Islandscapes and Sustainable Creative Tourism: A Conceptual Framework and Guidelines for Best Practices

Abstract

As strategies for the development of creative tourism multiply in contexts ranging from global cities to small communities, the need for a clearer conceptual framework, capable of better differentiating existing approaches, has become more evident. Building upon existing knowledge on cultural and creative tourism, and on a prior review of the literature on creative tourism on islands, this paper proposes a typology of creative tourism initiatives, and after examining this new categorization, develops the concept of sustainable creative tourism. Through highlighting the need for creative tourism developers, policymakers, and practitioners to deepen their engagement with more holistic and integrated approaches oriented towards sustainable development in all its dimensions (economic, environmental, social, and cultural), the authors systematize a set of international principles and policy recommendations meant to promote sustainable creative tourism development strategies, duly adjusted to different places and realities, with an emphasis on vulnerable islandscapes.

1. Introduction

There seems to be an overall consensus on the origins of creative tourism as a form of cultural tourism, which emerged in the context of the ‘creative turn’ in society, and as a potential alternative to ‘mass cultural tourism’ [1] (p. 1225), [2] (p. 24), [3] (p. 1). Since its initial definition as “tourism which offers visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential through active participation in courses and learning experiences which are characteristic of the holiday destination where they are undertaken” [4], the concept of creative tourism has been evolving, in tandem with wider shifts in cultural, social, and economic trends that have been shaping the relationship between tourism, culture, and creativity [1] (p. 1227), [5].

This evolving dynamics of the field encompasses the following four phases of development, which have built upon each other and are all still active today: (1) creative tourism 1.0—characterized by more informal, small-scale learning experiences (such as workshops offered by craftspeople and artists); (2) creative tourism 2.0—as the internet becomes more prevalent, increased focus has been placed on destination-based creative experiences (mostly related to intangible resources, such as image, identity, lifestyles, atmosphere, narratives) and the networks to market and distribute them; (3) creative tourism 3.0—marked by increased connections between tourism and the creative industries, widening the range of creative experiences and including more passive forms of creative consumption (e.g., creative spectacles); and (4) creative tourism 4.0—characterized by more relational forms of tourism, with the co-creation of experiences (between hosts and visitors) facilitated through peer-to-peer networks [3] (pp. 2–4), [6] (pp. 9–10), [7] (pp. 1–2), [8,9]. The result has been a significant growth in the scope and scale of creative tourism, as different forms have been developed in a wide range of locations around the world [7].

This article was developed in the context of the integrated research-and-application project CREATOUR AZORES, which aims to develop, implement, and foster creative tourism activities in the Archipelago of the Azores, as well as in other (similar) island contexts. The project also aims to contribute to empower local agents in the design, implementation, and promotion of small-scale and place-based creative tourism offers which are both sustainable and internationally attractive. Moreover, CREATOUR AZORES intends to reinforce the knowledge about specific market segments that may have a greater interest in the creative tourism products that the region can offer (characterization of the profile and match with the offer of the destination) by developing and communicating this differentiating offer.

This project was coordinated by the Observatory of Tourism of the Azores (OTA) and the University of the Azores, in partnership with the Center for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra, running between April 2019 and December 2022. CREATOUR AZORES builds upon the research model previously developed and implemented in Mainland Portugal, between 2016–2020 within the CREATOUR project, which involved forty pilot projects spread across the country [10,11,12,13,14,15].

According to CREATOUR’s conceptual approach, creative tourism is understood as the design and implementation of small-scale creative initiatives, which encourage personal self-expression and interaction between visitors and local residents, inspired by local endogenous resources (place and people), and “designed and implemented by local residents for community benefit” [10] (p. 1). Following this perspective, there are four aspects that resonate with the type of creative tourism activities that CREATOUR AZORES also aims to catalyze: active participation, creative self-expression, interactive learning, and a link to the local community [3].

However, despite benefiting from the theoretical and methodological frameworks and the practice-based knowledge formerly developed within CREATOUR (Mainland Portugal), the CREATOUR AZORES project aims to go further, developing its own integrated approach and pilot research agenda focused on creative tourism in island regions, which is duly adjusted to the unique intrinsic characteristics and the natural and cultural heritage of the Azores Islands, while simultaneously being useful and inspiring to similar island contexts. Therefore, in this article, we will emphasize sustainable creative tourism approaches that may best suit pristine island environments, here designated as high value (yet also highly vulnerable) islandscapes. According to the Annual Report on Global Islands [16] (p. 135), the term ‘islandscapes’ highlights the fact that “small islands must be distinguished from non-island contexts, given their largely unique conditions”, which very often include ”the burdens of peripherality, narrow economic bases, proportionately small resident populations, limited range of services, dependence on modest transport networks, and resource scarcity, among others”. The term encompasses both the landscapes (physical and cultural landscapes) and the seascapes (coastlines and other bodies of water), as well as the intersection areas between them which make the essential character of islands (idem).

For instance, in the case of the Azores, the core of the tourism destination is nature-based tourism, which has reinforced the relevance, commitment, and continuity of regional sustainability policies in the last decades (particularly in terms of environmental sustainability) [17] (p. 15). The archipelago’s territory is particularly rich in natural beauty and heritage (e.g., landscape, biodiversity, geodiversity) across its nine islands of volcanic origin: Corvo, Flores, Faial, Pico, São Jorge, Graciosa, Terceira, São Miguel, and Santa Maria. In the Azorean archipelago, nearly 25% of the land is classified as a regional protected area, each island has a natural park, and the region also includes around fifty marine protected areas [18]. In terms of cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible), the archipelago also includes internationally acknowledged sites, such as the UNESCO World Heritage City of Angra do Heroísmo, in Terceira Island, classified in 1984, and the UNESCO World Heritage Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture, on the island of Pico, classified in 2004. Additionally, five underwater archeological parks have also recently been created by the regional government.

However, similarly to what happens in other small islands, which increasingly rely on tourism, the Azores islands also face numerous challenges, such as the dependency on efficient transport systems, seasonality (and occasional congestions in most popular local attractions in the high season), a shortage of high-level services and specialist skills, and support in rural communities, out-migration, among others [17] (pp. 17–18), [19,20] (p. 106). Additionally, as Moncada et al. state [19] (p. 80), from an ecological perspective, islands have unique characteristics because “the isolation from continental areas and their relatively small size determine a greater diversity in island ecosystems. On the other hand, these conditions create a scenario where the impacts are both more intense and more noticeable, due to the fact that the capacity for auto-regeneration in insular systems is far weaker.

In this context of higher social, economic, and environmental vulnerability on islands, creative tourism provides “a potential opportunity for a win-win situation for local residents”, if it is properly planned and developed [20] (p. 106). Within CREATOUR AZORES, creative tourism developments are expected to help combat seasonality and encourage tourists to visit ‘new’ areas, namely small communities and rural, peripheral areas. In the Azorean archipelago, as in other islandscapes, creative tourism might prove to be a stimulus for the revitalization, diversification, and sustainability of more remote, rural communities, allowing them to retain local control and direction, particularly if a broader monitoring and evaluation approach is undertaken to identify the specific ways in which creative tourism can help local communities, and if the effectiveness of creative tourism development policies is properly assessed [21] (p. 188).

In response to recent challenges for creative tourism researchers identified by Duxbury and Richards [3] (pp. 5–7), this paper aims to: (1) contribute to a more integrated and refined conceptual framework on creative tourism activities, building upon earlier works; (2) propose the notion of sustainable creative tourism, pushing the field towards sustainable development goals and guidelines; and (3) examine a wide range of principles and policy recommendations on sustainable tourism and sustainable cultural tourism, compiling a set of inspirational guidelines that can contribute to more sustainable creative tourism developments.

2. Methodological Approach

Due to the constraints and delays imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic both on tourism in general and on CREATOUR AZORES’ fieldwork research in particular, this paper is not based on empirical research of our project’s case studies. We expect to provide such results in future publications, as the process of recovery from the pandemic progresses, along with our joint work with the project’s pilots. Meanwhile, we took this disadvantage as an opportunity to strengthen the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of the project. Hence, this work contributes significantly to advancing knowledge in the field of creative tourism, by means of an analytical perspective and conceptual proposal which is based on a qualitative review of selected literature. This approach builds upon our previous comprehensive review of the literature on creative tourism on islands across the globe [22]. Here, we examine a series of recent reference works in the field of creative tourism in articulation with a body of grey literature addressing good principles and policy recommendations on sustainable tourism (in general) and on sustainable cultural tourism (in particular). Then, we provide a set of relevant guidelines and indicators, which, from our perspective, can contribute towards more sustainable, integrated, and holistic creative tourism developments, in which all dimensions are taken into account (economic, social, and environmental, as well as cultural—usually forgotten in most SDG agendas).

We introduce the concept of Sustainable Creative Tourism, providing a definition that was still nonexistent, despite some previous uses of the term e.g., [10] (p. 6), [23]. What is novel in this work is precisely the fact that it bridges creative tourism with sustainable development guidelines and policy recommendations, an approach that had not yet been undertaken in this field. Our claim is that in order to be effectively sustainable creative, tourism needs to be aligned with the best international principles and practices on sustainable cultural tourism. Thus, drawing on a series of internationally acknowledged frameworks (e.g., by the OECD, UNESCO, UNWTO, EU) towards more sustainable tourism and cultural tourism, we propose a set of guidelines that might contribute towards more sustainable creative tourism.

Moreover, on islands with fragile ecosystems, these concerns also necessarily intersect with the principles and guidelines towards sustainable tourism in general (with an emphasis on the environmental dimension). Other conceptual and empirical frameworks for creative tourism and local development tend to leave out/forget the environmental dimension, which is acknowledged and included in our approach, e.g., [5] (pp. 258, 280).

Our analysis has some limitations, as it does not intend to encompass all the literature addressing relevant issues on sustainability and tourism on islands. Our focus is rather on sustainable creative tourism, and, since this a subfield of cultural tourism, on sustainable cultural tourism frameworks suitable for small scale communities, and rural and peripheral areas and/or islandscapes.

3. A Typology of Creative Tourism Activities/Experiences

This section revisits the concept and typologies of cultural tourism in order to trace the genealogy of creative tourism approaches and better distinguish their current diversity. Culture and tourism have deep intertwined roots. As Richards [7] (p. 12) points out, cultural sights, attractions, and events provide an important motivation for travel, while travel in itself generates culture. These long-term links lie at the basis of UNWTO’s definition of cultural tourism [24] (p. 30): “Cultural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor’s essential motivation is to learn, discover, experience and consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions/products in a tourism destination. These attractions/products relate to a set of distinctive material, intellectual, spiritual and emotional features of a society that encompasses arts and architecture, historical and cultural heritage, culinary heritage, literature, music, creative industries and the living cultures with their lifestyles, value systems, beliefs and traditions.”

However, it is important to understand that this contemporary definition of cultural tourism, as a specific form of consumption, has led to a wide range of debates and conceptual developments over time. For instance, Richards [25] (p. 3) has noted the extreme difficulty in defining both ‘culture’ (“with over 300 different definitions in circulation”) and ‘cultural tourism’ (often included in the heterogeneous assortment of terms which are “almost interchangeable in their usage” and comprise “heritage tourism, arts tourism, ethnic tourism, and a host of other terms”).

The complexity and heterogeneity of these definitions still hold true today, both in academia and policy making. While acknowledging this multiplicity, for the purpose of this paper we chose to adopt UNWTO’s current definition of cultural tourism (as quoted above). From our view, this definition already reflects a series of societal transformations and conceptual shifts that have taken place in the last decades, namely:

• A blurring of the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ or ‘popular’ culture” [26] (p. 14);
• “An uninterrupted enlargement process over the last century” of the concept of cultural heritage “incorporating elements beyond the artistic, historical and monumental heritage”, in a transition from ‘objects’ to ‘activities’ and “from material assets to intangible assets” [27] (pp. 19–20);
• The prominence of culture-led development in the post-industrial economic restructuring of the late 1970s, along with the expanding service sector [5] (p. 2);
• The growth of the ‘experience economy’, in which culture, cultural consumption, and cultural tourism have become increasingly important elements, both in urban and rural environments [28] (p. 225);
• The transformation of the ‘cultural industries’ into the ‘creative industries’ fueled by the ‘media boom’ of the 1990’s, through emerging sectors such as “multimedia and software production, the audio-visual industries, architecture and design” [5] (p. 5);
• The ‘creative sector’, closely linked to innovation and change, being perceived as more dynamic (and more attractive for branding purposes) than the ‘cultural sector’;
• The expansion of contemporary cultural tourism, encompassing not just sites and monuments but also “ways of life, creativity and ‘everyday culture’” [7] (p. 13).

A framework for cultural tourism, based on the predominant cultural product of a place, was initially developed by the UNWTO and the European Tourism Council (ETC) [29] (p. 3), and then adopted by the European Expert Network on Culture and Audiovisual [30] (pp. 25–26). This framework clusters cultural attractions for tourism purposes into four categories: (1) cultural heritage (related to artefacts of the past), (2) arts (related to contemporary cultural production, such as the performing and visual arts, contemporary architecture, literature), (3) lifestyles (elements such as beliefs, cuisine, traditions, folklore), and (4) creative industries (fashion design, web and graphic design, film, media and entertainment, etc.). Additionally, in this approach, ‘cultural heritage’ and the ‘arts’ are both placed at the core of cultural tourism, in an inner circle in which they are considered ‘primary elements’ by visitor interests. ‘Lifestyles’ and the ‘creative industries’ are placed in an outer circle as the ‘secondary elements’, usually considered as supplementary rather than central cultural attractions/experiences (Figure 1).

Still, despite this clustering, there is a recognition that “in many places the inner and outer circles are increasingly converging and from the point of view of the cultural tourist they form often an inextricable whole” [29] (p. 3). Similarly, the EENCA report [30] (p. 26) points out that these categories (heritage, arts, lifestyles, and creative industries) would remain “lifeless and incomplete” as touristic experiences “unless they are included into a larger context given by social relations, images, stories and atmospheres connected to them”.

In this article, we will adopt this cultural tourism framework—based on a typology of cultural attractions/products—as the starting point to considering the current categories of creative tourism. This exploration proceeds by unfolding cultural heritage into tangible and intangible categories. Within intangible heritage, the following subcategories have been identified as related to tourism: (1) handicrafts and visual arts that demonstrate traditional craftsmanship, (2) gastronomy and culinary practices, (3) social practices, rituals, and festive events, (4) music and the performing arts, (5) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of intangible cultural heritage, and (6) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe [31] (p. 3). At each destination, “tourists may be deeply interested in a particular category or they may only want to experience it as part of a broader visit to the living culture” of a given place [31].

Similarly, the ‘creative industries’ category—in which the issue of the generation and exploitation of intellectual property is crucial—can be unfolded into multiple subcategories [5] (p. 5). According to the OECD, the creative industries, as they relate to tourism, are defined as “knowledge-based creative activities that link producers, consumers and places by utilising technology, talent or skill to generate meaningful intangible cultural products, creative content and experiences”, comprising sectors such as “advertising, animation, architecture, design, film, gaming, gastronomy, music, performing arts, software and interactive games, and television and radio” [8] (pp. 7–8, 11). In the context of creative tourism, creative industries promote the expansion from conventional models of heritage-based cultural tourism to new models/products/experiences, centered on contemporary creativity and innovation, intangible creative contents, and engagement with creative lifestyles, both in the destinations and remotely (or even virtually) via new technologies [8] (pp. 7–8).

Additionally, in their analysis of the relationship between cultural and creative forms of tourism, Richards and Wilson [32] (p. 1217) identify the following creative forms of tourism: (1) ‘creative spectacles’—with a consumption focus on performance, and a more passive learning focus; (2) ‘creative spaces’—with a consumption focus on ‘atmospheres’ and an interactive learning focus; and (3) ‘creative tourism’—with a more active involvement of tourists in the creative process, through a consumption focus on experience and/or co-makership, and a learning focus on active skill development.

Our own (visual) interpretation of the cumulative developments from cultural to creative tourism is presented below. In Figure 2 (below), the grey area corresponds to the main attractions/products that constitute cultural tourism (including the ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ elements, as previously mentioned), while the dotted area corresponds to creative tourism and the core elements of creative tourism experiences. Since the fields of cultural and creative tourism are not understood as being entirely mutually exclusive, the diagram includes an overlapping area (dotted grey section). However, even though both fields share some key elements/cultural tourism attractions (arts, intangible cultural heritage, creative industries and lifestyles), there is a fundamental distinction between them: cultural tourism holds a product-led focus, while creative forms of tourism are rather focused on contemporary creativity as a process (of co-creation), which involves both producers and consumers (increasingly becoming prosumers) [5,28,32]. Hence, as Richards has noted: “one of the major differences between creative tourism and cultural tourism is that the creative tourist seeks to expand not just their knowledge of the places they visit, but also their own creative skills” [9].

Moreover, while “cultural tourism tends to be based on exploiting the past as a resource” (e.g., museums, monuments), the emphasis in creative tourism experiences lies mostly “on the contemporary use of cultural knowledge and skills in order to develop future creative potential” [33]. As pointed out in an OECD report [8]: “Creative tourism approaches augment the physical attraction-based tourism systems associated with cultural tourism with new intangible content and creative experiences. This implies a greater role for the commercial sector in developing cultural and creative content, along with higher levels of innovation and the application of technology”. Creative tourism, therefore, “expands the very concept of tourism as a whole”, driving a shift from conventional models of heritage-based cultural tourism to new models of tourism centered on intangible content, innovation, and contemporary creativity [8] (pp. 7–8, 20). In our proposed framework (Figure 2), tangible elements are placed outside of creative tourism’s key elements in order to emphasize its distinction from cultural tourism. This does not mean that no creative tourism initiatives can take place within (or in articulation with) tangible cultural elements, however, this is not the main trend. Figure 2 shall be understood as a diagram, which intends to clarify the conceptual distinctions between cultural and creative tourism, and their respective key elements (and main current trends). However, since this diagram represents a dynamic reality, other different combinations may exist (or be emerging) of the key elements along this continuum between cultural and creative tourism.

Building on the previous diagrams (and the rationale behind them), Figure 3 (below) presents a new typology of creative tourism approaches, based on the core elements of creative tourism attractions/experiences. There are six proposed categories of creative tourism experiences: (1) arts; (2) creative industries; (3) creative spaces, (4) creative events, (5) intangible heritage, and (6) co-creation. This new framework incorporates (and re-interprets) the ‘three basic types’, previously introduced by Richards and Wilson [32], [5] (pp. 19–20): ‘creative spectacles’—creative and innovative activities which form the basis of more passive tourist experiences; ‘creative spaces’—creative enclaves with vibrant atmospheres, “populated by cultural creatives to attract visitors”; and ‘creative tourism’—creative activities/experiences with an active participation by tourists (in terms of skill development and/or creative challenge).

In our approach, creative tourism rather becomes an overarching concept, which includes six major groups, or categories, of experiences: (1) arts—fine and applied arts (e.g., photography workshops); (2) creative industries (advertising, animation, architecture, design, fashion, film, gaming, gastronomy, music, performing arts, software and interactive media, television, radio, books, and press, etc.); (3) creative spaces—creative enclaves, creative districts, creative clusters (e.g., in China, clusters such as the 798 Art Zone, in Beijing, mentioned in [6] (p. 2)); (4) creative events—spectacles, shows, performances, ethnic events, festivals, fairs, feasts, museum nights, etc.; (5) intangible heritage (handicrafts and visual arts; gastronomy and culinary practices; social practices, rituals, and festive events; music and the performing arts; oral traditions and expressions; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe); and (6) co-creation activities—connective/relational dimension between visitors and locals, with an emphasis on co-production (e.g., hands-on activities, creative workshops, or more technologically-based interactions—through websites, mobile apps, immersive devices, virtual environments) e.g., [22] (p. 19), [34,35]. However, it should be noted that these main categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In practice, many creative tourism experiences offered at tourism destinations often combine some of these dimensions/core elements.

Furthermore, in this representation (Figure 3, above), we have intentionally kept the subcategories outlined within intangible heritage [31] and creative industries [8], in order to better clarify their distinction. The apparent duplication of some items (such as gastronomy, music, or performing arts) present in both categories can be easily explained: within intangible heritage, the focus of creative activities is on more traditional elements (emphasis on the heritage dimension—ex: practices of indigenous communities), whereas creative industries-related touristic experiences are rather focused on contemporary contents (present and future oriented).

In our understanding, within this new framework, creative tourism besides contributing to “realizing creative potential” [5] (p. 258), can also contribute to more sustainable development in all its dimensions—cultural, social, economic, and environmental [22] (p. 6). This is the focus of the following section.

4. Towards a Concept of Sustainable Creative Tourism

For decades many authors and organizations have supported the inclusion of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development, along with economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental balance, in a fully interconnected way with, and as important as, these other three pillars [36,37,38,39,40,41,42]. In this context, while also emphasizing “the cultural dimension of sustainable development to help implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the New European Agenda for Culture acknowledges the vital role of sustainable cultural tourism in the development and implementation of regional and macro-regional strategies [43].

The European Union (Work Plan for Culture 2015–2018) has already incorporated a framework for sustainable cultural tourism (SCT), developed by an open method of coordination (OMC) working group of member state experts. The following definition of sustainable cultural tourism is provided in the OMC report [44] (p. 8): “Sustainable cultural tourism is the integrated management of cultural heritage and tourism activities in conjunction with the local community, creating social, environmental and economic benefits for all stakeholders in order to achieve tangible and intangible cultural heritage conservation and sustainable tourism development”.

This framework for sustainable cultural tourism can also be useful to think about sustainability in the context of creative tourism, as this section proposes. In fact, views on the contribution of creative tourism to sustainable development have been shifting and becoming more critical over time. Earlier approaches tended to assume that since creative tourism developments were mostly based on “creative rather than created assets”, they were also “more sustainable in environmental terms than traditional forms of tourism” [5] (p. 280). Still, these authors also acknowledged that “much research needs to be done on the sustainability of creativity, particularly in economic, social and cultural terms”.

As creativity-based development strategies grew and became “a hype in many different destinations”, particularly in urban contexts, so grew the criticism [1] (p. 1244). Richards, for instance, draws attention to the irony that “creative tourism, in apparently offering an alternative to mass cultural tourism, may be far more effective in spearheading new forms of commodification. The object of commodification shifts from the tangible heritage long valorized through cultural tourism towards the intangible culture of everyday life, leading to a further “colonization of the lifeworld” [1] (p. 1245). Even creative districts and clusters run the risk of “becoming over-commercialised and losing the creative atmosphere that attracted creative producers and visitors in the first place” [8] (p. 84).

With regards to community-based creative tourism in rural areas, Blapp and Mitas [45] have called attention to risks, such as the serial reproduction of creative experiences, and the commodification of everyday life in Bali. They also advocate the need for a critical approach to the concept of authenticity in these rural contexts [46]. By a similar token, Bellow et al. [47] (p. 125) raise concerns about the risks of the commodification of culture, the objectification of people, power imbalances, and the lack of engagement of low-power stakeholders (particularly when it comes to more vulnerable populations and indigenous communities, as is the case of the Ainu people in Japan). Hence, nowadays, researchers in the field seem increasingly aware that creative tourism developments are not necessarily sustainable (in all dimensions), neither are they just about opportunities and benefits. The broader consequences and potential risks and pitfalls (either cultural, social, environmental, or economic) of creative tourism strategies also need to be understood and prevented, monitored, and eventually mitigated [21] (p. 191), [22] (p. 17). More recently, a series of creative tourism projects and research studies have already evinced an orientation towards more holistic and integrated sustainable creative tourism approaches, particularly in rural or peripheral communities, e.g., [10,11,47,48,49,50].

Developing a proper framework for sustainable creative tourism seems, therefore, more than timely. To begin with, it is important to provide a definition of the concept (even if a tentative/provisional one), thereby contributing to filling a gap in existing literature. Thus, building upon former definitions of creative tourism, on the OMC definition of sustainable cultural tourism [44] (p. 8), and on the view on sustainable tourism provided by the OECD [51] (p. 92). We define sustainable creative tourism as: the integrated management of creative tourism activities/experiences in conjunction with the local community, creating social, environmental, and economic benefits for all stakeholders in order to achieve cultural and natural heritage safeguarding and sustainable tourism development.

This new concept is aligned with the Bruntland Commission definition of sustainable development, as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [52] (p. 3). We believe that our definition is broad enough to encompass all categories previously identified in the typology of creative tourism initiatives, as well as being suitable to different places (from wider urban areas to smaller rural ones), and to diverse degrees of participatory engagement in touristic experiences (from the more passive, to the more active ones). Simultaneously, this definition incorporates the interdependency between intangible and tangible heritage, and between natural and cultural heritage—in line with the recent recommendations advocated by UNESCO [53] (p. 3) and the Council of Europe [54] (pp. 7–8).

This does not mean that sustainable creative tourism is a one-size-fits-all solution. On the contrary, the choices and challenges in designing sustainable creative tourism development strategies will vary according to the specificities of each given place—its scale, creative resources, the actors involved in place-making processes, among others [6] (p. 4) [22] (pp. 19–20). As Richards highlights, creative tourism developments are “highly context-dependent, and there are considerable differences in the design and implementation of programmes according to the scale of the location, connectedness and the available asset base” [6] (p. 9).

Inspiring Principles and Policy Recommendations

Given the fact that the transfer of creative models “from one location to another, as has frequently been the case with concepts such as the creative city or creative class attraction strategies, is problematic”, as Richards has noted [6] (p. 7), there is a growing need for creative development strategies which are context sensitive. Among the “basic design principles” in ‘creative placemaking’ outlined by Richards, there is the consideration of local “resources, meaning and creativity, driven by clear vision, enabling participation, leaving space for creative expression and developing a coherent narrative” [6] (p. 1).

In Richards’ proposed model for ‘creative placemaking’, the notion of programming—“as a process that enables things to happen”—is crucial. The basic elements of this (dynamic) model are: (1) resources—both endogenous (such as tangible and intangible assets, and different forms of capital), and exogenous (mobilized through collaboration and networking, and developed through capacity building); (2) meanings—continually generated through the combination of people, flows/events and loci (and fostered by storytelling, narratives, and curation); (3) creativity—here understood mainly as a “ubiquitous, collective and relational process” and “a means to improving the quality of life of all users of places” (vision, governance practices, workshops, prototyping, co-creation). It is the programming strategy which interconnects the basic elements (resources, meanings, creativity), acting as a relational device (between stakeholders) and as a development tool “to improve the quality of place” and “stimulate tourism” [6] (pp. 4, 7, 10).

This creative tourism development model systematizes a common, comparative framework to places with different scales, including rural areas, small cities, large cities, and creative regions/conurbations. This framework, which may be useful in further research on other case studies of creative tourism, comprises the following two phases: (a) the preparation phase (inspiration, selection, structure); and (b) the implementation phase (mobilizing resources, giving meanings, and using creativities to link things together) [6] (pp. 7–8). In our reading of Richards’ work, the preparation phase implies targeting the key themes/subjects/assets that may constitute the basis of the creative experience (inspiration), selected by a group of local stakeholders with varying compositions/institutions, according to each place (selection), organized and driven by each context’s governance approach (structure—e.g., more top-down or bottom-up oriented). The implementation phase is about mobilizing and connecting the multiple resources, meanings, and creative experiences (as previously described) in each location.

In sum, according to this perspective, design strategies vary in relation to the geographic scale of place. Richards’ analysis of case studies reveals “a shift from more embedded creative resources and networks in rural areas to more footloose forms of creativity in conurbations”. In villages, the emphasis is usually put on creative skills and local forms of creativity. As the scale of place increases, the trend shifts to creative knowledge in more abstract and cosmopolitan forms, and creativity becomes less spatially determined and increasingly relational [6] (pp. 7–8). The distinction between more urban and rural places is emphasized in this creative placemaking model, with larger cities and major conurbations seen as “supposedly rich in creative resources”, while smaller towns and villages “arguably suffer from a lack of such resources” [6] (p. 4). However, what seems determinant in well-designed creative tourism programs is their contextualized development according to the scale, features, assets, actors, governance, and participation models of each location), both “adapted and molded to the local space of places”, and connected and articulated with “the global space of flows” and the multiple relationships and exchanges between the local and the global [6] (pp. 9–10).

One of the purposes of this paper is to precisely gather a series of overarching principles and guidelines that may inform and inspire local processes of creative tourism development, pushing the field towards more holistic sustainable development approaches. Therefore, besides the principles for well-designed creative tourism developments identified by Richards [6] (p. 1), such as: “consideration of resources, meaning and creativity, driven by clear vision, enabling participation, leaving space for creative expression and developing a coherent narrative”, it is important to think about broader guidelines for sustainable creative tourism initiatives. A key question then, is: how can creative tourism approaches bridge with more general sustainable tourism (and cultural sustainable tourism) principles and guidelines? In order to find possible answers, we will now briefly refer to key international reference documents on this subject.

A recent OECD document titled Tourism Trends and Policies 2020 [51] (p. 92) identifies the following guidelines/requirements for long-term sustainable tourism, understood as an “ongoing process”:

(1)

Achieving a suitable balance between the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development;

(2)

Informed participation of all relevant stakeholders;

(3)

Strong political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building;

(4)

Ongoing monitoring of impacts (economic, social, and environmental—and cultural, we would add) “to capitalise on opportunities and respond to challenges as they arise, and inform future policy responses”.

According to the OECD [51] (p. 15), “governments are increasingly developing policies that seek to maximise the economic, environmental and social benefits that tourism can bring, while reducing the pressures that arise when this growth is unplanned and unmanaged.” In addition, to ensure that these policies actually have the desired impact, countries are “strengthening co-ordination and implementation mechanisms, reforming destination management practices, modernising regulations, adopting digital solutions, strengthening dialogue with civil society and engaging the private sector in policy making”.

The role of governments in providing direction and support in sustainable tourism policies is, therefore, increasingly acknowledged as important. As is the need for more integrated and participated approaches, including an active “involvement of local communities, as well as effective management and good governance structures that engage multiple stakeholders including the private sector, and “the many agencies and bodies, at all levels, whose activities can influence tourism performance and impacts” [51] (pp. 35–36).

The long-term monitoring of progress in achieving sustainable tourism outcomes, economically, socially, culturally, and environmentally, is equally crucial. However, “there is not yet a consistent approach to the measurement of sustainable tourism”, and an ongoing area of work is precisely to identify the most appropriate indicators and to set out a framework to effectively employ them [51] (p. 37). A major initiative at the global level is UNWTO’s ongoing work on measuring the sustainability of tourism (MST) [55], which aims to develop an international statistical framework for measuring tourism’s role in sustainable development, including the economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Such standards-based frameworks “can further support the credibility, comparability and outreach of various measurement and monitoring programmes pertaining to sustainable tourism” [56] (p. 32). The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is another international body that has contributed to establishing and managing standards for tourism that are sustainable socially, environmentally, culturally, and economically among its members (including hotels, tour operators, and destinations) [57] (p. 7).

For sustainable destination management at the European level, the European Tourism Indicators System (ETIS) [57] “was designed to be: (i) a management tool, supporting destinations who want to take a sustainable approach to destination management; (ii) a monitoring system, to facilitate the collection of data and detailed information and enable destinations to monitor performance; and (iii) an information tool, useful for policy makers, tourism enterprises and other stakeholders” [51] (p. 37). ETIS includes a toolkit dedicated to guiding destinations in the implementation of the indicator system “starting from raising awareness, engaging stakeholders and defining responsibilities and then going ahead with collecting data and analysing results for continuous improvements.” According to this toolkit, a key step in this process is the “multi-stakeholder approach that encourages destinations to form a Stakeholder Working Group (an interdisciplinary team), establishes priorities, roles and responsibilities among players, stimulates cooperation and coordination and supports the management and monitoring process” [57] (p. 11). Here, a lesson to be learnt from the pilot phases of the ETIS is that “there is no one set formula that works for every destination. It is important to be flexible and take an approach that best suits the destination and the group of people involved” [57] (pp. 13–14).

Concerning the cultural dimension of sustainable development, the ETIS framework includes a set of core indicators to assess social and cultural impacts (section C), some of which have an emphasis on “protecting and enhancing cultural heritage, local identity and assets” (C5), namely: the percentage of residents who are satisfied with the impacts of tourism on the identity of the destination, and the percentage of the destination’s events that are focused on traditional/local culture and heritage [57] (p. 21). Within this field, among the indicated list of “supplementary indicators” that can be added (and tailored) to a specific destination, once the core indicators have been implemented, there are also those addressing “transnational cultural routes” [45] (p. 24).

With regards to sustainable cultural tourism, the OMC report [44] (p. 8)—which targets policymakers, local heritage communities, heritage organizations and institutions, heritage sites, the tourism industry, and tourists themselves—also includes a detailed set of recommendations, with an emphasis on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and careful strategic planning, from which we highlight the following:

(1)

Break down silos that exist between stakeholders by mainstreaming, collaborating, and creating synergies at the various levels (especially between economies, tourism, and cultural and regional affairs);

(2)

Use bottom-up approaches and tools in policy design, strategic planning, and management that involve the relevant partners;

(3)

Support local communities through consultation to foster engagement and encourage a participatory approach to development;

(4)

Promote community ownership through training;

(5)

Encourage longer stays in the low season by offering suitable activities and pricing structures;

(6)

Promote lesser-known sites and cultural heritage practices (to take pressure off the known ‘hot-spots’)

(7)

Develop digital tools and technology to facilitate remote access;

(8)

Continually assess visitor impact;

(9)

Design and implement carrying capacity guidelines;

(10)

Develop new interpretation techniques, including artificial intelligence (AI);

(11)

Marketing and business intelligence.

As stated in this report, sustainable cultural tourism necessarily implies “a greater collaboration between the two sectors of culture and tourism to achieve benefits for both”. Equally vital is “finding common ground and consolidating the recommendations for various stakeholders to work in tandem with one another” [44] (p. 8). Getting all stakeholders to agree on common objectives is undoubtedly challenging, requiring efforts in “raising awareness of the need to tackle the sustainability issues” and “establishing a shared framework and a common language through which the issues can be tackled” [52] (p. 3). As stressed in the Agenda for a Sustainable and Competitive European Tourism: “Creating the right balance between the welfare of tourists, the needs of the natural and cultural environment and the development and competitiveness of destinations and businesses requires an integrated and holistic approach where all stakeholders share the same objectives” [52] (p. 3).

From our perspective, these general principles and recommendations for sustainable tourism and cultural tourism, if properly integrated in the planning, development, and operation/implementation phases, can also contribute to develop more sustainable creative tourism initiatives. The biggest challenge, however, is to move from sustainable creative tourism principles and policy guidelines to effective local action. This means that as we narrow down the scale, turning to specific case studies, the need for place-based solutions increases.

In this context, Korez-Vide’s model of sustainable creative tourism [23] (p. 86) is noteworthy, as it incorporates the twelve aims for sustainable tourism proposed by UNWTO and UNEP [15] (p. 18): economic viability; local prosperity; employment quality; social equity; visitor fulfilment; local control; community wellbeing; cultural richness; physical integrity; biological diversity; resource efficiency; and environmental purity. In line with the definition of sustainable creative tourism that we introduced earlier in this paper, this model can also be useful in “setting up the framework of policies for creative tourism development” [23] (p. 86). For instance, the model emphasizes how creative tourism as a small-scale type of tourism can help to promote community well-being by reducing congestion (through good possibilities for balancing the volume, timing, and location of visits), as well as contribute to resource efficiency (lower impacts on scarce resources) and environmental purity (since constant interaction between host and guest may act as a control mechanism). The engagement of local creative services and product providers, tourism operators, and other businesses in the local supply chain into the planning and implementation of creative tourism is also advocated in this model (local control), together with an increased public awareness of how creative tourism can affect communities [23] (p. 86).

In terms of empirical approaches, although concerns with long-term sustainability are becoming increasingly relevant in several places, especially when it comes to rural and peripheral creative tourism, e.g., [10,11,47,48,49,50], there seems to be a clear need for further research on case studies addressing more holistic and integrated sustainable creative tourism. There is still an overall absence of detailed descriptions on how to locally achieve and effectively monitor multi-dimensional sustainability within creative tourism developments, therefore, the following doubts remain: which concrete strategies, governance structures, modes of stakeholder engagement, which indicators, assessment, and accountability structures, etc. [58]. Despite the foreseeable limitations in connection to the transferability of creative tourism models and strategies between places, given their contextual specificities (geographic, social, economic, cultural, political, etc.), further empirical knowledge may well hold the key. Indeed, there may well remain lessons to be learned, pitfalls to be prevented, and obstacles to be overcome, on the road to truly successful sustainable creative tourism.

5. Final Considerations

Building upon the concept of cultural tourism and the existing framework of cultural attractions, this article contributes to a better distinction (both textually and visually, through diagrams) between cultural and creative tourism, by examining the key elements of these types of tourism. Here, we have introduced a new typology of creative tourism activities (or key elements at the core of most creative tourism experiences) encompassing the following six categories: (1) arts, (2) creative industries, (3) creative spaces, (4) creative events, (5) intangible heritage, and (6) co-creation activities. In essence, creative tourism expands the range of attractions that configure cultural tourism, bringing in new intangible contents (more oriented towards the present and the future), along with technological innovations, and a focus on contemporary creativity, whereby tourists become increasingly involved in co-creation processes.

Creative tourism is often mobilized through place branding and local development strategies, but seldom by way of holistic and integrated sustainable development approaches. Until now, the concept of sustainable creative tourism was still non-existent in the literature in the field. This article addresses this gap in knowledge, by proposing a tentative concept of sustainable creative tourism (see pages 10–11), as well as delineating a new framework for implementing this type of tourism, and gathering a wide set of inspiring and potentially useful principles and policy guidelines. This theoretical and conceptual framework, bridging the concepts of creative tourism and sustainable development, had not yet been undertaken in this field. This novel approach was developed and built upon the examination of a recent body of (mostly grey) literature on both issues/definitions, previously not discussed in articulation to each other. However, it is important to note that this framework is just an initial (exploratory) one, open to further work and dialogues.

Our aim was to contribute to placing creative tourism at the heart of (or at least more aligned with) more inclusive, integrated, and long-term sustainable development strategies, which consider the economic, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions. It is also important to note that, so far, several conceptual and empirical frameworks on creative tourism and local development—e.g., [5] (pp. 258, 280), [59,60,61] (p. 2)—tend to leave out/forget the environmental dimension, which is acknowledged and included in our approach, and which we think is increasingly relevant in all contexts, particularly in the case of rural and peripheral creative tourism developments, such as those taking (and making) place on islandscapes.

Summing up, in order to be sustainable, creative tourism needs to be aligned with the best international sustainable tourism (and sustainable cultural tourism) guidelines, contributing to maximizing the social, cultural, economic, and environmental benefits for all stakeholders in a given community, while minimizing any eventual negative impacts. As such, sustainable creative tourism means that the benefits of creative tourism in attracting visitors to surrounding communities can be retained, while the disadvantages related to the possible degradation of (tangible and intangible) cultural and natural heritage (namely through overuse or commodification) can be prevented or mitigated (adapted from [44] (p. 19)). It also means that creative tourism needs to be context sensitive, with an appropriate consideration of resources, meanings, and creativity, and simultaneously driven by a clear vision, as well as a flexible and open dynamic—enabling a wider participation, both in “the local space of places” and “the global space of flows” [6] (p. 9–10).

Steps have been taken toward more appropriate conceptual frameworks on these matters, no doubt, and we hope to have also contributed to this effort. Nevertheless, there remains much more that needs to be done, not only in the realm of more detailed empirical research focused on how sustainable creative tourism is actually designed, implemented, and monitored within given communities, but also in terms of internationally acknowledged principles and policy guidelines, as well as adequate indicators and long-term monitoring tools for sustainable creative tourism.