A Dispatch from Barcelona: the International Conference on Creative Tourism

The  InternationalConference on Creative Tourism that was held in Barcelona on December 9 – 10th, 2010, gathered hundreds of professional people coming from 24 countries, eager to know further about the rapidly growing evolution of this innovative tourist trend, as well as to initiate cooperation projects. 

The challenge for this first act of the Creative Tourism Network (*) was, for professional people from many different sectors including tourists, the cultural, the institutional and academics, to coincide with interests and expectations. They all appreciated the relevance and diversity of the content as well as the form of the conference, specifically designed for the different sectors to be able to all work together. They highlighted the interesting combination of projects of different scale.

The keynote lecture by Professor Greg Richards, co-originator of the creative tourism concept, offered an extensive view of this sector that was then completed by a session of success stories presenting concrete examples of creative tourism. But creative tourism was also addressed from its effects to territorial development at a roundtable moderated by Dr. Patrick Bartos, an international senior researcher and consultant for the development of culture,tourism and the creative industries. The panel “presentation of projects related to Creative Tourism” saw approaches to Creative Tourism from many perspectives: some had more of a producer’s perspective, some more of a marketing perspective, and some a conceptual perspective.

The following initiatives were presented: Santa Fe Creative Tourism, Creative Canterbury, The creativity of theQ4 district of the City of Venlo, Creative Tourism Austria, Creativity, tourism and Jheronimus Bosch, Barcelona Creative Tourism, Creative Tourism New Zealand and Paris. A lively debate followed in which the diverse approaches to creative tourism development and the possibilities of application to other destinations were discussed. In response to the diversity of interests, there was also the opportunity to work within the following workshops and seminars:

        -How to work with the creative tourism sector?  Moderated by Dr. Esther
Binkhorst.

        -How to develop creative tourism in my city, region of country? moderated by Dr. Patrick Bartos.

        -A research seminar chaired by Dr.Greg Richards in collaboration with Dr.Diana Dodd and Dr. Peter Kvistgaard in whichinvestigators presented the latest findings related to creative tourism.

In closing we can say that the objective to achieve a participative conference, in which the attendees have the opportunity to promote their projects and to exchange experiences and
 knowledge, has been reached, as reflected in the video-call or through the cooperation projects they have already
 launched within the conference.

This energy will be reflected into the Creative Tourism Network!

Barcelona, December 2010

(*) The  Creative Tourism Network is aninitiative of the Fundació Societat ICultura  - FUSIC – (Barcelona) with ADC,EP (Paris) andOsservatorio (Roma), with the support of Culture Program 2007-2013 of the
European Union.

Created in 2010, its aims are to give visibility toi nitiative of creative tourism and to help other projects launching. http://www.creativetourismnetwork.org

FUSIC created the pioneering program Barcelona Creative Tourism, in 2006.