Organic 'folkloric' community driven place-making and tourism

The term 'place-making' describes a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public places for improving urban environments and residents' quality of life. Place-making has since become an institutionalized industry often supported by multi-million dollar budgets, but rarely are communities in control. The emphasis on improved welfare outcomes for communities has frequently omitted tourism benefits as an objective, although the tourism industry is often quick to exploit public space developments. Even though there is an emergent literature on place-making and tourism that has started to analyze this phenomenon, there is still little understanding of the role of place-making in tourism when place-making is the result of a community-led organic process. Five cases of place-making through emic, organic, folkloric, community-driven initiatives that differ markedly from the formal 'industry' of place-making that have achieved tourism-related outcomes even where tourism was not a primary motivation, are explored.