What do we mean by Creative Tourism

The Creative Tourism is considered a new generation of tourism that involves the tourists themselves and the locals in the creation of the tourist product.

“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 taken.”
Crispin Raymond &
Greg Richards

This new way of discovering a foreign culture by experiencing it has been growing for the last decade. Nowadays, tourists no longer want to attend traditional sightseeing tours, they need to feel involved into the destination’s daily life and to co-create signature experiences with the locals.

This requires to manage the tourism sector in a more creative way, which implies to overcome these new challenges by converting them into new opportunities and creating a value chain for the territories.

– The Creative Tourism’s assets:

  • Adequacy to the new demand of the travelers, who are eager to live unique experiences.
  • Diversification of the offers without any investment, just by optimizing existing intangible heritage.
  • Positive effects on the profitability of the cultural infrastructures thanks to this new demand.
  • Quality tourism endowed with a high added value and purchasing power.
  • Unseasonality of tourism, which allows a better distribution of the activities along the year.
  • Geographical outsourcing: minor interest from creative tourists in the “tourist hotspots”.
  • Self-confidence of the locals thanks to this new interest for their culture and traditions.
  • Community empowerment and professionalization.
  • Social cohesion through the co-creation of meaningful storytelling.
  • Sustainability relying on authenticity and creativity as main ressource.
  • Intangible heritage recovery.
  • Governance tool.

– Who are the creative tourists?

It is difficult to draw a portrait of those new tourists as they want to be “unique”.

  • They can be singles, couples, families, or a group of travelers.
  • They can plan their trip themselves or contact professional services.
  • The nature of their creative activities can be educational (courses, workshops), can refer to the creation (art residency, co-creation with local artists) or the representation (performing concert, acting, exhibiting).

Among the great diversity of creative tourists… we could meet:

  • A traveller who participates in a cooking class to meet locals or to share experiences with his peers.
  • Choirs who travel with the purpose of giving concerts in each place they visit.
  • Groups of dancers, sketchers or photography lovers, whose travel purpose is to practice their hobby.
  • Families that take part in a mosaic class during their stay, to experience the local traditions.

Creative Tourists in broad brush strokes

  • They share the same values based on ethical principles, authenticity, know-how, permanent training, experiences and DIY trends.
  • They want to experience the local culture by participating actively in artistic and creative activities
  • They want to live experiences whereby they can feel “like a local”.
  • They spend a substantial part of their budget on the fulfilment of these experiences.
  • They combine different types of tourism, during the same trip.
  • They are exclusive regarding the way they travel: once they have experienced creative tourism, they no longer want to travel in a conventional way.

No. Barcelona Creative Tourism is a non-for-profit platform managed by a group of experts in creative tourism, whose mission is to advise, select and promote the best creative tourism experiences and services in Barcelona. Up to you to contact and book directly with the providers. We do not charge any commission. 

It depends on the activities. Please, contact each entity.

They can really be of all kinds! From a two-hours cooking class to a week-crafts workshop, passing through a professional music or photography master-class. Their common criteria are: authenticity, quality, Km0 culture, their targets to both locals and tourists, and adaptability to make your dream-com-true, for a low budget.

  • The Barcelona Creative Tourism platform has been the first creative tourism platform created in the world at a city level (2004).  Its founders then created the  Creative Tourism Network® to foster the creative offers promotion and the destination networking at an international level. 
  • As a non-for-profit platform, our selection is exclusively motivated by the quality, authenticity, creativity and adaptability of the experiences, activities and services. They respond to the standards of quality imposed by the  Creative Tourism Network®.
  • We are both Barcelonian lovers and creative tourism experts who will do our best to make your – creative – dream come true in our city and its surroundings?

No, they are disseminated in different districts to offer you a like-a-local experience, as well as in its surroundings. We also recommend you a countryside creative experience at VisitEmpordanet.

Of course, we will analyse them, but you can also contact us previously for any inquiry or suggestion.

Join our Newsletter

Stay updated to not miss a single experience

JOIN oUR COMMUNITY
/
GET INFORMATION

If you would like to join our network, propose an activity or simply receive further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We can help you!

connect@barcelonacreativa.info