Project lead: Professor J. Andres Coca-Stefaniak (GBS)
This cross-faculty project (GBS/FLAS) is helping to future-proof the visitor economy of the Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site and the O2 Arena (Greenwich Peninsula) by investigating the ways in which young visitors and local residents – especially those from ethnic minorities – engage with tangible and intangible cultural attractions in Greenwich.
Project impact:
- Working in partnership with key local stakeholders (e.g. Visit Greenwich, the ORNC, the O2 Arena) this project contributes intelligence on key demographics to enhance their visitor experience.
- Dr Grace O’Rourke (GBS) and Dr Emilio Costales (GBS) led a focus group series and 6-week diary study with 30 Greenwich Business School students, capturing their evolving interactions with cultural spaces across Greenwich and the wider London area, focusing on culture, identity, belonging, and social sustainability.
- Dr Jiawei Li and Dr Carlos Arranz conducted quantitative analysis from over 350 Generation Z survey respondents, and a total of 1,000 survey respondents from different age groups to understand visitor experiences of Greenwich, the ORNC and the O2 Arena (Greenwich Peninsula), which will help to future-proof the area as a tourism destination for generations to come.
- The project has deliberately focused on ‘hard-to-reach’ demographic groups in strategic issues affecting local growth, regeneration and culture.
- The project incorporated the innovative spatial research of Professor Ed Wall (FLAS) and Simon Withers(FLAS), whose application of Ground Penetrating Radar and Spatial Modelling contributed state-of-the-art visualisations of Greenwich’s cultural and physical landscape.
- The recommendations made by this project have so far focused on cultural regeneration, social sustainability, and the physical regeneration of the Thames waterfront (in partnership with Thames Clippers) with the aid of state-of-the-art digital scanning and modelling technology.
To find out more about work happening across these areas, explore our related research centre pages:
