Revista Portuguesa de Estudos Regionais, nº 51 (2019): Editorial

Creative Tourism and the Community Roles

During the last nineteen years, we have facilitated an increase of publications related to creative tourism. In 2000, we began following a more structured practice, and after the contribution of a few other authors (e.g., Pearce and Butler, 1993), Raymond and Richards convinced us to pursue the development of a new segment of tourism, which can be considered an evolution of the massified cultural one. In addition to the theoretical arguments that continue to be discussed (we do not have yet a consensual definition), several study cases have been published, and many institutions worldwide began to organize creative initiatives with new tourists’ profiles. These new tourists have new aspirations and can be seen as more responsible travellers with a desire to interact deeply with the local community at the destination, to co-create, and to feel like local citizens.

Creativity has become a condition and is helping destinations passing from massified tourism to a cultural profile and creative solutions. It also became a survival strategy for many destinations.

Even if medium-sized cities and rural areas can offer a valuable contribution to the implementation of this tourism segment, urban spaces continue to be the main focus, and creative tourism industries are still more active and diverse in these areas. Nevertheless, the events of recent years led us to believe that something is changing. This can be true for South Europe, where creative tourism cases have increased greatly, perhaps because the massified model is running out and inducing new offers. Because the heritage wealth of these territories is very high, there are opportunities to apply it in different ways.

The present issue, the 51th of Portuguese Review of Regional Studies, entitled “Creative Tourism and the Community Roles,” provides researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of what creative tourism is and the community roles it brings, structured in six papers.

This issue begins with an interesting paper by Álvaro Dias, Mafalda Patuleia, and Georg Dutschke, entitled “Shared value creation, creative tourism, and local community’s development: The role of cooperation as an antecedent.” It focuses on an unclear issue, i.e., how creative tourism is developed in the context of rural communities with few resources and without a clear view of the path to follow to generate profit from creativity associated with local resources and pratices. Five cases were used, collected from five countries (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Portugal) through in-depth interviews with local stakeholders.
The second paper, “Empowering Communities through Capacity Development: The Case of Misfat Al Abriyeen Project,” by Rogelio Flores and Carlos Costa, highlights a local project in Al Hamra, Oman. Transforming idle resources into useful, tourism assets, this paper revealed the significance of community empowerment through capacity development. As stated by the authors, “(…) this resulted in locals’ improved source of income, deeper understanding, and cultural interactions with tourists and appreciation of community assets.”

Jorge Ramos, Veronika Rosová, and Ana Cláudia Campos are the authors of the third paper and focus on “Sunny, windy, muddy, and salty creative tourism experience in a salt pan.” The Algarve region was the selected location, and the paper refers to generating profit through traditional elements of the Algarve landscape other than the sun and the sea, like creative tourism experiences developed in the context of the traditional activity of salt production.

The main objectives of the research undertaken were to analyse a co-creation approach within the design of the tourism experience in a salt pan (salt production is an ancient human activity) and to contribute to the design of experiential proposals applied to the case of salt production. After the literature review, which helps the reader understand the main characteristics of creative tourism, the paper underlines that “Creative tourism is believed to respond to the 21^st century tourists’ aspirations.” In Portugal, we are still identifying the profile of creative tourists, and we can highlight that they expect the experiences they face to be opportunities not only to learn about local cultures and territories, but also to become engaged at different levels (e.g., sensorially, intellectually, and emotionally).

The fourth paper (“The Potential of Olive Oil for Creative Tourism Experiences in the Northern Region of Portugal”), by Regina Bezerra and Alexandra Correia, is a good example of how linking local products, food, gastronomy, and tourism can create a perfect symbiosis. The case of olive oil tourism presents an opportunity for the development of various creative activities and unique experiences.

The fifth paper discusses “Creative Tourism Experiences in Guimarães: a twofold analysis of visitors’ and suppliers’ perspectives,” written by Carla Melo, Alexandra Correia, Marta Cardoso and Vítor Marques. Its focus is on urban spaces. It is a study using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to understand both visitors (by using a self-administrated questionnaire) and tourism service providers (by using a semi-structured interview). A cultural destination, classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, was selected – the municipality of Guimarães. One of the conclusions is that neither visitors nor service providers associate Guimarães with creative tourism. This occurred as the city’s promotion initiatives have been focused mainly on its heritage, material, and immaterial offerings.

The last paper, entitled “Creative Tourism and Urban Sustainability: The Cases of Lisbon and Oporto,” discusses the traditionally main cities in Portugal and was developed by Cláudia Henriques and Maria Cristina Moreira. It analyses the growing importance of creative tourism in Lisbon and Oporto. The authors assumed that culture and creativity could be measured through a composite set of indicators. With consideration for these two cities, a set of composite indicators that can be used to assess cultural/creative tourism dynamic and policy are discussed. Two main domains were considered: 1) cities and culture/creativity and 2) tourism and sustainability. Some differences were underlined within the two cities. While Lisbon reveals better performance related to cultural vibrancy, creative economy, and an enabling environment when considering Cultural and Creative Cities monitoring, Oporto seems to be better positioned in terms of “Openness, Tolerance, & Trust”, “Graduates in arts & humanities,” and “Graduates in ICT.”

These case studies confirm the existence of different ways of approaching creative tourism and the community roles envisaged in different territories, even if the Portuguese was the one most closely examined. I believe that, in the next years, these tourism segments and territories (mainly the rural ones) can continue to contribute to the implementation of more sustainable development strategies and, this way, follow tourism paths that contradict massified solutions.

Paula Remoaldo

(Guest Editor; Full Professor of the Department of Geography of University of Minho)