Creativity as a Key Constituent for Smart Specialization Strategies (S3), What Is in It for Peripheral Regions? Co-creating Sustainable and Resilient Tourism with Cultural and Creative Industries

Abstract

Sustainable tourism is one of the key sectors in the South Baltic Sea Region (SBSR), which belongs to the role model for sustainability—the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). In this context, resilience, recovery and sustainability become key common threads calling for new approaches mitigating negative impacts, upscaling resilience capacity and boosting recovery in the post-pandemic era. The present work aims at revealing conceptual and practical pathways for policy makers and businesses in revitalizing sustainable tourism in the region by emphasizing cultural and creative industries (CCIs) as strong contributors to sustainable development and economic ecosystems, such as tourism. Tourism is also one of the key thematic areas of the smart specialization strategies (S3) in the SBSR. However, there is almost no link between CCIs’ potential for sustainable and resilient tourism and their contribution to the co-design and co-creation of S3. CCIs are rather absent agents in quadruple helix networks supporting S3 policy implementation. The literature on this topic is still premature, and represents a clear gap in knowledge. By virtue of these circumstances, the present research investigates how CCIs contribute and reveal new linkages between local assets, potential markets and societal challenges by engaging them as proven sustainable innovation and transition brokers in transnational quadruple helix partnerships following S3 policies in accordance with the sustainable development goals (SDGs), thus supporting sustainable and resilient tourism. Moreover, this paper aims at advocating for development of rural and peripheral regions, thus reducing the so-called “rural marginalization”. In addition, this paper also supports ongoing recent discussions on related vs. unrelated diversification policy within the S3 realm.

Revisiting the CCIs-tourism nexus: insights from Smart Specialisation Strategies

“…Literature and empirical investigation specifically focusing on CCIs and tourism interrelationships within RIS3 is still limited. Indeed, a research gap has been observed about smart specialisation, CCIs and tourism (Biagi et al, 2021;Meyer et al, 2022). At a general level, it has been noted that RIS3 tend to focus on science and high technology-related industries, neglecting industries such as tourism (Weidenfeld, 2018) and CCIs (Stanojev and Gustafsson, 2021;Meyer et al, 2022).…”

“…Indeed, a research gap has been observed about smart specialisation, CCIs and tourism (Biagi et al, 2021;Meyer et al, 2022). At a general level, it has been noted that RIS3 tend to focus on science and high technology-related industries, neglecting industries such as tourism (Weidenfeld, 2018) and CCIs (Stanojev and Gustafsson, 2021;Meyer et al, 2022). This conclusion is supported by the findings of the mapping of innovation priorities between 2014 and 2020 by the Joint Research Centre (Sörvik and Kleibrink, 2015) showing that the most common priority in the main categories of "research and innovation capability" was manufacturing and industry (34.6%), whereas creative and cultural arts and entertainment and tourism, restaurants and recreation only accounted for 4.6% and 3.9%, respectively, of total priorities.…”

Digital Entrepreneurship and Creative Industries in Tourism: A Research Agenda

“…Finally, opportunities for further research by tourism researchers are presented. This paper presents a critical review of current research and key factors in digital entrepreneurship and the creative industries in tourism (Ngoasong 2018;Meyer et al 2022).…”

Sustainable development of agriculture based on the smart specialisation approach: cases of the Central and Eastern European countries

“…-shared direction towards the SDGs; -whole-system transformation towards sustainability; -responsibility and reflexivity (Miedzinski et al, 2021).…”

“…With the accumulation of empirical material, there are surveys dedicated to studying the practice of using Smart Specialisation to achieve Sustainability. In particular, new connections between local assets, potential markets and social problems of regional development are revealed on the basis of S3 (Meyer et al, 2022) and Sustainability in regions is analysed through the implementation of the concept of Smart Specialisation (Šipilova et al, 2017). Special attention in these studies is paid to rural and peripheral regions, which are the most problematic from the point of view of both promoting the ideas of Smart Specialisation and meeting the sustainable development challenges.…”