Creative Mural Landscapes, Building Communities and Resilience in Uruguayan Tourism
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. It is fascinating and well carried out. I appreciate the elements of urban creativity, etc, that they authors have attempted to examine. However, I have a few minor suggestions for them to make the study a bit stronger.
1) The paper is missing many key references. For example:
Skinner and Jolliffe's 2017 book titled Murals and Tourism: Heritage, Politics and Identity.
Koster and Randall's (2005) work.
Seok, Joo, and Nam 2020 work on graffiti tours in Bogota.
Jeff Ross's 2016 book, Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art.
These are all mainstream references that should be integrated. At present, the study seems too limited in scope in terms of its engagement with the extant literature. It needs to be expanded to show where it fits in with extant literature.
2) The conclusion should go beyond Uruguay's situation. What else does the study tell us?
3) Why is the methods section place directly after the introduction and before the literature review/Uruguay example? This seems to be an odd placement, unless you don't actually count Section 3 as a literature review.
4) The section after Methodology, section 3, just seems to be a bit of a mishmash of examples from Spain, Portugal and other countries. It misses a lot of the literature from the broader perspective of street art, graffiti, murals in general and from other parts of the world. The literature review is inadequate and needs to expand to fit this Uruguayan case study into the broader context of knowledge.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: The paper is missing many key references. For example:
- Skinner and Jolliffe's 2017 book titled Murals and Tourism: Heritage, Politics and Identity.
- Koster and Randall's (2005) work.
- Seok, Joo, and Nam 2020 work on graffiti tours in Bogota.
- Jeff Ross's 2016 book, Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art.
These are all mainstream references that should be integrated. At present, the study seems too limited in scope in terms of its engagement with the extant literature. It needs to be expanded to show where it fits in with extant literature.
Response 1: The indicated references have been included.
Point 2: The conclusion should go beyond Uruguay's situation. What else does the study tell us?.
Response 2: In the conclusion, other models of tourism resilience from other regions of the world have been mentioned.
Point 3: Why is the methods section place directly after the introduction and before the literature review/Uruguay example? This seems to be an odd placement, unless you don't actually count Section 3 as a literature review.
Response 3: The methodology has been placed after the review of the literature.
Point 4: The section after Methodology, section 3, just seems to be a bit of a mishmash of examples from Spain, Portugal and other countries. It misses a lot of the literature from the broader perspective of street art, graffiti, murals in general and from other parts of the world. The literature review is inadequate and needs to expand to fit this Uruguayan case study into the broader context of knowledge.
Response 4: The literature review has been expanded, adding more citations.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
First of all, I appreciate the work done by the authors., however, The analysis of the article leads me to identify the following areas for improvement:
- The article does not meet the requirements of the journal in terms of content to be taken into account in the abstract and introduction.
- I understand that the authors intend to demonstrate that the outdoor mural painting movement in Uruguay has served as a tool to strengthen tourism resilience and community identity. From my perspective, the theoretical framework is weak. I would recommend the development of a more robust theoretical framework that incorporates references to the factors necessary to define resilience in tourism on the one hand, and the factors for identity development on the other, factors that can then be identified in practice. The framework should support the model of tourism resilience, sustainability and social development highlighted in the article.
- The authors present the methodology in a very light manner so that the sources of information are not well identified. For example, line 76 states that 71 interviews and focus groups have been carried out, without defining how many. I would recommend expanding this section and detailing in greater detail what the sources of information for the development of the research were. Moreover, I would appreciate the authors to delimit a time-period for the research.
- Additionally, after reading the article, I do not clearly identify what the authors' specific research questions are. Therefore, in my opinion, the research developed within the framework of the project undoubtedly has many sources of information, however, for the purposes of this article the methodology is not presented in a precise manner, the research questions are not clear and the results presented do not strongly support the background information presented.
- Finally, I would recommend the authors to specify more precisely what the contribution of the research result is.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: First of all, I appreciate the work done by the authors., however, The analysis of the article leads me to identify the following areas for improvement: The article does not meet the requirements of the journal in terms of content to be taken into account in the abstract and introduction.
Response 1: The abstract and introduction have been modified.
Point 2: I understand that the authors intend to demonstrate that the outdoor mural painting movement in Uruguay has served as a tool to strengthen tourism resilience and community identity. From my perspective, the theoretical framework is weak. I would recommend the development of a more robust theoretical framework that incorporates references to the factors necessary to define resilience in tourism on the one hand, and the factors for identity development on the other, factors that can then be identified in practice. The framework should support the model of tourism resilience, sustainability and social development highlighted in the article.
Response 2: The theoretical framework has been revised and new cites have been incorporated supporting tourism resilience, sustainability and social development.
Point 3: The authors present the methodology in a very light manner so that the sources of information are not well identified. For example, line 76 states that 71 interviews and focus groups have been carried out, without defining how many. I would recommend expanding this section and detailing in greater detail what the sources of information for the development of the research were. Moreover, I would appreciate the authors to delimit a time-period for the research.
Response 3: The methodology has been reviewed, expanding and detailing the information.
Point 4: Additionally, after reading the article, I do not clearly identify what the authors' specific research questions are. Therefore, in my opinion, the research developed within the framework of the project undoubtedly has many sources of information, however, for the purposes of this article the methodology is not presented in a precise manner, the research questions are not clear and the results presented do not strongly support the background information presented.
Response 4: The research questions in the methodology have been specified.
Point 5: Finally, I would recommend the authors to specify more precisely what the contribution of the research result is.
Response 5: The final results have been reviewed.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper while quite succinct decribes very well the interesting topic. The qualitative research has been carried out properly. I suggest authors to develop the introduction enhancing the theoretical background, The authors cite similar cases that should be better described, also in relation to possible differences or similarities with the chosen case study. Also in the conclusion it would be interesting to understand if this model of tourism resilience could be advantageously replicated in other regions of the world
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: The paper while quite succinct decribes very well the interesting topic. The qualitative research has been carried out properly. I suggest authors to develop the introduction enhancing the theoretical background, The authors cite similar cases that should be better described, also in relation to possible differences or similarities with the chosen case study. Also in the conclusion it would be interesting to understand if this model of tourism resilience could be advantageously replicated in other regions of the world.
Response 1:
- The introduction has been better developed by improving the theoretical background.
- The description of similar cases has been expanded, considering the possible differences or similarities with the chosen case study.
- In the conclusion, other models of tourism resilience from other regions of the world have been mentioned.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This version is much improved. Thank you for addressing my concerns. I believe you have adequately addressed the issues I pointed out in the earlier version of this paper. Nice work.Author Response
Thank you very much!
Reviewer 2 Report
I appreciate the changes introduced to the article based on the comments, particularly, with regard to the theoretical framework and the review of the methodology. However, from my point of view, there is a need for more specific information, so I would recommend greater precision in the following issues:
Point 1. There are some concepts and statements which still are too vague.
I have some doubts about some statements. For example, in Line 67 it says: “This chapter”. I wonder if this is a chapter or an article?
In the same token, some statements should be supported by the literature as it is the case of line 109: It says: “This has been a capacity of different small locations and devaluated urban areas that have been able to improve their local development through murals”. Is there a reference to this? And in line 408, it says, “The majority of them…” do we have a reference to this?
Point 2. I feel that there is a lack of indeed explanation about what sustainable tourism means as well as socio-cultural sustainability. As I have stated before, the authors present a dense theoretical body but from my understanding, these two concepts are key in the article and, consequently, I think that some reference to these concepts should be integrated in some way. There is a rich literature on the subject ranging from academic articles to publications by the UN system.
Point 3. Limitations to the research and future lines. I would appreciate giving some references about the limitations of the research and establish future lines of research.
Point 4. Prospects from the study. The authors should define the implications or prospects derived from this study. That is, what this study has served for.
Yours sincerely,
Author Response
Point 1. There are some concepts and statements which still are too vague.
I have some doubts about some statements. For example, in Line 67 it says: “This chapter”. I wonder if this is a chapter or an article?
In the same token, some statements should be supported by the literature as it is the case of line 109: It says: “This has been a capacity of different small locations and devaluated urban areas that have been able to improve their local development through murals”. Is there a reference to this? And in line 408, it says, “The majority of them…” do we have a reference to this?
Response 1: The error on line 67 has been corrected and citations have been incorporated in the indicated lines.
Point 2. I feel that there is a lack of indeed explanation about what sustainable tourism means as well as socio-cultural sustainability. As I have stated before, the authors present a dense theoretical body but from my understanding, these two concepts are key in the article and, consequently, I think that some reference to these concepts should be integrated in some way. There is a rich literature on the subject ranging from academic articles to publications by the UN system.
Response 2: An explanation of the concepts of sustainable tourism and sociocultural sustainability has been incorporated.
Point 3. Limitations to the research and future lines. I would appreciate giving some references about the limitations of the research and establish future lines of research.
Response 3: This point has been further specified and a future line has been indicated.
Point 4. Prospects from the study. The authors should define the implications or prospects derived from this study. That is, what this study has served for.
Response 4: In the conclusions, the derived perspectives have been explained.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors did the necessary improvements.
Author Response
Thank you very much!
