RESEARCH INTEREST & QUESTION

In 2021, at the end of Covid-19, the future successful destinations were supposed to be those that are both resilient enough to absorb the shock of the crisis and proactive enough to emerge from it – that is, the strongest and most agile (Author & al. 2020). Traditional tourism in typical destinations were supposed to implement better regulation and with sustainable and responsible positioning. The problem of overtourism seemed to be overcome in Venice with the total collapse of tourism due to the pandemic. After the latest and most serious marker of its vulnerability, Venice had to continue developing strategies (Pasquinelli, and Trunfio, 2020) to manage and regulate the access to the city, plan and diversify activities to give space back to its inhabitants, improve the quality of the tourist experience and preserve its sites. If integrated sustainability and urban justice are goals to be achieved (far from being achieved), then the shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic could have represented the perfect opportunity for a paradigm change; we called for creative scenarios in a previous research (Authors, 2021).
Unfortunately, in 2024, 3 years later after the crisis, nothing has changed for Venice. Far from a “new normal”, the situation looks like a “back to normal.” Venice has chosen this easiest way in the short term, rather than the transformation that is necessary to preserve its heritage. Therefore, the paradigmatic example of Venice (Cristiano and Gonella 2020) of the Intrinsic environmental and heritage fragility dramatically increased by the overtourism is becoming as well a the paradigmatic example of the resistance to change this iconic heritage superstar city into a sustainable destination.


THEORY

The theoretical framework of the paper uses literature about heritage destinations, cultural and creative cities and policies, organization learning, resistance to change, and sustainable development of culture.
Research on overtourism considers Venice among the most important examples together with other cities like Amsterdam, Barcellona and Prague, etc. (Cheer, J., & Novelli, M., 2023; Alimuddin, R. Y., 2023). Such research typically fails to observe the inherent peculiarities characterizing the small island of Venice in terms of uniqueness, fragility, special and delicate environment, and reduced dimensions. As a consequence, the solutions proposed by certain scholars (Hugues, S., 2023) might be not specific enough for Venice and its peculiarities. Venice resulted first among the world tourist destinations in terms of overtourism pressure per squared km (Popescu, A.,et al., 2023). Along the decades such overtourism pressure has shaped the morphology of the city of Venice (Ignaccolo C., Zheng Y., et al., 2023). Solutions to overtourism proposed by the recent academic research converge mainly toward the adjustment of the tourism flow, on the behavioural relationship between tourist and locals, and on the adaptation of tourism to the environmental goals (Buitrago Esquinas, E. M., et al., 2023). The topic of sustainability, beside its centrality in the global political agenda, appears to be also relevant in the academic research on overtourism (Santos-Rojo, C., et al., 2023; Seraphin, H., & Chaney, D. 2023; Blázquez-Salom, M., et al., 2023).


METHODOLOGY

The research presents the interest of studying, in the context of post-covid19, the unique case of Venice as this exceptional heritage city known worldwide as suffering from its over-tourism. The research project arose from a conversation between the two authors of this article during AIMAC 2019 in Venice. On the one hand, the Venetian marketing researcher born and living on the Grand Canal and concerned about the evolution of his city. On the other hand, the French strategic management researcher who is a recurring visitor to Venice interested in the evolution of this superstar heritage city. The covid crisis19 has tragically illuminated Venice as one of the central foci of the beginning of the pandemic in Europe. During this first containment, the two researchers decided to conduct an ethnographic research of the situation, which they carried out longitudinally from March to November 2020. They collected data using different methods: a participatory observation of the city, a netnography of the highly publicized Venice crisis during the epidemic, and a collection of empirical documentary data on the city. The cross-analysis of these documents by the resident researcher and the tourist researcher made it possible to construct a fertile interpretation of the situation studied, as well as to make strategic recommendations. First results of this research were published in an article (Authors, 2021). The ethnographic research has been extended to an extensive second part going from 2022 to 2024 and with the same methods of data collection triangulated with in depth interviews to citizens occupying privileged access to relevant data.

RESULTS

This paper illustrates how Venice is resisting to change the overtourism situation in spite of the Covid-19 crisis has brought to light this strategic error of dependence on overtourism and has exemplified how the vulnerable heritage of Venice has been poorly protected and managed. It then discusses the factors of this weak learning process.

Various critical facts undermining environmental, legal, social, ethical sustainability have been observed since the coming back of tourism. Among them we would like to mention the followings:
• speed limits for motor-boat circulation within the city are neither respected nor enforced, resulting in recent clamorous accidents involving the population
• the big cruise ships are coming back into the Lagoon of the Venice. The excavation of the channel that will allow them to cross the Lagoon is going to endanger the local ecosystem. Once back in the lagoon the ship wakes and the water pollution will represent another existential threat to Venice and its delicate environment.
• a digital counter provides in real time the ever-growing number of available beds for tourist in Venice in contrast to the other digital counter that measures the constant decrease of its population.
• The house policy for resident people has been perceived as non-existent, turning into recent protests and demonstrations.
• a slow but constant reduction of healthcare services and available beds within the local hospitals in favour to the hospitals in the mainland were also causes of demonstrations among the local population
• After several reprimands Venice was about to be officially registered in the UNESCO black list. This event was averted even if the eco resulted pretty loud in the cultural milieu and press.

In summary, the local policy has not solved, tried to solve of even faced the problems of the city, and even has worsen them.

Our interpretation in progress of this observation explores various theories to understand this resistance to change and impossibility.

Bibliography
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Performing arts and the unexpected: risk management in the performing arts

Introduction
Over the past few decades, there has been a notable transformation in the organizational capacity of performing arts organizations. These entities, ranging from theaters and dance companies to orchestras and opera houses, have evolved from traditional, often volunteer-driven structures to highly sophisticated and professionally managed institutions. One key aspect of this transformation is the heightened emphasis on strategic planning and organizational development. Driven by a push for more accountability by public funders, partners and other stakeholders, performing arts organizations now engage in meticulous planning to ensure financial sustainability, audience engagement, and artistic excellence. In the Netherlands, this ambition to further professionalize has given rise to many policy plans and advisory reports that aim to support and standardize such endeavors. One influential report of which the recommendations have been widely implemented in the Dutch cultural sector by institutions and (local) government alike is the 2019 Code Cultural Governance (Akkermans, 2019), which highlighted the need for more knowledge and standard practices on strategic and financial risk management. This paper investigates the current use of risk-management by performing arts venues, and investigates in what way risk is being strategically utilized as a value creator within business models in this sector. Particularly, this paper examines how paradoxical tensions are managed into becoming value creating, rather than value detracting elements of a business model.

Business Models
The concept of the business model has in recent years come to the surface as a valuable strategic conceptualization. Most researchers on this topic have a holistic view of business models (Pateli & Giaglis, 2004) and view the concept, directly or indirectly, as the core ‘logic’ or ‘architecture’ behind value creation, delivery, and capture or behind value creation and value appropriation (e.g. Linder & Cantrell, 2000; Magretta, 2002; Petrovic et al., 2001; Shafer et al., 2004). Following this view, business models are mostly seen as a reflection or the practical operationalization of an organization’s strategy (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010), and as such, there is growing support among scholars that a business model can be regarded as a distinct unit of analysis, that can serve as a research focus to examine strategic behavior and organizational decision-making. Zott and Amit (2010) bring an interesting perspective as they define a business model as the bundle of specific actions/activities that are conducted to satisfy the perceived needs of the market, including the specification of the parties that conduct these activities, and how these activities are linked to each other. The ‘activity system’ enables the firm, in concert with its partners, to create value and also to appropriate a share of that value. The activity-based approach enables an analysis of how the organization, in dialogue with its environment, is able to create value and in what way the specific activities unlock the possibility to appropriate a share of that value. By focusing on specific activities that – in a coherent business model – represent direct operationalizations of the organization’s strategy and its core values, as well as on how these activities are bonded together in a larger reinforcing scheme, this perspective takes on a holistic approach towards an organization’s capacity for value creation and appropriation.

Risk and the cultural industries
Risks, defined as “all risks within the business model which can endanger the profitability and sustainability of the business model or even company goals and value” (Brillinger, 2018, p. 7) has been studied extensively in a broad range of industries as an important element of corporate governance. Within the cultural sector, several studies highlight risky aspects of being in these industries, for instance, Caves (2002) famously identified several distinctive characteristics that point to major risk and uncertainty about the economic outcomes of creative activities. These include a considerable uncertainty about the likely demand for a creative product, an unpredictability in the quality levels consumers see in the outputs, and an unpredictability in the capacity of their producers to continue to extract economic rents. In a study on operational risk in the performing arts, Dempster (2009) found that while “commonly identified operational risk categories in banking and finance are relevant, specific sub-categories and event types must be adapted to take into account idiosyncratic characteristics in the performing arts and creative industries.”

A pertinent issue within the cultural sector is that organizations are dependent on many different stakeholders, each with a diverse set of interests and ambitions (e.g. artists, funding agencies, different audiences). The existence of different demands can result in (paradoxical) tensions for the firms facing them. Paradoxical tensions are “cognitively and socially constructed polarities that mask simultaneity of conflicting truths. Unlike continua, dilemmas, or either/or choices, paradoxical tensions signify two sides of the same coin” (Lewis, 2000, p. 761). Accordingly, Schad et al. (2016) state that paradoxes are persistent contradictions between interdependent elements, highlighting that both contradicting choices are also highly related. Tensions occur because the conflicting demands “seem logical in isolation but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously” (Lewis, 2000, p. 760). Examples of paradoxical tensions in performing arts management include autonomy vs. dependence, accessibility vs. exclusivity, and exploration vs exploitation. How to compete with multiple (conflicting) interests simultaneously, is a key issue in the business model innovation (Markides, 2013), and is highly related to managing risk. Every paradox implies choices to be made between a multitude of options that all have their merits for at least one interest or interest-group (and therefore act as a value-creator for them), while can be seen as a negative for satisfying the interests, wishes, and ambitions for other stakeholders involved (and thus act as a value detractor). Using the analogy that a business model is represented by the activity-set an organization utilizes, managing paradoxes implies a constant balancing of choices of activities to pursue, in which each activity simultaneously can act as a value creator as well as a value detractor.

Empirical study
This article further investigates the role risk and risk management plays in performing arts management through an empirical study on business model strategy of performing arts venues. Specifically, this article investigates how risk is being perceived by managers in such institutions, and the current operationalization of risk-management through specific activities as part of the overall business model. Moreover, through investigating different types of risk within these organizations, the study aims to uncover insights on how specific risk-types (e.g. related to operations, strategy, external relations, …) act as value creators and value detractors concurrently, and how the decision-making process of choosing a particular activity-set materializes. The empirical study is currently ongoing, and consists of a mixed method design. As of this moment, this design consists of four semi-structured interviews and three focus groups with performing arts managers, as well as a survey sent out through a performing arts trade organization. Additional interviews are planned for early 2024 after which analysis of the data will commence. This study is part of a larger research aiming to develop a risk-management instrument for the performing arts sector, which helps managers both make decisions on risk-taking and mitigating, as well as on communicating to internal and external stakeholders on its associated activities.

References
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Dempster, A. M. (2009). An Operational Risk Framework for the Performing Arts and Creative Industries. Creative Industries Journal, 1(2), 151–170. https://doi.org/10.1386/cij.1.2.151_1
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