’ functional needs. More characteristics of experiences are presence, participation and co-creation of consumers. Other consumers’ performances are of importance as well as social belonging (Poulsson, 2014). Novelty and surprise is often valued positively (Mossberg, 2007) as well as the role of challenge (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990). Also, utilizing storytelling tends to evoke experiential value for the consumer (Poulsson, 2014). The consumption takes place within an experiencescape: a physical and a social surrounding often themed and with hedonic benefits (Mossberg, 2007).

All of the above characteristics need to be addressed in innovation processes for experience-based tourism. Specific features like involvement of and co-creation with employees and custom-ers has been pointed out in discussions about innovation logic (e.g. Fuglsang et al, 2011; Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014; Toivonen et al, 2007) but needs to be further elaborated on as a pre under-

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standing and context sensitivity has been requested (Eide and Mossberg 2013). Even though there is similarity across sectors regarding innovations, a more holistic view is needed beginning with the characteristics of the experience logic. It is argued that new methodologies must be de-veloped and that a cross-disciplinary manner is required (Hjalager, 2010). It is also suggested that open innovation processes and user-based methods could provide new potentials for innovation in tourism (Sørensen and Sundbo, 2014).

The types of processes and methods that are proposed above for experience innovation to devel-op are often used in the design discipline. The recent decades’ widening of the design practice to designing for societal needs (Sanders and Stappers, 2008), shaping strategies (Valtonen, 2007) and being a resource for development (Wetter-Edman, 2014) makes it interesting to relate design to experience innovation. Furthermore, seeing experience through the lens of the experiencescape enhances a holistic view as well as gives a possibility to consider the specific characteristics of the experience.

The purpose with this article is to illustrate how design can be integrated with experience innova-tion. Design and the act of prototyping allows for innovations to take form while testing ideas in direct contact with stakeholders and the market. A process is illustrated through a model of expe-rience innovation and design in the experiencescape, developed and carried out in active collabo-ration with tourism practitioners, residents and tourists in Dunga beach, Kisumu, Kenya. A par-ticipatory and action-oriented methodology is used, which we argue is especially interesting for developing countries, where the integration of knowledge production, management, application and implications is an important issue. Kenya is a country where tourism is a core industry and where the development and use of sustainable processes with community involvement is seen as a key challenge for the future (Kibicho, 2004).

The article is structured as follows. First, a theoretical framework of experiencescape, experience innovation and experience design is given. The methodology and context for the case are de-scribed and thereafter the active exploration of a process that consists of spirals of prototyping, testing and evaluation is declared. Finally, the model for experience innovation and design in the experiencescape is illustrated, summarized and discussed, as well as the implications for using the model.

Theoretical framework Experiencescape

An experience takes place in people’s minds and bodies, and “engages each individual in an in-herently personal way” (Pine and Gilmore, 2013, p 26). Svabo et al (2013, p 316) define experi-ence as “a process where people undergo the influence of things, environments, situations and events, and a wide range of materials play active roles as mediators of experience”. However, influencing might not always be enough, since the term’s underlying assumption is that someone is being passively affected. Rather, experience stems from people’s interactions with their surround-ings (Jantzen, 2013). Furthermore, consumers are increasingly being involved or expect to be

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involved in the production of the experience (Alsos et al, 2014). That is why co-creation (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004) has become an important concept for experience (Alsos et al, 2014).

A notion that can be used for understanding the complexity of experience is the experiencescape (O’Dell, 2005; Mossberg, 2007), where physical and social surroundings as well as symbols, prod-ucts and services form the context for tourists’ influences and interactions. The experiencescape is constructed to get the perspective of experiences as being complex, interactive and situated. As Svabo et al point out, “[p]laces, buildings and objects are constituted in complex and heterogene-ous interrelations – as are humans” (Svabo et al, 2013, p 315). Departing from the tourist, the person has an embodied and mental relation to all factors in the experiencescape. Those relations may be there or not depending on situation, they may be weak or strong, and they may be related to each other. It should also be noted that an experiencescape could be both a smaller entity such as a restaurant (as in Bitner, 1992, then referred to as servicescape) as well as it can cover a larger area such as an amusement park or an entire city.

Experience innovation

Experience innovation is a young research area, still relying heavily on service innovation litera-ture. There are similarities between service and experience innovation, however, there is an emerging stream of research that explores the differences between the two. Innovation has also been applied to tourism, where most of the research departure from service innovation literature.

Hjalager (2010) and Rønningen and Lien (2013) have elaborated on innovation types regarding tourism. Product or service innovations are directly observed by the customer, and considered as new to the specific market, such as adding a summer season to a winter sport destination (Hjalager, 2010). Process innovations refer to backstage initiatives with the purpose of improving efficiency and productivity, such as food service technologies (Hjalager, 2010). Organisational innovations are new practices for organising procedures, work responsibilities or external relations (Rønningen and Lien, 2013). Hjalager (2010) calls this type of innovation managerial, and she includes customer participation in the production of experiences in this innovation type. Marketing innovations can be changes in design or packing, new techniques for promotion or new sales channels for tourism (Rønningen and Lien, 2013). Hjalager (2010) gives the examples of loyalty programs and co-branding in this innovation type. As a fifth category, Hjalager adds (2010) institutional innovation in her review of innovation research in tourism, referring to networks and alliances which is a signif-icant theme in tourism research. Rønningen and Lien (2013) call this type of innovation co-operation.

Innovation types are not easily differentiated In service, the difference between the product and the (production) process is vague since the term “product” often means a process, an “act”: a set of procedures or a service package (Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997 p 542). Services could thereby be categorised as products and processes simultaneously (Toivinen and Tuominen, 2009). The deep interaction between producer and cus-tomer also makes the innovation process and the actual service delivery process interlinked (Toi-vonen and Tuominen, 2009). Moreover, it is hard to separate the product/service and process from organisational or marketing innovation (Sundbo, 2009; Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009).

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Hjalager (2010) further comments that if you start considering changes in one category, the oth-ers are supposedly also changing, which will “lead to the breakdown of borders between catego-ries” (p 4). Also Eide and Mossberg (2013) propose that experience innovation types have holistic connections and overlaps, and that they are not easily separated.

Customers and employees as co-designers and co-innovators The underlying idea of mainstream innovation research that (large) R&D departments develop new products in closed environments is rarely found in service or in experience innovation pro-cesses. Service innovations are customer-oriented, often tailor made and non-technical (Sundbo, 2009). Innovation is characterized as “socially organized learning processes” (Asheim and Ger-tler, 2005, p 293), and as “a continuous and complex interaction between many actors” (Toivo-nen and Tuominen, 2009, p 892). Innovators in experience firms are often driven by knowledge from customers and employees (e.g. Fuglsang et al, 2011, p 663). The starting point can be a cus-tomer that poses “stupid questions” (Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009, p 899) or initiatives from employees working actively with service encounters (Ibid, 2009). Toivonen and Tuominen (2009) found that innovation projects with a pilot customer were regarded as the best way to develop innovations, due to the fact that the customers are critical evaluators and informants during the process. Prebensen (2014, p 173) propose that innovation in tourism will take on new dimensions by enabling the customer to take part of the value-creation process before, during and after the tourist trip. An example of a customer-driven innovation is a study of dog-sledging in Svalbard performed by Eide and Mossberg (2013) where a tourist proposed to drive the sledge herself instead of just sitting passively. This request was taken further by the guide and turned into a unique selling point for the dog sledging company. The tourist can thereby be seen as a co-designer (Ek et al, 2008) and co-innovator (Hall and Williams, 2008) of the experience, which is an important aspect for the development of experience innovation theory.

Incremental innovations Innovations in service are seldom new to the world. They are rather incremental than radical, meaning that they consist of “small improvements integrated in day-to-day work” (Sundbo et al, 2013, p 230). The outcome is often existing parts put together in a new context, or something new for a certain region or country (Eide and Fuglsang, 2013; Toivonen et al, 2007). This holds also for experience innovation. An example is the emergence of literary tourism (Müller, 2006) in Ystad and Fjällbacka in Sweden with experiences based on fictive criminal novels. The books and films have resulted in considerably increased number of tourists. The literary tourism is not new in itself but it is new to the municipality or city. Another interesting aspect of experience innova-tion is that services from several firms are often put together in packages (Alsos et al, 2014), as for example in city walks and bike trails with stops at the collaborating firms. The networks enable co-creation and transfer of knowledge between the companies, as well as it creates a sense of trust. Eide and Fuglsang (2013, p 298) further propose that networks make it possible to “achieve goals otherwise beyond them” and “meet challenges that would otherwise have been impossible”.

Spiral or circular process Innovation in the service and experience sectors is not often the outcome of a conscious and well-defined process. Innovations are said to happen ad hoc, not seen as innovations but a posteriori (Gallouj, 2002; Toivonen et al, 2007; Toivonen, 2010). A reason is that the development is a way to fulfil customers changing needs and that the idea in itself is tacit in the practical operation

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(Gallouj, 2002, Toivonen, 2010). Tourism organisations are also often of small size, don’t have the funds, or are too busy with their everyday routine in order to actively work with the purpose to innovate (Hjalager, 2010). The process of innovation is described as nonlinear, iterative and rather chaotic (Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009). Empirical studies have shown that spiral or cir-cular models for innovation capture the actual activity better than sequential (Toivonen et al, 2007). For example, the chain-linked model proposed by Kline and Rosenberg (1986) consists of complex feedback loops between process stages. Toivonen et al (2007) describe the spiral as one innovation process being the beginning of the next, and that the stage where it begins may vary. Open process and user-based methods In a case of a posteriori recognition, Toivonen et al (2007, p 379) identify a challenge in the devel-opment of mechanisms where “new, tacit ideas could be made explicit earlier”. Hjalager (2010, p 5) states that tacit knowledge “has to be captured, made explicit and properly understood, inter-preted, restored, adapted into specific innovations and recoded”. Fuglsang et al similarly argue that since experiences tend to flow freely and inspire people easily, the constraining factors are the strategic considerations; “[i]nnovation requires guided action and control over the innovation process so that it proceeds in a proper direction as a path-creating activity” (Fuglsang et al, 2011, p 676). However, having control over the process implies a top-down strategy while the closeness to clients and personnel implies a bottom-up strategy. As Sundbo et al (2013, p 230) point out, it “means that a firm’s strategy is a guideline as well as a limit to innovations”. In a study on GPS data in a safari park, Sørensen and Sundbo (2014) found that open innovation processes and us-er-based methods may provide new potentials for innovation in tourism.

Rapid application Another interesting point is the simultaneous planning and production of new or improved ser-vices. This is referred to as the model of “rapid application” by Toivonen et al (2007, p 376) and is common in the service sector in general and in tourism in specific, due to the large number of small companies with scarce resources. Instead of a formalised procedure with given steps, ideas and concepts are tested directly on the market; “after the emergence of a new idea, it is almost directly brought to the markets and developed hand in hand with the actual delivery of the ser-vice” (Toivonen et al, 2007 p 376). Rapid application is used due to the low cost, the small risk, an urgent need from the market, and/or the opportunity to use the real market to get answers to a number of questions that are not possible to pose without testing in reality (Toivonen et al, 2007). If the idea succeeds a more organized process for development of ideas and concepts starts (Toi-vonen and Tuominen, 2009). Experience design

According to Jantzen et al (2011) experience design is about organising frameworks, develop ob-jects, and plan situations and events that give relevant experiences on a physiological, emotional and cognitive level. O’Dell (2005, p 131) claims that since experiences are personal, “the trick is to provide a series of units or modules that people can mix and match as they please and thus become the producers of their own experiences”. However, as Svabo et al (2013) point out it is not about designing experiences but designing for experiences:

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“it is not possible to design experiences since they can never be fully predicted or controlled as they depend on co-producing the performance of visitors and the interrelations of entities. Yet it is pos-sible to design for experiences: actual experience emerges as visitors (consumers/users) are engaged with spatial designs and with the social situations that ritualize and help shape experiences.” (Svabo et al, 2013, pp 321- 322).

When designing for innovative experiences it is relevant to focus on the process of designing. The practice of design has for the last couple of decades increasingly widened its scope. Today the design process is not only used for designing products but also for designing for “people’s needs or societal needs” (Sanders and Stappers, 2008, p 10), resulting in design proposals of in-tangible nature such as services and experiences (Burns et al, 2006). This has led to the emergence of new sub-disciplines such as service design (Sanders and Stappers, 2008) and transformation design (Burns et al, 2006). Design also deals increasingly with complexity (Thackara, 2005), from product aesthetics to strategies (Valtonen, 2007), and it is more and more considered as “a re-source in development and innovation” (Wetter-Edman, 2014, p 32). The reason as to why design is being increasingly used for innovation can be linked to the simi-larities the process of designing has with the innovation process for services and experiences. The process of design is often described as intuitive, open-ended and non-linear (Schön, 1983), where designers propose ideas for future states (Lawson, 1997, p 113). The inquiry to reach this future state is emergent (Cooper et al, 2009), and evolves through the posing of open questions of “what might be, could be, and should be” (Lawson, 1997, pp 126-127). In the design discourse this way of working is often described as a “designerly way of knowing and thinking” (Cross, 2007). Prototyping The open questions in design are posed through actions, or a “design-by-doing” approach, where visualisations, prototypes, models or scenarios are created (Ehn, 1993, p 58), which Nigel Cross refers to as the “language” of design (Cross, 2007, p 47), and Lawson to “what if tools” (1997, p 242). During these actions an internal “reflective conversation with the situation” takes place (Schön, 1992, p 132), where ideas and new knowledge are created in the activity through reflec-tions in action (Lawson 1997; Schön, 1992). The “what if tools” can also enable communication and sharing of ideas between people. The tools are used to reach the tacit knowledge that is hard to express verbally. They can make intan-gible aspects tangible (Schön, 1983), and make one person’s thoughts visible to others (Lawson, 1997; Schön, 1983). For example, sketches provide “more natural representations than represen-tations in people’s heads” (Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013, p 11). Also through building and using prototypes or mockups it is possible to “express in action” what might not be expressible in formal language (Ehn, 1993, p 67). Seeing something visually also gives a sense of empathy to what is being described, as well as it makes it easier to keep this empathy over time (Bailey, 2013; Segelström, 2009; Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013). It makes things and ideas tangible, which means that the communication in a group does not need to stop at a discussion level. Instead it enables the creation of ideas and stories that can give life to insights (Segelström and Blomkvist, 2013, p 11). Involving the users in the prototyping process is often referred to as participatory design. This is connected to a belief that users should have the right to participate in the process of products and services that will have impact on their lives (Sanders and Dandavate, 1999; West-

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erlund, 2009). It is also seen as important since they due to their personal experience have signifi-cant knowledge on how a product or service can and should be used (Krippendorf and Reinhart, 2007; Westerlund, 2009). According to Ehn (1993) both the users (customers) and the designers participate in a process of mutual learning. Prototyping also needs to be “highly influenced by the specificity of the situation” (Sangiorgi, 2009, p 417), grounded in “situated knowledge, experience and human contexts” (Akama, 2009, p 4). Buchenau and Suri (2000, p 425) argue that to fully understand something, you need to “ex-perience it subjectively”. As compared to a passive act such as being told about or seeing some-one else demonstrating something, a personal experience is “more vivid and engaging” (ibid). Again this is a mean to gain empathy, to see needs and detect problematic aspects and possibili-ties of both practical and emotional nature. It is about being active - “exploring by doing”, and Buchenau and Suri appropriately quote the philosopher Lao Tse, saying: “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand!” (Buchenau and Suri, 2000, p 425). For exam-ple you can place yourself in the shoes of the user, and do what they would do, in a place where they would do it (British Design Council, 2012).

Methodology Choice of case

The context is Dunga beach, a fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria in Kisumu, Kenya. The fish stock in the lake is decreasing due to overfishing, pollution and the infestation of water hyacinths, which makes it crucial to find new livelihoods for the community. Ecotourism is seen as an alternative source of income. The local tour guide organisation Dectta arranges guided

Image 1. Dunga beach by Lake Victoria

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tours, mainly consisting of short boat tours on the lake and surrounding wetlands. Dunga beach was seen as appropriate since there was an established tourism business and the local stakehold-ers saw opportunities in developing their guided tours. Seven PhD students from Gothenburg, Jooust and Maseno universities work in collaborative projects within Mistra Urban Futures (MUF) and their local interaction platform in Kisumu (KLIP). Two of the PhD students are authors in this article and the third is supervisor and co-author. The guided tour was chosen since it includes several elements required for the experience; the design of environments, objects and services, the planning of activities, and the organising of the tour (program, process, duration, intensity). By framing the guided tour in the experiences-cape it is possible to include other aspects than the tour itself, such as infrastructure, products (e.g. souvenirs), and social interactions with residents. At the same as the experiencescape cap-tures the complexity it also limits the experience in a certain space. Approach/methodology

In this article, the experience innovation process is seen as the spiral of activities that together result in innovations. Each activity and their relations are important and the methods used are central for the total performance. Several questions need to be posed in order to achieve the un-derstanding of the process. How is prototyping performed? How can it be tested, and how can the evaluation of it be accomplished? Who is involved and how do people cooperate? In the em-pirical example, an action-oriented and participatory approach gave the opportunity for research-ers, guides and the community to form the process together with the common goal of developing a guided tour in Dunga. The approach was also seen as suitable due to the psychological and so-ciological factors that are involved in experience innovation; it is not possible to empathise fully with another person’s experience. By being there as partners and participants, it was possible to get a first-hand experience and in-depth understanding of the situations at hand. Doing some-thing together for a common goal means daring to be in a process, in the moment; it is a way of acting, where the circumstances provide a creative mode. The research methods used were ob-servations during tours, reflections-in-action during workshops, diaries and notes from partici-pants in two test tours, and interviews and discussions with those who participated in the pro-cess. The methodology was considered as especially interesting and important to use in a developing country. Working with participatory tourism development is seen as highly desirable in develop-ing countries, although there are “operational, structural and cultural limitations” that need to be considered and addressed (Tosun, 2000, p 614). The community should be the main actor in the development process, and by actively participating in a process on a limited scale, people learn how to apply it on a larger scale and thereby it is possible to make tourism development sustaina-ble (Tosun, 2000). Therefore an active collaboration with local stakeholders was seen as crucial.

The empirical process consisted of prototypes on infrastructure (sketches and physical), products (sketches and physical), and services/tours (paper and real-life). The main part of the testing of the prototypes took place by using two test groups of tourists who experienced the tours. Evalua-

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tions were made by oral debriefings, discussions and interviews, written evaluations by partici-pants and by analysing observations, interviews and written material. Test tour participants

The preparations started by choosing what type of tourist should be targeted for test tours. For the first tour, two families from Kisumu were invited since the organisations in Dunga consid-ered national tourists as the main target group. Two parents brought eight children in total aged between six and eighteen. Both families were quite used to similar experiences as the tour in Dunga and were therefore considered to be able to compare the site with others they had been to.

Another group was international tourists, although they were not the main target group. It was known that this group had professional knowledge of sustainable tourism, which would contrib-ute with insights that would not be possible to get otherwise. For this group the tour in Dunga was part of a longer tour in Kenya which included stops in Masai Mara, Nairobi and Lamu, as well as three days in Kisumu. The participants were eight people, two men and six women all between 40 and 65 years old.

Description and analysis of the process in Dunga In this part of the article the exploration of a spiral model of experience innovation and design is described which we argue comprises with the characteristics that need to be addressed in innova-tion processes for experience-based tourism. In the text, the most significant moments when possible innovations occurred are referred to and an attempt is made to categorise them into innovation types. Prototyping

The prototyping of the tours started ten days before the first test tour. The group of tour guides were split in three smaller groups: one working with infrastructure, one on craft production and one on the overall layout of the tours. Each group then had a workshop where a couple of mem-bers of the local community also participated. Some of the tour guides were participating every day, while others were there for one or two days.

The infrastructure group worked with ideas for the physical surroundings; a signage system and a waste collection point. In this workshop it became evident that the act of sketching (visualisation) and doing it together in a group spurred the ideation forward. For example the participants came up with ideas whilst drawing: “If we have three bins…no wait, I have a new idea. Let’s make it like this!” It also showed a building on each other’s ideas, where a discussion on one sketch re-sulted in more ideas for other types of waste collection points by other participants. Finally it was decided to put up full scale prototypes that were to be tested.

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Image 2-3. Prototyping: from sketching to full scale waste collection point and signage system.

The value of creating the prerequisites for people to interact was a major point influencing the whole process. The craft group worked with ways of including crafts production in the tours where the tourists could interact with the guides, the other participants of the group and mem-bers of the community. Ideas of how this could be done were for example making paper and ropes out of water hyacinth together, and making necklaces and earrings out of natural seeds and beans. They also came up with sketches on labels for products and aprons for the craftspeople with the symbol of a fish. A key aspect was also to use recycled material.

The group that worked with the overall layout of the tours summed up activities that had come up during other workshops and discussions, developed new ideas and put all the activities togeth-er in paper prototypes; one for each group of tourists in the test tours. This workshop was con-sidered one of the best by the interviewed participants. The prototype consisted of large sheets of paper where the participants first drew a map of Dunga with the lake, the wetlands, the village, and restaurants but also specific trees or viewpoints where storytelling could be used. Small fold-ed cardboard men, women and children were placed out at each spot where an interaction be-tween people could occur. Speaking bubbles were used to fill in what each person could say at each spot or activity.

Image 4. Paper prototype of a guided tour.

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When activities were placed out spatially on the paper, it was easy to see how they related to each other, where they could take place and who should be involved. Lastly the activities were con-nected with red dotted lines and arrows, representing the direction of the tour. One of the guides said in an interview:

...using the manila paper and drawing the tourist, placing the guide, writing on the manila paper, I think it was very good, and it makes somebody see how something will happen, just by looking at the manila paper. It shows you everything from the beginning how the visitor will move, it is very good. I think it is the best so far, I’ve never seen something like that. Very interesting. Every man can see how the movement of the tourist will be.

The ideas that had come up in previous workshops and discussions were added and made explicit in the prototype. They became sources for possible product, process, organisational and market-ing innovations. For example, a security issue resulted in purchasing of gum boots and life jack-ets, and a suggestion on coffee breaks resulted in production of picnic baskets. Realization and testing of prototype - test tour 1

The paper prototype acted as a base for the real life prototype, in which the tour guides decided what activities should be included, how to perform the guiding and which guides should be in-volved at what time. It included an introduction at the tour guide office and souvenir shop, a walk to the beach with stops at some trees where stories were told about the traditional way of using them, a round-tour on the beach where the handling of the fish and the problems with the water hyacinths in the lake were explained, a boat tour on the lake, lunch, crafts activities and a village walk. A couple of days before the tour the two parents from the group had been briefed shortly about the tour and they had given some input about their wishes. The mother said she preferred healthy food for her family and proposed to have the fish boiled instead of fried. These suggestions were forwarded to the guides who saw to that the lunch contained fish and vegeta-bles which all the participants appreciated.

Image 5. Village walk during test tour with two families from Kisumu.

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It was observed that the participants as well as the guides became more relaxed as the day passed. It seemed as the crafts activity where the tourists made necklaces was a moment of interaction when the two families, who didn’t know each other very well before, came together. This mo-ment of interaction, doing things together and doing small talk gave a friendly atmosphere for the rest of the tour. Also, the father in one of the families said that he wanted to be part of the tour because of the possibility to do something with his family since he works a lot during weekdays. Another observation was that the little girl held the guide’s hand during the village walk. This implies that the social surroundings and interactions mean a lot for the total experience of the tour, and that activities that focus on interactions are important to bring in.

Image 6. Making necklaces of beads. A moment of interaction and immersion that brought the participants together.

Debriefing meeting and refinements

After the test tour, a workshop was held where the authors’ and tour guides’ experiences were discussed and reflected upon. Changes, refinements and adjustments were discussed for the next real life prototype. Things that came up were for example the reception, where no one showed the tourists where to park the car, and the late arrival to the beach which meant they missed the fishermen coming in. Since the next test tour would have other types of tourists (international and older), there was a discussion on how they would want their fish for lunch, that they needed shade and maybe be divided in smaller groups for the boat tour to be able to hear and interact better. The crafts activities that on the first tour consisted of an introduction to water hyacinth craft production and beading of necklaces and earrings were adjusted by replacing the beading

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with rope-making, paper-making and weaving. The village tour that last time focused on the Indi-an settlers would this time be more about the Luo tribe culture. Testing the new prototype – test tour 2

For the second test tour the reception was improved and shortened. A lead guide was added who took charge of the whole tour, and introduced specific guides for bird-watching, crafts and village tours. This was the start of intertwined organisational/managerial (work responsibilities) and pro-cess (efficiency) innovations that was new to the guides and appreciated by the tourists. At the craft station a future process (improved efficiency) and/or product (improved product) innovation might have been introduced by one of the tourists. She asked the question of what chemicals were used when making the paper. A couple of days later when the authors came back to the beach one of the guides showed how they had experimented with soil instead of chemicals in the paper. A similar thing happened during the weaving of a basket. One of the tourists started making knots of the water hyacinth rope and one of the craftsmen became interested. After a while the two of them were occupied with the production of knots, immersed in the moment.

Image 7. Tying knots together during test tour with Swedish tourists.

Debriefing with the guides

A debriefing of the tour was conducted in Dunga with the tour guides. Emphasis was put on what roles the guides have for working with international tourists. The guide may be asked about the number of inhabitants in Kenya or how the school system works, which means that it is not

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enough with knowledge about the place. The guide might also need to solve conflicts in the group or between the group and other people. Specific safety incidents from the tour were dis-cussed, as well as food quality, and time issues. Also how stories can be used in different situa-tions was dealt with. Debriefing with the tourists

Before the Swedish test group went further on their trip, a meeting was held for debriefing and discussion between the participating tourists, the authors and researchers from local universities. The East African heritage was raised as a possible way to promote the region. Ideas on improve-ments on infrastructure such as the road to Dunga and rebuilding of the railway from Mombasa to Kisumu came up, as well as the opportunity to include the tea district in packages, and arrange with ferry lines and cruises on the lake. The owner of the hotel in Kisumu where the tourists stayed also participated in the meeting. She expressed a desire to establish collaboration with Dunga and other tourism actors in Kisumu. All these recommendations may be seen as ideas that could be developed into what Hjalager (2010) propose as institutional innovations, making Dun-ga part of a larger context with networks and collaborations. Written perceptions, comments and recommendations

The test tour participants had been asked in advance to write down their perceptions of the tours. The national group (the Kisumu families) had very positive comments, such as “It was wonderful to see the gorgeous end products from waste materials” and “this taught me the goodness of taking care of the environment”. However, concerns were raised from an ecologist in the group. She wrote that important plants and wildlife could be at risk and that the county government must see to that people are “sensitized on environmental issues”. The international group were mainly concerned about social aspects. They raised questions about how women live their lives, and why women were sometimes not involved in the tour activities. They wanted to know if and how the money from tourism was spread, especially among women and children. However, they appreciated the cultural experience. For example, one participant wrote that “the guides’ stories about their families and relatives were rewarding and strengthened the understanding of the customs of the Luo people”. Interviews with guides and residents

Comments (evaluations) about the process and the activities also came up in interviews with resi-dents and tour guides. The residents were positive to the development and their possibility to be part of it. Some mentioned that the tour guides behaved in a more professional manner, which may be considered an organisational/managerial (how they conduct their work) and/or process (improved efficiency) innovation. The tour guides were happy with their performance and the new possibilities for expanding the tours from offering mainly shorter boat rides to day tours, which could be considered as a marketing (new packing), process (new logistics) as well as prod-

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uct (new service to the market) innovation. Some of them were concerned of reaching the whole community while others talked about how they could help other beaches to develop tours in a sustainable way. A couple of the guides mentioned that they had received requests from other beaches to come and share their way of working with destination development, which may be a start of an institutional/co-operative (new networks and alliances) innovation. The international test tour participants had pronounced that they felt uncomfortable with walking into people’s homes on the village tour. A guide commented in an interview that it is time to ar-range with a public meeting concerning who wants to participate and where the village tour could be carried out without disturbing people. However, there were also positive reactions from resi-dents: a couple of families were on their way preparing for homestays where the tourists could be accommodated while in Dunga. Report

As a summary of the tours and the perceptions from it, a report was written by the PhD student authors for the Dunga community; A Day in Dunga – reflections and ideas from test tours. The report was sent to the people and organisations in Dunga, to tourism organisations in Kisumu, the county government, and other stakeholders involved in tourism activities in the region. Quotes and comments from the participants of the tours were given, as well as recommendations for the future. The intention was that Dunga would have something to continue to work with and im-plement ideas from. It also informed stakeholders of what had been going on in Dunga and thereby made room for networking and alliances. Finally, it worked as an inspiration for other beaches and tourism organisations in their development work.

Conclusion and discussion An attempt is now made to visualise a process model for experience innovation that takes into consideration how contemporary experience innovation is performed in practice, how scholars wish to see it develop, and how design is conceptualized. In figure 1, a spiral model of prototyp-ing, testing and evaluation is shown. The spiral starts with prototyping, which is the building of a physical or virtual model. The model is then tested directly on the market, a form of rapid appli-cation, and thereafter the first two actions are evaluated. Adjustments and refinements on the previous prototype are made and form a new prototype, which is then tested and evaluated, and so on. This process continues in shorter or longer intervals depending on what new influences, reactions and ideas are brought in through the interactions between factors in and outside the experiencescape. New circular models may start (supposedly more of the radical than incremental type) and others disappear. The spiral could thereby be the model for developing a specific item or activity in the experiencescape, for example a souvenir or a boat tour. It could also include the entire destination, for example an ecotourism site as Dunga. The spiral could then be used for prototyping themes or brands, as in Dunga’s case ‘the fishing village’. Seeing the experience de-sign through the lens of the experiencescape makes it possible to have a holistic view of the expe-rience as well as focusing on the details in the physical and social surroundings, and in products

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and activities. Different types of interactions with people and objects were in the Dunga case put together in the guided tour package. Collected they can be seen as a type of incremental innova-tion of the tour that continues with improvements, additions and withdrawal of elements.

The tourists are seen as co-producers and co-innovators of the experience since it is in their in-teractions and performance, and in their outspoken ideas and comments that innovation takes form. However, employees, networks of organisations and other stakeholders are important in the innovation process as well, as has been shown in this example.

Figure 1. A model for experience innovation and design in the experiencescape.

The model deals with the proposed shortages of strategies although without destroying the crea-tive process that is crucial for experiences. The model largely comprises with the design process and a “design-by-doing” approach (Ehn, 1993) which is spiral, iterative and reflective (Schön, 1983). Knowledge that is not possible to reach by words and language is captured by the visual methods used and the possibility to build on each other’s ideas. An important part of design, and particularly participatory design, is that users are involved in the prototyping due to their personal knowledge of and right to participate in processes that have impact on their lives (Sanders and Dandavate, 1999; Westerlund, 2009). This also comprises with the developed model.

The ongoing process eventually results in new or developed products or services as well as pro-cess, marketing, organizational and/or institutional innovations (Hjalager, 2010; Rønningen and Lien, 2014). In Dunga it resulted in possible innovations such as new ways of organising work responsibilities, new sales channels and possibilities for networking, new packaging of products and services, improved visitor service, new products and services as well as methods of produc-

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ing goods and services. Changes in one type led to changes in other types, which consists with what Eide and Mossberg (2013) and Hjalager (2010) state as a characteristic of experience inno-vation.

Referring to the experiencescape, waste collection points and signage systems were prototyped and tested in Dunga in the physical surroundings of the experience. Regarding the social sur-roundings, the people involved in the interactions with the tourists were guides, family, friends, other tourists, residents and other personnel at for example the restaurant. Products developed were for example water hyacinth ropes, paper and baskets, jewellery made of local material, and food encouraging a healthier lifestyle. Connected to this there were activities that constituted the base for the different parts of the tour, such as development of crafts, food production and boat tour. There were also ideas for institutional innovations, such as an East Africa theme, network-ing with other beaches and hotels in Kisumu, and larger tours that include Dunga.

Tosun (2000) points to the importance of including the community as participants, even if it is on a limited scale. This implies that emphasis needs to be placed on methodological concerns. Crea-tive methods such as drawing or discussing around and image or a real situation make it possible to include people with other competences and backgrounds. For example, photos, images, and drawings connect the sometimes abstract terms to real life and specific situations, which is easier to discuss around, and the threshold to start drawing themselves, thereby building on each oth-er’s ideas, gets lower.

In sum, the spiral experience design and innovation model is an example of how it is possible to be strategic in the experience innovation process and at the same time staying close to the people who are the innovators; employees, customers and partners. The iterative process with visual tools

takes care of new ideas, which are quickly and continuously tested on the market. The implication is that the view of experience innovation as a spiral process within the experiencescape increases the understanding of how specific characteristics of the experience could be considered and de-veloped for new or improved experiences.The findings from this article could be used as inspira-tion and tool, since seemingly small ideas could be developed into innovations through prototyp-ing, testing, and evaluation.

The model is however a simplification and further research is needed. Not all innovations may be possible to describe by the model. The spiral model does not take into account that some ideas may be dropped on the way, that the process sometimes go backwards, or that there could be other activities than prototyping, testing, and evaluating. New prototypes may be constructed without having been tested and evaluated, and the evaluation could consist of only a quick reflec-tion before starting prototyping again. The article should be seen as a starting point for a discus-sion on how experience innovation processes could be understood and used. It should also be noted that the methods used in the example could be used in other contexts however there is always a need to adapt to prevailing circumstances.

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Appendix 3: Project activity schedule

Project activities in Dunga and Kisumu September 2012 to December 2013

No Activity People in-volved

Contents Purpose Documentation

1 1st trip, September 2012

1.1 Meetings and lectures

25-30 PhD students from Maseno, Bondo (Jo-oust) and Gothenburg universities, and supervi-sors

Meetings and lectures. Get-together dinner.

Get to know each other, outline coregroup, learn about MUF, KLIP, the overall objectives and ecotourism/marketplaces. Set objectives for core group. Discuss and pre-sent research areas.

Notes, power-points

1.2 Choice of case PhD student core group and supervisors

Minibus tour around Kisumu environs

Find case for case study Diaries, photos

2 2nd trip, November 2012 2.1 Stakeholder map-

ping workshop Eva Maria, Helena, PhD student col-leagues, resi-dents, local organizations.

Visualization of stakeholders in Dunga, where they are placed spatially, the relationship between them, needs of im-provements, new partners or collaborations.

Create an inviting climate. Test the suitabliilty of tools, give indications for coming actions. Gain insight of Dunga from the eyes of the local commu-nity. Adapt the project to the place and local needs. Offer an opportunity for local community to share their views and encourage residents to participate in the development. Gener-ate ideas for future.

Visual maps of the current state and possible solutions for the future. Observation notes and photos.

2.2 Identity workshop Eva Maria, Helena, PhD student col-leagues, resi-dents, local organizations.

SWOT analysis, Who is Dunga? Past, present and future Dunga, Song production, Who is your user?

Create an inviting climate. Test the suitability of tools, give indications for coming actions. Gain insight of Dunga from the eyes of the local commu-nity. Adapt the project to the place and local needs.Offer an opportuni-ty for local community to share their views and encourage residents to participate in the devel-opment. Generate ideas for future.

SWOT analysis, drawn pictures of Dunga's identity, observation notes, photos and films.

2.3 Questionnaires Residents participating in stakeholder workshop

One-page ques-tionnaire with questions to residents.

Get a grasp of the identity of the people living in Dunga. What they work with, their dreams for the future etc. Make people feel part of the process.

Filled-in question-naries, compilation sheets and written analysis.

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2.4 Interviews Eva Maria, Helena, do-mestic and international tourists on Dunga beach (31 interviews)

Semi-structured interviews with tourists on the beach.

Gain insight of who the tourists are and their expe-rience of Dunga.

Filled-in interview sheets, compilation sheets and written analysis.

2.5 Open presentation PhD student core group, Dunga resi-dents, local organizations

Open presenta-tion of findings in community hall.

Keep the process open to stakeholders, shared un-derstanding. Summary of process, ideas and sugges-tions.

Powerpoint, notes, photos and films.

2.6 Report Eva Maria, Helena (au-thors)

1st written report sent to stakeholders after trip: "Dunga identity and image".


Written report.

3 3rd trip, April 2013

3.1 Interviews Eva Maria, Helena, PhD colleagues, tourism organ-izations

Open interviews with tourism organization representatives.

Take part of the strategic plans and thoughts for tourism in the city and region, specifically Dun-ga’s development. Inform stakeholders about the project for future collabo-ration. Shared understand-ing.

Notes

3.2 Beach workshop Eva Maria, Helena, PhD colleagues, residents, local organizations

Hopes and fears of Dungas future tourism development. Postcards for tourists. Placed in suggestion box made by water hyacinth.

Create an inviting climate. Test the suitabilty of tools, give indications for com-ing actions. Gain insight of Dunga from the eyes of the local community. Adapt the project to the place and local needs.Offer an opportuni-ty for local community to share their views and encourage residents to participate in the devel-opment. Generate ideas for future.

Hopes (clouds) and fears (explosions) with texts and pictures. Compila-tion sheet. Obser-vation notes.

3.3 Good example workshop (day 1 of 3)

Eva Maria, Helena, tour guides in Dun-ga (5 people)

Good examples. Relate Dunga to examples. Typi-cal tourists. Idea generation.

Inspiration. Get closer to the daily life. Education. Create a base for future development.

Education material. Observation notes.

3.4 Walking workshop (day 2 of 3)


Walking work-shop.

Insight in current offer (guiding, signage, parking, littering, Kodak moments, souvenirs, interactions with people....) Base for future development.

Observation notes.

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3.5 Packaging work-shop (day 3 of 3)


Development of ideas/packages

Ideas and packages for future development.

Posters with texts and drawings. Observations notes.





3.7 Report Eva Maria, Helena

2nd written report sent to stakeholders after trip: "Dunga eco-tourism devel-opment – emerging ideas and possible continuation"


Written report.

4 4th trip, November-December 2013

4.1 Start-up meeting and workshop

Eva Maria, Helena, PhD student col-leagues (eco-tourism), tour guides in Dun-ga (15 people)

Presentations on current state and possible continuations. Group work-shop (3 groups) on infrastruc-ture, crafts production and guided tour.

Catch up with what had happened since April 2013. Needs and ideas for continuous work. Intro-ducing experiencescape.

Powerpoint presen-tation. Posters with texts and drawings. Observation notes.

4.2 Graphic design lecture


Lecture on graphic design held by Helena Kraff.

Tour guides and other interested learning the basics of graphic design to be able to prototype signs, labels, websites and other ideas and concepts.

Powerpoint presen-tation. Posters with texts and drawings. Observation notes.

4.3 Infrastructure workshop


Sketching on waste manage-ment system and signage system. Walk on the beach.

Prototyping ideas for infrastructure.

Posters with texts and drawings. Observation notes. Photos.

4.4 A day in Dunga workshop


Paper prototype on guided tour with focus on interactions and activities.

Prototyping of test tour. Posters with texts and drawings. Observation notes. Photos.

4.5 Crafts workshop Eva Maria, Helena, tour guides in Dun-ga (10 people)

Sketching on labels, products and activities.

Prototyping labels, prod-ucts and activities.

Posters with texts and drawings. Observation notes. Photos.

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4.6 Test tour, national Eva Maria, Helena, PhD student col-leagues, tour guides, 2 fami-lies from Ki-sumu

Testing a proto-type tour with a target group.

Gain insight on how a new type of tour could be performed, what reactions there were, how the dif-ferent actors performed.

Observation notes. Notes from test tour participants. Photos and films.

4.7 Debriefing meet-ing

Eva Maria, Helena, tour guides


Reflecting upon and eval-uating the test tour. How the tour could be devel-oped for next test tour.

Meeting notes.

4.8 Test tour, interna-tional

Eva Maria, Helena, tour guides, 8 adults from Sweden

Testing a proto-type tour with a target group.

Gain insight on how a new type of tour could be performed, what reactions there were, how the dif-ferent actors performed.

Observation notes. Notes from test tour participants. Photos and films.

4.9 Debriefing meet-ing/lecture

Eva Maria, Helena, Lena, PhD student colleagues (ecotourism), tour guides in Dunga (15 people)

Summary and reflection meet-ing in Dunga. Lecture by Lena Mossberg on tour guiding and tourism.

Reflecting upon and eval-uating the test tour. Strengths and weaknesses, how the tour could be developed.

Meeting notes. Photos.

4.10 Debriefing with tourists

PhD student core group, Lena, KLIP director, eco-tourism super-visor Kenya, participating tourists

Summary and reflection meet-ing.

Reflecting upon and eval-uating the test tour. Rec-ommendations from par-ticipants.

Notes and diaries. Photos.

4.11 Interviews Eva Maria, Helena, tour guides, resi-dents of Dun-ga (19 inter-views)

Open interviews with tour guides and residents of Dunga who had been involved in the process and activities.

Gain insight of how peo-ple who have been in-volved in the process have perceived it; the methods used, the people involved and the process in general.

Transcribed inter-views.





4.13 Report Eva Maria, Helena (au-thors)

3rd written report sent to stakeholders after trip: "A day in Dunga - reflections and ideas from test tours”


Written report.

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5 Recurring activities (September 2012-December 2013)

5.1 Experience proto-typing

Eva Maria, Helena

Follow the tourist experi-ence: pre-trip planning pro-cess, trip expe-rience, posttrip descriptions and reflections.

Gain insight of the con-text (history, current state). Find strenghts and weaknesses. Indications for coming actions. Shared understanding.

Diaries, photos

5.2 Experience proto-typing

Eva Maria, Helena, PhD colleagues, friends

Travel to other tourists sites, experience the site in compari-son to Dunga. Open interviews of officials and other people on site.

Get to know the context and culture. See gaps in tourism offers and learn from good and bad exam-ples. Shared understand-ing.

Diaries, photos

5.3 Preparations for work-shops/Prototyping actions

Eva Maria, Helena, PhD colleagues (partly), local organization representatives (partly)

Co-planning of workshop con-tent, partipants' number and background, locality, docu-mentatation planning etc.

Involve local community for shared understanding and encouragement. Adapt the project to the place and local needs. Ready plan for workshop's fulfilling.

Visual posters with post-its, signs, text.

5.4 Available project space

Eva Maria, Helena, for residents and tourists

Visualization of project in a public space in Dunga.

An extension of the activi-ties performed. Facilitate the opportunity for people that could not attend the workshops to give their opinions.

Posters, written suggestions. Fold-ers with all material gathered.

5.5 Academic meet-ings

KLIP academ-ic team

Regular meet-ings with Ken-yan and Swe-dish supervi-sors, KLIP board members, PhD student core group, ecotourism group.

Sharing of experiences, theoretical and empirical material. Planning.

Notes, diaries, protocols.

5.6 Meetings with tourism organiza-tions, partners, and possible new partners in Kisu-mu and environs

Helena, Eva Maria, PhD student col-leagues (part-ly), local or-ganizations representatives

Meetings with tourism organi-zations (County Tourism organ-ization, Ministry of Tourism, Lake Victoria Tourism Asso-ciation).

Getting new contacts, involving stakeholder in processes, sharing infor-mation and knowledge.

Notes, diaries.

5.7 Meetings with local organizations in Dunga

Helena, Eva Maria, PhD student col-leagues, local organizations representa-tives.

Regular meet-ings with BMU, Ecofinder and Dectta.

Updates, suggestions and decisions on activities.

Notes, diaries, protocols.

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