Developing a tourism region through tourism and culture : bordering, branding,placemaking and governance processes

China’s pre-pandemic national-level planning advocated a combination of culture and tourism toadvance growth in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) mega-region. Culture is seen as increasing regionalcohesion, with multi-destination travel products connecting subregions and cities. This paperexamines perceptions of progress towards a coherent GBA cultural identity and its implicationsfor tourism. We examine tourism stakeholder perceptions of the GBA, assess the prospects forthe development of collective identities in the region and assess the prospects forimplementation of the GBA brand. Surveys and interviews with stakeholders indicate that theprevalent top-down planning approach has so far generated limited regional coherence andmay also be limiting bottom-up placemaking initiatives. Debordering between Hong Kong,Macao and the mainland cities offers opportunities for tourism development, but these have sofar been limited, also because of intensifying competition between mainland GBA cities ininternational markets, challenging the implementation of an umbrella brand. Regionalstakeholders so far show little buy-in to the overarching‘quality living circle’concept for theGBA. New governance structures may be to support the development of a coherent regionalidentity and generate place leadership to successfully combine top-down and bottom-upplacemaking initiatives