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This paper aims to contribute to theory concerning collaborative innovation through stakeholder engagement with reference to Glasgow City Marketing Bureau’s (GCMB’s) management strategies, which represent UK best practice in events procurement, leveraging and destination branding.

The research adopts a case study design to facilitate an in-depth evaluation of the destination marketing organisation’s (DMO’s) critical success factors. Multiple perspectives on GCMB’s collaborative innovation are achieved through semi-structured interviews with senior managers from the bureau, key stakeholders and other DMOs.

GCMB’s success results from long-term, extensive, collaborative engagement, a unique institutional structure and sustained political and financial support through to transformational leadership, strategic event selection and targeted marketing through “earned” distribution channels.

The study takes a single case study approach and focusses on GCMB’s event-led branding strategy. Given the importance but relative neglect of long-term inter-personal relationships in collaborative innovation, future research should focus on the development of social capital and adopt a longitudinal perspective.

The paper provides insights into the collaborative innovation process with a range of stakeholders, which underpins GCMB’s events strategy and its leveraging of the city brand. In particular, the study highlights the need for entrepreneurial leadership and the development of long-term relationships for effective engagement with stakeholders.

Previous research has focussed on outcomes and neglected pre-requisites and the process of collaborative innovation between destination stakeholders. This study examines this issue from the perspective of a successful DMO and presents a conceptual framework and new engagement dimensions that address this gap in knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the emergence of a dominant paradigm from within which academics and practitioners alike currently describe and otherwise explain urban destination marketing. The paradigm has been dubbed the “theory of marketing competitive advantage (CA)” by the author, and by others as the “4P’s marketing paradigm”. To effectively market themselves as tourism destinations, this paradigm requires towns and cities to differentiate themselves through the provision of more or less unique products, based on which they subsequently undertake branding, market positioning, distribution and other activities through bespoke destination marketing organisations (DMOs).

The paper summarises the findings of: first, a review of the academic and practitioner literature on urban destination marketing; second, an online investigation of urban destination marketing in 62 European towns and cities, consulting the corporate and consumer pages of the relevant DMO website; and third, in-depth interviews with 20 senior DMO departmental executives. Each interview was recorded digitally for subsequent transcribing, and was conducted on the basis of a semi-structured interview schedule.

Theory, as enshrined in the “4P’s marketing paradigm” rarely holds up in practice. Irrespective of whether or not a town or city possesses CA (and few do), DMO marketing gravitates almost inexorably towards a “marketing of everything”. Moreover, much the greater part of urban destination marketing is ineffective, failing to create visitors and deliver the commercial and economic returns on which it is premised. Against a backdrop of DMO marginality and ineffectiveness and a reluctance by them to market what is special and different about places, the continued existence of DMOs and the destination marketing they undertake is thrown into serious question.

Interpretation is unavoidably subjective in parts, drawing on personal experience as well as research undertaken.

This paper is intended to give the reader an understanding of why success is so problematic in urban destination marketing, serving as an antidote to the prevailing idealised, normative and unproblematic picture of the DMO world as this is depicted from within the prevailing “4P’s marketing paradigm”. The research method provides a basis on which to unite theory and practice in the field of urban destination marketing in a more systematic and verifiable manner than has hitherto ever been the case.

The purpose of this paper is to examine urban destination marketing from a mainly practitioner standpoint, though one of its principal observations is the gap between theory and practice; while the former is premised on related notions of difference and competitive advantage, in practice the greater part of urban destination marketing eschews competitive advantage, resulting in a pervasive marketing of “sameness”.

The paper is in three parts. The first set out the urban tourism context in respect of historical, market, supply, impact and definitional/measurement dimensions. Part two profiles the bespoke delivery mechanisms established for urban destination marketing, examining nomenclature, core purpose/mission, status, size and finances, as well as overhead and operating parameters.

The final section comprises a state-of-the-art review, setting out a five variable model of purposeful urban destination marketing, concluding that “good” in urban destination marketing is atypical and currently in Europe is confined to only a handful of European cities.

This paper is intended to give the reader a better understanding of why, in such an important field of human endeavour, success is so problematic. It hopefully gives pointers to practitioners and academics as to how best in future there can be more winners and fewer losers, so that increasing numbers of towns and cities maximise the impact locally of the world's largest industry and at the same time become “known”.

In Lewis Carroll's “Through the Looking Glass”, Humpty Dumpty tells Alice: “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Doubtless few academics, practitioners, and administrators connected with tourism would support Humpty Dumpty's approach to the question of definition. In particular, the need for a precise and generally accepted definition of tourism is an axiom that few would dare to challenge. Accurate measurement, so the argument runs, is impossible without a clear idea of what it is that is being measured. If that idea is not a universally held one, then the summation or comparison of data collected from different sources is likely to be misleading. However, despite widespread agreement in principle on the desirability of clarity and universality, in practice a Humpty Dumpty approach to defining tourism exists. Aside from the very basic standpoint that tourism refers to transitory movements of people away from their homes, there is precious little agreement about the nature, scope, and salient characteristics of this movement. The aim of this paper is to clarify the main approaches to definition encountered in the literature on tourism in Great Britain, to set out the approach favoured by the author, and to stress the need for terminological exactitude.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

In a review of how cities and other urban centers market themselves in their attempts to benefit from visitors, a five-variable model of purposeful urban destination marketing is presented, concluding that “good” in urban destination marketing is atypical and currently in Europe is confined to only a handful of cities.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The British Aluminium Co. Ltd. announce that they have vacated their Branch Office and Warehouse at 66 Kirkstall Road, Leeds, 3, and have transferred their Branch Office to Martins Bank Chambers, Vicar Lane, Leeds, 1, to handle sales of unwrought and fabricated aluminium and aluminium alloys in the counties of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Mr A. E. Heeley continues as Branch Manager and the telephone number remains Leeds 28343 with telegraphic address, as before, ‘Britalumin Leeds’.

By the beginning of the war, Germany's over‐all self‐sufficiency in food had reached a level of approximately 83 per cent., on the peace‐time basis of 2,200—2,400 calories per person per day. In respect to some types of food, however, the situation was not satisfactory. For example, before the war she produced approximately 73 per cent. of fish requirements, 12 per cent. of corn, 50 per cent. of legumes, and 60 per cent. of fat within her own boundaries. The country could be fed at a reduced level by the produce raised within its own boundaries if food were perfectly controlled and evenly distributed. However, in practice, individual provinces were much less favourably situated in this respect. Western Germany, an area of relatively small and diversified farms, was critically dependent on the eastern provinces for its flour, grain, and potato supplies. It is clear that all German civilians could be fed at a uniform level of adequacy during a war only by control of the country's food supply at the national level and by the continued operation of the new transportation network of the country. For this reason the bombing of rail and inland water transportation facilities became such a serious threat to national uniformity in food distribution. Of the many kinds of centralised food processing industries known in the United States, only a few played an important role in the food supply of German civilians. The principal examples of these were grain milling, sugar production and refining, and the large bakeries of urban areas. The damage or destruction of these facilities, incidental to air attack on other industrial targets, seriously decreased their production capacity. Bombing destroyed the mills for processing 9 per cent. of the German rye output and 35 per cent. of the wheat output. Of the sugar refineries four plants producing 300,000 tons annually, were destroyed. This represents a 38 per cent. decrease in production of sugar. Similarly bombing of chemical plants was largely responsible for the decrease in the supply for fertiliser nitrogen. In 1939, 718,000 tons of fertiliser nitrogen were available, but by 1945 this had decreased to 140,000 tons. The significance of this destruction of facilities vital to the feeding of a country already on a border‐line diet is ominous. Reliable estimates indicate that aerial bombings destroyed 35 per cent. of Germany's total (approximately 460,000 square metres) cold storage capacity. The increased use of cold storage intensified their dependence on transportation and on the continuity of the power supply. Aerial attack, as a result, not only decreased usable cold storage space, but also seriously interfered with the operation of the remaining space by impeding shipments and interrupting sources of power. It was the constantly reiterated opinion of all food officials that the bomb destruction of the transportation network was the largest single factor contributing to the disruption of the food supply. Bulk shipments which had been carried on inland waterways were seriously impeded by the bombing of canals. Aerial attack against railway lines, bridges and terminal facilities caused widespread interruptions in service and destroyed rolling stock, freight en route and handling facilities at terminals. It is not possible at this time to state exactly in what measure the curtailment of the national diet contributed to the ultimate defeat of Germany. The evidence available indicates, however, that it was an important factor. There is in any case no doubt that strategic bombing is the major element contributing to the present shortage of food in Germany. It was not apparent that the Germans considered the vitamin and mineral content of food in determining the ration allowances of the people. Immediately with the beginning of the war, all the principal foods were rationed, so that the lack of recognition of the importance of the vitamin and mineral content of this ration actually was an additional point of vulnerability for the German diet. With a food economy so vulnerable it is not surprising to have found that the basic food rationing programme was abandoned early in 1945 when the destruction of transport and communications by the strategic air offensive attained major proportions. This necessitated falling back on the inadequate system of regional self‐supply. The destruction of large food stocks, processing plants and cold storage plants by bombing also contributed to the general deterioration of the German food supply. There is ample evidence for the conclusion that as a result of the strategic air offensive the nutritional demands for the continued health of the German people could not be met.

LIBRARY NETWORKS are a very hot topic on the US library scene these days. Nearly every library periodical one picks up seems to contain news about changes in OCLC, RLG/RLIN, and WLN and the growing competition among them. This report will review what has been happening during the past year and consider what may develop in the future.