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 to advance growth in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) mega-region. Culture is seen as increasing regional cohesion, with multi-destination travel products connecting subregions cities. This paper examines perceptions progress towards coherent GBA cultural identity its implications for tourism. We examine stakeholder GBA, assess prospects development collective identities region implementation brand. Surveys interviews stakeholders indicate that prevalent top-down approach has so far generated limited coherence may also be limiting bottom-up placemaking initiatives. Debordering between Hong Kong, Macao mainland cities offers opportunities development, but these have been limited, because intensifying competition international markets, challenging an umbrella Regional show little buy-in overarching ‘quality living circle’ concept GBA. New governance structures support generate place leadership successfully combine