Creative Tourism on Islands: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

In the last two decades, creative tourism has evolved as a burgeoning field, encompassing a wide range of concepts and practices, in different places around the world. From the very beginning, however, creative tourism has aimed to contribute to sustainable development and increased community wellbeing, as an alternative to mass cultural tourism. With this review article, our main objective is to identify and analyze a body of literature that specifically addresses creative tourism in islands, contributing to fill a gap in the knowledge since no reviews with this focus have yet been undertaken. Our aim is to provide a critical overview of creative tourism experiences at island destinations worldwide, addressing the plurality of empirical contexts and methodological approaches found in academic research. This review highlights the key trends in creative tourism, pointing out two distinct approaches: creative tourism in urban contexts, based on creative events, “cultural clusters” or Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs), versus community-focused small-scale tourism experiences in rural contexts. This paper also provides an opportunity to assess the evolution of sustainable creative tourism approaches in islands.

Estudio bibliométrico sobre turismo creativo en Scopus, tendencias y futuras líneas de investigación

“…Aparecen además en la red Taiwán e Indonesia, lo que evidencia como las islas están apostando por el turismo creativo, partiendo de que la creatividad a diferencia de los recursos naturales es inagotable y de que el turismo creativo se muestre viable para añadir valor a la experiencia, disminuir los efectos de la Covid y mostrarse competitivos en el mercado (Baixinho et al, 2020).…”

“…La demanda que tiene el turismo creativo es real, los consumidores turísticos han evolucionado y buscan desarrollar su potencial creativo, adquirir conocimientos, satisfacer las necesidades de autorrealización mediante cocreación de experiencias participativas en las comunidades. Por tanto, el desarrollo del turismo creativo es una excelente alternativa en tiempos pos covid, para lograr estancias más largas de los clientes en los destinos y atenuar la estacionalidad turística (Baixinho et al, 2020). En el artículo se brinda la relación de países que han puesto en práctica la modalidad, así como las experiencias exitosas de España, Tailandia y Portugal que sirven como referentes para la gestión.…”

Sustainable Development and Consumer Behavior in Rural Tourism—The Importance of Image and Loyalty for Host Communities

“…Tourism, and especially rural tourism, has become an engine of local development. This type of tourism increases the well-being of the local population [23,[53][54][55][56][57] as it provides long-term sustainable business, thus creating socio-cultural benefits, stable employment, and contributing to poverty reduction while giving high levels of satisfaction [58]. It should be remembered that the tourism industry is the largest and most important industry worldwide in terms of the number of employees [59].…”

“…To ensure that rural tourism has the desired effects, we must focus on the social and economic sustainability of this type of tourism, a tourism that should translate into improving the quality of life of the indigenous population of the area [18], and culturally and socially enriching the local community [19]. The social well-being of local economies is linked to tourism in those areas [25] and increases the sustainability of the local population [23,[53][54][55][56][57], contributing to reducing poverty.…”

Evaluation of the Visitor Understanding of Coastal Geotourism and Geoheritage Potential Based on Sustainable Regional Development in Western Black Sea Region, Turkey

“…Tourism, and especially rural tourism, which has become an engine of local development, increases the well-being of the local population [43,44]. The tourism types that will be developed in rural areas should be considered a factor in local development and should be encouraged as a vital factor in increasing people's quality of life.…”