Post-event leverage and Olympic legacy: A strategic framework for the development of sport and cultural tourism in post-Olympic Athens

Although the hosting of the 2004 Olympics in Athens constituted a unique opportunity for the diversification and enrichment of Athens’ (and Greece’s) tourism product, the evident lack of coordination between commercial providers and public governing bodies inhibited the development of a joint strategic approach to leverage the Games. However, the successful organization of the Olympics left a valuable intangible and tangible legacy for Athens, enhancing its heritage and tourism infra/superstructure respectively. Given the unrealized aspiration of harnessing the post-Olympic facilities, this study examines the potential of Athens to exploit its Olympic legacy for the joint development of sport and cultural tourism. This attempt seeks to synthesize a common ground for sport and cultural tourism development in Olympic cities by focusing on Olympic tourism in the post-Games period as it relates to the use of Olympic legacy and post-Olympic assets. A qualitative approach was adopted by conducting nine semi-structured interviews with city officials and tourism administrators. Findings reveal the conditions for synergistic development of sport and cultural tourism and the actions required to mobilize the network of actors, resources and assets that can enable Athens to move from its current inertia and implement post-event leveraging. The study argues that it is still not late for Athens to leverage its post-Olympic assets/legacy capitalizing on its unique and rich cultural heritage interwoven with the Olympic Games. Towards this direction, the study sheds light on what and how can be corrected in order to mitigate the sources and consequences of problems, while providing lessons for future Olympic cities. Finally, a strategic framework is suggested for leveraging the Olympic legacy and developing sustainable post-Olympic (sport and cultural) tourism products

Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI): facing the challenges and pathways of global change in the twenty-first century

During the past several decades, the Earth system has changed significantly, especially across Northern Eurasia. Changes in the socio-economic conditions of the larger countries in the region have also resulted in a variety of regional environmental changes that can have global consequences. The Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI) has been designed as an essential continuation of the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI), which was launched in 2004. NEESPI sought to elucidate all aspects of ongoing environmental change, to inform societies and, thus, to better prepare societies for future developments. A key principle of NEFI is that these developments must now be secured through science-based strategies co-designed with regional decision-makers to lead their societies to prosperity in the face of environmental and institutional challenges. NEESPI scientific research, data, and models have created a solid knowledge base to support the NEFI program. This paper presents the NEFI research vision consensus based on that knowledge. It provides the reader with samples of recent accomplishments in regional studies and formulates new NEFI science questions. To address these questions, nine research foci are identified and their selections are briefly justified. These foci include warming of the Arctic; changing frequency, pattern, and intensity of extreme and inclement environmental conditions; retreat of the cryosphere; changes in terrestrial water cycles; changes in the biosphere; pressures on land use; changes in infrastructure; societal actions in response to environmental change; and quantification of Northern Eurasia’s role in the global Earth system. Powerful feedbacks between the Earth and human systems in Northern Eurasia (e.g., mega-fires, droughts, depletion of the cryosphere essential for water supply, retreat of sea ice) result from past and current human activities (e.g., large-scale water withdrawals, land use, and governance change) and potentially restrict or provide new opportunities for future human activities. Therefore, we propose that integrated assessment models are needed as the final stage of global change assessment. The overarching goal of this NEFI modeling effort will enable evaluation of economic decisions in response to changing environmental conditions and justification of mitigation and adaptation efforts

Probing the position of the Jakarta metropolitan area in global inter-urban networks through the lens of manufacturing firms

This paper presents an analysis of the position of the Jakarta metropolitan area (JMA) in global inter-urban networks. Our starting point is our aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the JMA’s connectivity in world city networks (WCNs). To this end, we steer clear of top-down approaches, which tend to analyze cities in singular taxonomies of global prominence, and instead propose a framework that is attuned to the JMA’s contexts to provide an alternative and complementary reading of how the JMA has been inserted into the WCN. To this end, by drawing on the interlocking network model, which helps to proxy inter-urban networks based on the multi-locational operations of manufacturing firms, we examine the JMA’s network positionality on the global and national scales. The results provide evidence of the JMA’s global inter-city relations being strongly geared toward East Asian cities. In addition, the results suggest that the JMA cannot be detached from its national geography, as evidenced by its strong connections with cities located on the island of Java

Urban nutrient balance for Bankok

To enhance agricultural sustainability, former linkages between agriculture and urban waste production should be reintroduced. Therefore, to explore the options for recycling of nutrients from mega-cities, a nutrient balance model was developed. The parameterization were established for the Bangkok Province and considers nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). To model the food supply, an online database (FAOSTAT) estimating supply at country levels, was employed. It is argued that desaggregation to urban level is reasonable after adjustments for different economy in Bangkok than the average in Thailand. The balance shows that only a small fraction of nutrients are recovered, currently about 7 and 12% respectively, of the amount of N and P in the total food supply. On the other hand most (about 95%), of the total loss of N can be accounted for by elevated N levels in the Chao Phraya River from where also much (about 38%) of the loss of P can be explained. That is, in- and out-flows of N is almost found in balance but a huge amount of P must be accumulated somewhere. However the balance also shows that the Bangkok Province throws out into the river (and the sea) very huge quantities of plant nutrients that could be recovered and reused. For future research is it of particular interest to explore the maximum nutrient recovery fraction in different waste management systems