Tourism and the Creative Industries

Theories, policies and practice

Philip Long, Nigel D. Morpeth, Philip Long, Nigel D. Morpeth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317565277
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book focuses on the theoretical, policy and practice linkages and disjunctures between tourism and the creative industries. There are clear and strong intersections between the sectors, for example in the development and application of new and emerging media in tourism; festivals and cultural events showcasing the creative identity of place; tours and place identities associated with film, TV, music and arts tourism; as well as particular destinations being promoted on the basis of their 'creative' endowments such as theatre breaks, art exhibitions and fashion shows.

Tourism and the Creative Industries explores a variety of relationships in one volume and offers innovative and critical insights into how creative industries and tourism together contribute to place identity, tourist experience, destination marketing and management. The book is aligned with the sectors that have been demarcated by the UK Government Department of Culture, Media and Sport as comprising the creative industries: advertising and marketing; architecture; design and designer fashion; film, TV, video, radio and photography; IT, software and computer services; publishing and music; performing and visual arts. The title of this volume demonstrates how the exclusion of tourism from the creative industries is arguably perverse, given that much of the work by destination managers and of private sector tourism is characterised by creativity and innovation. Interdisciplinary research and international context bring a broader perspective on how the creative industries operate in varying cultural and policy contexts in relation to tourism.

This book brings together the parallel and disparate inter-disciplinary fields of tourism and the creative industries and will be of interest to students, academics and researchers interested in tourism, creative industries, marketing and management.

1 Introduction

Philip Long and Nigel D. Morpeth

DOI: 10.4324/9781315735870-1

This chapter discusses the relationships between tourism, creativity and the ‘creative industries’ in theory, policy and practice, and introduces the subsequent chapters that address these connections in various international sectorial contexts. Tourism, viewed in relation to creativity and what have become variously defined as the ‘creative industries’, involves intersecting and dynamic complex social systems, economic sectors, career prospects and professional practices which are subject to analysis through interdisciplinary fields of study though with parallel research agendas, academic publishing outlets, education and professional development programmes (Bouncken and Sungsoo, 2002; Cooper, 2006).

Seeking to understand the multiple, diverse and complex relationships between tourism and the creative industries includes study of the role of people as tourists (travelling individually and/or in ‘packaged’ groups) who are engaged in cultural consumption through participation (and at times ‘co-creation’) in the processes and outputs of component sectors of the creative industries. The links between creativity and tourism as ‘industries’ that are planned and promoted by national and local governments (and also by United Nations agencies and intergovernmental bodies such as the European Union) and identified as being located in particular and typically, though not exclusively, urban ‘creative districts’ that are attractive to tourists are further significant connections between these phenomena (Alvarez, 2010; Aquino et al., 2012; Bell and Jayne, 2010; Evans, 2009; Landry, 2000).

As will be seen from the chapters in this volume, relationships between tourism and creative industry sectors are to varying extents explicit, complementary, synergistic and mutually constitutive but in some contexts they may be unacknowledged or competitive, in tension and contested. This duality and complexity offers rich territory for critical research that goes beyond advocacy for the creative industries and ‘creative tourism’.

The emphasis in this introductory chapter is on creative industry studies and management concepts, policies and practices as these have only been applied to the field of tourism to a limited and fragmentary extent, with some of the sectors and domains defined as constituting the creative industries receiving significantly more attention than others in the tourism literature. However, there is increasing recognition of the strong and close theoretical connections between areas of creative practice and tourism. It is argued that there has been a ‘creative turn’ in tourism studies, tourist (‘performative’) practice and destination planning and development with some application of academic ideas from creative industries management, policy and consumption appearing in the tourism domain (Aitchison, 2006; Ateljevic et al., 2007; Long and Morpeth, 2012; Richards, 2011). This ‘turn’ coincides with an increasing emphasis, in both theory and practice, on tourists being seen as ‘co-creators’ of experience rather than as passive consumers of fixed (cultural and heritage) tourism products (Richards and Wilson, 2006). However, there are problematic and controversial dimensions to ‘creative tourism’ which will be highlighted throughout this introduction.

In their influential 2006 work, Richards and Wilson argue that there has been a proliferation and ‘serial reproduction’ of generic built cultural attractions which are commonly associated with (usually urban) ‘regeneration’ programmes and that these have resulted in some bland developments driven by consumption and the commercial property market (typically retail, apartment and leisure projects). Critiques along similar lines have been noted in the work of architecture and planning commentators such as Owen Hatherley (2011) on the ‘new ruins’ of regeneration in British provincial cities and the vacuity of their claims for distinctiveness, quality, creativity and vibrancy. Alongside their argument concerning mediocre cultural attractions, Richards and Wilson also suggest that there is an ongoing turn towards more sophisticated, niche, fragmented and complex tourist markets as people (or at least those with the financial resources to do so) engage in discriminating and reflexive ‘skilled consumption’ or ‘serious leisure’ (Csíkszentmihályi, 1997; Gretzel and Jamal, 2009; Stebbins, 2007). Creative tourist practices may therefore provide opportunities for the building of personal identities, capacities and expertise involving the acquisition of ‘cultural capital’ through participation in creative pursuits and experiences (Bourdieu, 1993). The tourism industry internationally is increasingly developing and promoting packages, trails and products aimed at satisfying such demand. The implication of these arguments is that there is substantial scope for the tourism industry to work more closely with creative practitioners. However, positive working and strategic relationships across sectors must not be assumed, as contrasting educational, occupational and perhaps ideological backgrounds may militate against this, and some creative practitioners and neighbourhoods may resist being incorporated, packaged and presented as tourist attractions (Aoyama, 2009; Busa, 2009; Drake, 2003; Hughes, 1989; Maitland, 2010). These complexities and controversies indicate the need for a critical, theoretically informed approach to the study of creative tourism policy and practice.

1.1 Theorising creativity

‘Creativity’, like ‘culture’ (and indeed ‘tourism’), is a complicated term which has profound philosophical antecedents (Bohm, 1996; Deleuze and Guattari, 1994; Habermas, 1987; Negus and Pickering, 2004; Sternberg, 1999). This section briefly considers interdisciplinary approaches to interpreting ‘creativity’ that may serve as a foundational set of concepts and perspectives for analysing the creative industries and their relationships with emerging and explicitly labelled models of creative tourism and with tourism more generally. Any critical discussion of the ‘creative industries’ should involve prior examination of diverse interpretations of creativity and the implications in theory and practice of linking the term with ‘industries’ involving political, economic and management connotations and conceptualisations of sectors, workers, markets, regulation and consumers (Oakley, 2009; Pratt and Jeffcut, 2009; Raunig et al., 2011; Santagata, 2010; Schlesinger, 2007). Thus, before narrowing to this focus there is a need to look beyond corporatist, capitalist and industrial conceptualisations of creativity to consider its broader and diverse philosophical derivations and interpretations (Pope, 2005: 27).

Key definitions and connotations of creativity are associated first, with religion, the divine and cosmology (where a God-like figure Creates ex nihilo). Second, the ‘creative arts’ involve people creating artistic works either through the original, exhibited, critically acclaimed (or condemned), socially valued (or contested) and aesthetically pleasing (or challenging) works of ‘geniuses’ or in the everyday artistic expressions produced by all people individually and collectively in crafting works (Sennett, 2008). Third, the natural sciences typically interpret ‘creation’ as involving the physical transformation of material that previously existed, or that is discovered and adapted in industry and society through the development, application and social use of technologies (Pope, 2005). More recently, and controversially, associations are made in theory, policy rhetoric, media discourse and professional practice between creativity and the manipulation of signs and imagery through fashion, media, public relations and advertising, with practitioners working in these sectors deemed to be ‘creatives’ [sic] (Beck, 2003; Caves, 2000; Comunian et al., 2011; Craik, 2009; McRobbie, 1998).

The fostering of creativity may also of course be considered to be a prime purpose of education at all stages of ‘lifelong learning’ from playwork in primary school to creative writing and arts courses in adult education classes for retired people such as those provided by the University of the Third Age in the United Kingdom (Ashton and Noonan, 2013; Fisher, 2012). Education theorist Sir Ken Robinson, for example, is a leading proponent of encouraging creativity through curriculum innovation and pedagogic development (Robinson, 2001). These ideas may usefully be applied to Tourism Studies, professional development curricula for tourism and creative industries practitioners and in pedagogy and also in considering what and how tourists learn. We will return to this in our consideration of the practice of creative tourism in section 1.4 below and in the conclusions to this book.

Also related to practice and in commercial contexts, synonyms for creativity are reflected in entrepreneurialism and inventiveness through product, distribution and market innovations and also as regards tourist practice through the ‘co-creation’ of experience and in people's engagement with social media as tourists (Banks, 2012; Bilton, 2007; Caves, 2000). This interpretation of creativity is closest to an applied industry perspective, though this managerialist conceptualisation is not sufficient in the critical examination of the foundations, extent and implications of the creative tourism phenomenon.

The suggestion that creation needs to be recognised as taking place, at least potentially, in all areas of life and not just narrowly conceived as being exclusively the domain of supremely talented individuals is important (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994). Creativity may be viewed as chaotic, complex and emerging and concerns human becomings rather than a more static sense of being (Pope, 2005: 5). The ability to be creative and the capacity to appreciate aesthetic qualities are not solely the preserve of those who are somehow divinely inspired and/or endowed with unique, inherent talents and capabilities (Robinson, 2001). There is a risk of assigning the capacity to be creative exclusively to an elite, educated and privileged class possessing the requisite refinement of taste and talent. Our observations highlight that creative tourism should not be viewed as exclusive to elite, niche tourist market ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 On location in Liverpool Film-related tourism and the consumption of place
• 3 Creativity, the visual arts and tourism
• 4 Tourism and advertising as a creative industry sector
• 5 Fashion, tourism and the creative industries
• 6 Urban planning, architecture and the making of creative spaces
• 7 Opportunities and challenges for South Korean tourism and creative industries
• 8 Genius loci reloaded The creative renaissance of Nantes and Saint-Etienne
• 9 Bohemias and the creation of a cosmopolitan tourism destination Creative practice and consumption in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
• 10 The gamer as tourist The simulated environments and impossible geographies of videogames
• 11 Travel and transformation in the fantasy genre The Hobbit, A Game of Thrones and Doctor Who
• 12 Conclusions
• Index