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Framed within the context of contemporary place making and the urban tourism destination, a novel trans-disciplinary approach to mapping and interpreting gentrification and cityscape change is presented. A combination of multi-scalar cartographic and visual techniques, including Google Street View (GSV) and geo-tagged images (Photo Sphere), is applied within the setting of Valletta, Malta, to convey cartographically the dynamism of urban transformations and detect tourism-led gentrification in a rapid way through the identification of the visual and aesthetic markers of gentrification. Utilising a critical approach, such map-making can inform and transform the understanding of the processes underpinning urban change and their cartographic and visual representation. It identifies and highlights issues of image and street-level 'realities' for both (re)imagining and marketing place. Individual tourists are able to access and utilise GSV and other mobile digital imaging and cartographic tools, as well as social media, to create their own, potentially counter, place-imaginaries and interpretations of urban change, thereby encouraging and/or discouraging visiting the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the nexi between urban aesthetics, power of the affluent elite, property and tourism destinations are complex intersections. These are explored utilising a critical theory approach within the context of neoliberalism and the concept of 'aesthetic common sense' is introduced. New conceptualisations of the ways in which tourists and others are influenced, demonstrate how they, through the processes of commodification and mediatisation, adopt the preferred aesthetics of the affluent elite. Cityscape aesthetics, incorporating both structural, top-down aspects (placemaking) and human agency (place-making) as co-performers in place making, impact on and influence, tourism destinations. An outcome is styled-for-status built environments and streetscapes. This is illustrated through the lens of Malta and its capital city Valletta, which presents a contemporary and dynamic exemplar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: International images emanating from Malta’s tourism authorities are of a tourism product typified by quality accommodation, attractive aesthetics, urban environment and design, and the proximity of cultural attractions. The transformation of the resort of Bugibba to meet the demands of these markets and to maintain competitiveness presents many, diverse challenges. The prevailing atmosphere within the resort during the first decade of the 21st century is of a town that is striving to find its contemporary identity. In common with many resorts it appears a faded reflection of its 1970s heyday and is striving to revitalise its fortunes. However, Bugibba’s position as a tourist resort has been shaped by Malta’s National Tourism Plans since 1989, and it is contended here that these plans are contributing to the resort’s decline. Rethinking Bugibba’s next phases of development is bringing about change. Meeting upmarket expectations and image provides a national steer for Bugibba, and the nature of its tourism product has started to alter, albeit slowly. However, to change perceptions of it as a traditional mass-tourism resort will be harder to achieve, and may be made even more difficult during the period of transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]