Safeguarding Bruges’ Traditional Craftsmanship and Lisbon’s Historic Retail in the Face of Urban McDisneyization

The Portuguese capital Lisbon and the Belgian heritage city Bruges are among Europe’s most popular city destinations. However, both cities have been criticized for the “touristification” of their city centers. In the more mature tourism destination Bruges, attention is aimed at the oversupply of low-quality souvenir shops. Lisbon, on the other hand, has established itself only recently as an international destination. In the context of tourism gentrification, many of the city’s old and traditional retail shops are currently closing and make way for establishments only catering to tourists. Both cities have initiated multi-annual projects to safeguard their urban culture and maintain distinct city identities. Handmade in Bruges rewards local crafts professionals and attempts to render high-skilled craftsmanship more visible in the city. The municipality-led initiative Lojas com História aims to protect Lisbon’s old and culturally significant shops. The projects stand out through their focus on immaterial everyday culture. This research is concerned with how the increasing focus on intangible culture in the context of heritage management and destination development is translated into policy-practice on the municipal level. Eighteen in-depth interviews with central actors of the two policy-projects shed light on contemporary approaches to maintaining attractive and distinct inner cities. This research provides a unique perspective on the intersection of creative tourism development and intangible heritage management by including the projects’ coordinators, tourism intermediaries, policymakers, and the label-holders in the sample. The findings present the McDisneyization of the urban landscape as a perceived threat to local meaning and continuity, motivating the endeavors of safeguarding traditional urban culture. Further, this paper first introduces traditional retail as a form of community-based heritage. The findings shed light on how residents negotiate intangible heritage as the link between the cities’ past and present, which establishes a distinct sense of place. The initiatives represent official attempts to counteracting the homogenization and commodification of urban culture by revitalizing local cultural expressions through bottom-up approaches. It is shown how the projects’ central actors regard the creative tourist with his interest in experiencing local lifestyles as an ambassador for the revitalization of intangible heritage. In turn, intangible heritage is seen as a resource for creative tourism development. Finally, this paper suggests that the different modes of heritage management by the two projects relate to the cities’ stages of McDisneyization. Whereas the rapid changes connected to Lisbon’s tourism-led urban regeneration appear to fuel a rather conservationist approach to urban heritage, Handmade in Bruges makes part of the endeavor of reviving a creative city image through innovation and change.