Creative Tourism: What Is the Role of Urban and Rural Territories?

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of Creative Tourism in territorial development, highlighting the differences between urban and rural territories. The dynamics of creative development and tourism must be assumed as an advantage for rural territories in times of exhaustion of the growth model of large cities, climate change and COVID-19 disease. This is a new scenario that these territories must profit from, as they continue to face challenges to capture investment, tourists and to offer sustainable models. Urban studies of creative industries and initiatives have been taking place in big cities for several decades now, marginalising small cities and, more specifically, rural areas. Some examples at an international level are highlighted in this chapter, with Southern Europe specifically in focus. Therefore, Creative Tourism appears as a key development option for distinct reasons and aims. First, it answers to the need for tourism to reinvent itself as well as to the need for destinations to do something different in a saturated market. It can also meet the desire of tourists for more fulfilling and meaningful experiences. However, which role can each type of territory play in the present, and how can these territories reach development through Creative Tourism?

Citation

Remoaldo, P. and Jelinčić, D.A. (2022), "Creative Tourism: What Is the Role of Urban and Rural Territories?", Remoaldo, P., Alves, J. and Ribeiro, V. (Ed.) Creative Tourism and Sustainable Territories, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-70. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-681-020221004